







































 Humanities and Social Science Research; Vol. 8, No. 5; 2025 

ISSN 2576-3024   E-ISSN 2576-3032 

https://doi.org/10.30560/hssr.v8n5p73 

 73 Published by IDEAS SPREAD 

 

The External and The Internal of Individual Both Subjectively and 

Objectively Make an Everlasting Connection Between Individuals 

Xiang Li1 

1 Ningbo Childhood Education College, China 

Correspondence: Xiang Li, Ningbo Childhood Education College, Ningbo, China. 

 

Received: September 4, 2025; Accepted: September 17, 2025; Published: September 30, 2025 

 

Abstract 

This paper explores how individuals are perpetually interconnected through both subjective and objective 

dimensions, as illustrated in Jeanette Winterson’s The PowerBook and Ali Smith’s Hotel World. By employing a 

non-linear narrative structure, both novels present fragmented yet interwoven stories that highlight the inescapable 

ties between individuals and society. Drawing on Lacan’s concept of the “Other,” the analysis demonstrates that 

social and historical contexts objectively bind individuals within a symbolic order, while media, memory, and 

emotional experiences subjectively reinforce these connections. The paper argues that whether through external 

social forces or internal emotional drives, individuals consistently function as both protagonists in their own 

narratives and supporting characters in the lives of others. Ultimately, the study concludes that human existence is 

fundamentally communal, sustained through continuous interaction between the self and the Other. 

Keywords: interconnectedness, lacanian psychoanalysis, non-linear narrative, subjectivity and objectivity, 

symbolic order 

1. Introduction 

Both Hotel World and The PowerBook adapt a non-linear narrative strategy, consisting of several independent 

stories which mainly describe the relationship between individuals. In The PowerBook, although the virtual world 

and the real world are connected through a powerbook, and the several virtual stories described seem to be 

unrelated, the whole novel is connected in series through the character Ali. Each story’s own social context also 

plays a vital role in the development of the story. Hotel World mainly revolves around the stories of five women 

each of whom has an independent chapter. They are the protagonists in their own chapters, and see the world from 

their own different perspectives. However, the stories of each of them are superimposed and intertwined to form 

a complete story line about one fact.  

Firstly, what happened to each individual existed under a integral social background. If the world is a giant net, 

then each individual is a part of the net which also construct the net. This basic structure is objective and can’t be 

changed with human consciousness. But such an objective society will subjectively take measures on individuals 

for certain purposes to strengthen the binding relationship between them. Besides, for individuals, everyone is the 

protagonist of their own life, but supporting roles are also essential for the integrity of a story. Each protagonist 

also acts as a minor part in other individuals’ stories. The stories between each individual are woven together. In 

addition, the individuality will also play its own subjective emotional role to strengthen the connection between 

individuals and others. Therefore, no matter from the point of view of the individual or the outside world, they 

both objectively and subjectively prove that individuals are always communal. Then I will combine The 

PowerBook and Hotel World for detailed analysis. 

2. The Era and Social Background of the Individual and the Others He Can Come into Contact With Are 

The Same 

Lacan’s psychoanalysis proposes a theory called the Other, which is the product of the interaction between each 

independent individual in society, but this product will in turn limit each individual (Lacan 57-85). The Other can 

be any virtual or real thing, which can be understood as social custom rules or individual ideology in a concrete 

view. For every natural person, entering the society means entering the symbolic order. The symbolic order means 

the reality world with rules individuals are living in (Lacan 30-36). So then the individual can’t escape the control 

of the Other, so every individual that constitutes the Other is interconnected[1]. 



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In The PowerBook, the protagonist Ali travels between the virtual and real worlds, but the places she visits in the 

virtual world are closely related to the real world. Different eras and different locations have different civilizations 

and customs. As the novel says, “there is always a city, there is always a civilization” (Winterson 19), these 

different cultures also lead to different development of the story ending. For example, one of the stories is the 

tragedy of love between Francesca and Paolo. Francesca’s pursuit of true love ended in the tragedy of both parties’ 

deaths[2]. Women’s love became a bargaining chip for profit, which reflected that women in that era didn’t have 

the right to choose their own marriages. Also, the separation and quarrels between Ali and her lover were also 

caused by the restrictions on heterosexual marriage in the patriarchal society. Even if the individual enters the 

fictional story, the rules contained in the symbolic order still exist everywhere, and there is a high probability that 

it will directly lead things to the established result. In addition, even if the individual is alone and spending his 

own time, he won’t block everything from the outside world. When Ali spent intimate time with her lover, the 

author always intersperses and describes the trivial sounds and sights of the outside world, such as “you kissed my 

throat. The boy was dancing” (Winterson 67). As the novel says, “so many lives, and ours too, tangled up with 

this night, these strangers. Strangers ourselves” (Winterson 36), so it can be seen that all others that exist 

objectively are inseparable parts of the individual and are closely related to the daily life of the individual[3]. 

In the Hotel World, the global chain of hotels can be seen as a materialized symbol of the Other. In Gao’s thesis, 

she believes that this novel adopts topographic and spatial narration, and the hotel is the most important spatial 

entity in the novel, which exists as the background of the whole story, represents a miniature society, and 

symbolizes the oppression of human nature by capitalism (Gao 11). Because the existence of the hotel provides 

the conditions for the producers to sell their productivity, the individual deep in it doesn’t have the ability to jump 

outside the limit of the Other, but tries to seek a better position in it. For example, there is a description in the 

novel about the quality of the brand of the hotel. No one knows what quality means, they only know “it’s something 

to do with the difference between good and bad and the need for better” (Smith 91), and the existence of the brand 

is just a class distinction for people of different status. This can be seen as the individual’s curry favor with the 

Other. Lise is a working-class receptionist in a hotel, but she fantasizes that “she is the well-dressed young woman 

who came in earlier” (Smith 87) to cross her own class. Therefore, it can be seen that everyone is struggling in the 

environment of the Other in their mind, and no one can think beyond the scope of the Other[4]. 

3. The Other Will Deliberately Strengthen the Connection Between Individuals For Certain Purposes 

The society from the previous paper media to the current electronic media era is always in the information era, and 

individuals receive more information than they need every day. The desire of the individual is the desire of the 

Other, and people will have their own desires only after they know the desire of the Other (Lacan 119-137), so 

some media for disseminating information will be used as a tool to spread values and incite group emotions. This 

strengthens the connection between individuals, and individuals and others. 

In The PowerBook, Ali’s lover also mentioned this to her, “you just want what everybody wants-everything” 

(Winterson 47), the subjective thoughts that individuals think are generated by themselves aren’t completely 

subjective, but are influenced by others. In Hotel World, the subjective effect of objects and media on the subject 

is more prominent. “The crumbs on it so that proved it happened” (Smith 163), it can be seen that everything that 

happened and existed will leave traces, and these traces will always remind people of what happened to fight 

against the forgetfulness of human brain[5]. In addition to inanimate products, “the computer can provide 

information on hotel guests, staff, international tariffs and more general Global matters” (Smith 91), which shows 

that the information of each of us is recorded in the Other, which also provides the possibility for the Other to take 

active measures. Lise had a relationship with the deceased Sara once, but it was difficult for her to remember 

Sara’s appearance accurately, but “it is much easier to picture her from the photographs in the papers and on TV 

than to try to remember” (Smith 86), it can be seen that the communication media has the effect of reminding and 

strengthening the individual’s memory. When the individual’s memory of a certain person or something fades, 

these media that can be seen everywhere in life will appear to help to remember, which makes individuals think 

that connection with others is strong. The same situation is for arts such as poetry and music. The dissemination 

of these arts is something “which robbed him of proper and smoothing oblivion” (Smith 168), because art always 

contains the cultural connotations of the eras, so the dissemination of these works is also a kind of specific 

enhancement and continuation of the memory of cultural values. This allows individuals to feel that their 

connections with compatriots of different eras are strengthened, and they always exist by their side[6]. 

4. The Individual is The Protagonist of His Own Story and a Supporting Role in Everyone Else’s Story 

At the same time when the story of each individual happens, the stories of others also happen simultaneously. So 

the cause of a certain story may be the effect of another story. Although each individual has different importance 



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to each matter, every link of an individual’s story is inseparable from the participation of others. Individuals who 

are the protagonists of their own will also play minor paets in other people’s stories. They are intertwined and 

connected. 

In The Powerbook, Ali is the center of the narrative of the whole novel. Although the main line of the story is the 

love story between Ali and her lover, there are many seemingly unrelated storylines in the 5th century, 14th and 

15th centuries[7]. Zeng believes in her thesis that the stories in The PowerBook didn’t happen in chronological 

order, and the chronological order of these events was disordered and disrupted, so the timeline of the story 

between Ali and her lover was also chaotic, such a narrative form is a kind of resistance to the limit of time (Zeng 

16-17), the author herself emphasizes the verticality of time, which means that a subject can break through the 

constraints of time and space and bloom brilliantly in many events at the same time, just as in the novel said, “more 

life into a time without boundaries” (Winterson 53). If time is regarded as a horizontal advancement, an individual 

is only the protagonist in his own story, and seems to have no participation in other people’s stories, so the author 

adopts such an exaggerated narrative technique across time to prove an individual can simultaneously play roles 

of varying degrees of importance in many stories. 

In Hotel World, the novel is divided into five parts, and the protagonists of each part are different people. These 

five people seem to be unconnected and have independent stories, but in fact their stories are all intertwined. The 

story of Else the tramp mainly revolves around Else’s tragic family experience and current miserable life, and Lise 

is just an unknown waiter who happens to give Else a chance to stay in the hotel for one night. But in Lise’s story 

line, it mainly revolves around Lise’s psychological activities, and introduces Lise’s motivation for bringing Else 

into the hotel. Else is just a tool in her entire plan. The importance of an event in each individual’s heart is different, 

and the protagonist of one’s own story is only a supporting role for others. But such a supporting role is 

indispensable. It is the fact that Else’s entering the hotel triggered the story of Clare, Penny and Else in front of 

the wall. As Penny said, “by chance she had become a cog in the mechanism of something really happening” 

(Smith 105), everyone becomes a part of someone else’s story, so this connection is inevitable . 

5. Individuals’ Subjective Emotions Strengthen and Attach Additional Meaning to The Connection 

Human beings are creatures with thoughts, emotions and subjective initiative. At the same time, human memory 

isn’t totally accurate, so the importance of many stories will be amplified and additional meaning will be added 

subjectively. 

In The PowerBook, love can be seen as a main proposition, and many of Ali’s expositions also revolve around 

love, time and death. She believes that “beyond time, beyond death, love is.” (Winterson 129), by which can be 

seen that the subjective passion of love will have a great impact on people’s cognition. Love will magnify the 

relationship between people and their lovers. For example, in Ali’s heart, her lover is “sun and moon to me” 

(Winterson 77). This kind of passion will sanctify the relationship between people, making this relationship more 

stable. And this ability to love will also strengthen the individual’s sense of connection with others, “I am my own 

master but not always master of myself” (Winterson, 55), it’s this emotion that makes an independent individual 

more integrated into interactions with others. In addition to love, other feelings of the individual, such as family 

and friendship, will allow the individual to break part of the boundaries of the self and integrate into others. People 

can’t completely abandon feelings, so this connection with others can’t be severed. 

Hotel World is a good example of the amplifying effect of family affection on the connection between people. 

Most of Clare’s stories are about showing Clare’s nostalgia for her sister Sara. The family cleaned up her sister’s 

belongings, but Clare “took it all back inside my arms” (Smith 144). Because she has a strong miss for her sister, 

whenever she sees these items, she will think of the daily life when her sister was still there, and even when eating, 

she will “remember for you what it tastes like” (Smith 155). Although her sister has left her in the physical world, 

because of the existence of Clare’s memory, the connection between her and her sister seems to have never been 

broken. Therefore, the connection between people doesn’t have to rely on physical objective existence to maintain. 

In addition, it can be seen from Penny’s narrative that people reject loneliness in their deep hearts. When she was 

alone in a hotel room, “for a moment she felt bereft” (Smith 132), she also felt the need to connect others when 

she chose to go out in the previous article. People will try to find connections with others subjectively and 

emotionally, so it can be seen that this kind of interaction and connection is inevitable. 

6. Discussion and Further Implications 

6.1 Cultural, Philosophical, and Social Dimensions 

The close reading of The PowerBook and Hotel World makes clear that individuals are never truly isolated; they 

are always entangled with others through social institutions, cultural codes, and subjective memory. To further 



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situate this insight, it is useful to extend the analysis beyond literary technique and psychoanalytic theory into 

broader philosophical and social frameworks. Jeanette Winterson’s exploration of virtual and real interactions 

anticipates contemporary digital culture, in which online and offline identities overlap. Social media platforms 

today establish symbolic orders with their own rules of visibility and recognition. The pursuit of “likes” or 

“followers” demonstrates Lacan’s claim that desire is mediated by the desire of the Other. Individual aspirations 

appear autonomous but are in fact conditioned by larger collective values. In this way, literature not only reflects 

but also prefigures the dynamics of modern connectivity. 

Ali Smith’s portrayal of the hotel as a microcosm of capitalist society likewise resonates with sociological analyses 

of globalization. The hotel binds individuals through labor and consumption while simultaneously fragmenting 

relationships into transactional roles. This paradox aligns with Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of “liquid modernity,” 

where social bonds are plentiful yet fragile, easily dissolved by economic pressures and rapid cultural shifts. Both 

novels highlight how institutions regulate connection, granting opportunities for interaction while also imposing 

hierarchies and exclusions. The figure of Lise fantasizing about crossing class boundaries underscores the 

impossibility of escaping the Other’s influence while still desiring to transcend it. 

Philosophical perspectives deepen this understanding by foregrounding the ethical stakes of interconnectedness. 

Emmanuel Levinas emphasizes that the face of the Other imposes an infinite responsibility upon the self, 

reminding us that every personal act carries consequences for others. Literature dramatizes this ethical imperative 

by showing how Clare’s grief for her sister or Ali’s longing for her lover implicates them in webs of obligation 

and memory. The novels insist that the individual cannot exist in isolation, for each narrative thread is tied to the 

fates of others. This view challenges Western notions of radical autonomy by suggesting that selfhood is 

constituted through responsibility to the Other. 

Finally, the theme of memory illustrates the cultural dimension of human connection. Memory is not only a 

personal faculty but also a socially mediated construct sustained through artifacts, rituals, and media. Clare’s 

attachment to her sister’s belongings or Lise’s recollection aided by photographs exemplify how objects and 

narratives preserve relational bonds. In modern societies, memory increasingly resides in digital archives and 

cultural databases, raising urgent questions of curation and erasure. By foregrounding memory as connective tissue, 

these novels remind us that identity and community are sustained as much by what is remembered as by what is 

lived. The cultural, philosophical, and social implications thus expand the literary analysis into a broader 

meditation on the conditions of being human in an interconnected world. 

6.2 Contemporary Resonance and Human Interconnectedness 

Beyond theoretical considerations, the novels also carry profound resonance for understanding the contemporary 

human condition. The paradox of connection and loneliness is particularly striking. Penny’s sense of emptiness in 

Hotel World or Ali’s moments of solitude in The PowerBook illustrate how one may feel most alone precisely 

when immersed in networks of others. Psychological studies echo this point: increased mediated communication 

does not always alleviate loneliness and can sometimes exacerbate it, as superficial ties fail to provide genuine 

intimacy. Literature thus articulates the paradox of the modern age—abundant connections that may still leave 

individuals yearning for deeper belonging. 

Narrative form itself reinforces this insight. Winterson’s non-linear, fragmented storytelling resists chronological 

order, suggesting that time cannot contain the full scope of human interconnectedness. Ali’s simultaneous presence 

across centuries emphasizes that love and desire reverberate beyond linear temporality. Smith’s polyphonic 

narrative likewise highlights simultaneity, where multiple perspectives overlap to produce a collective account of 

loss and survival. These strategies align with philosophical discussions of “deep time,” in which personal stories 

are situated within broader temporal horizons that exceed individual lifespans. By framing narratives outside linear 

progression, the novels demonstrate that interconnectedness is not only spatial and social but also temporal, linking 

generations through shared memory and affect. 

At a global level, the recognition of interconnectedness carries urgent ethical and political weight. Climate change, 

pandemics, and economic inequality all underscore the impossibility of solitary survival. The COVID-19 

pandemic, for example, revealed how the vulnerability of one community reverberates across borders, echoing the 

literary portrayal of how one person’s story triggers the unfolding of others. Literature’s insistence on the 

communal nature of existence thus resonates with contemporary discourses of global solidarity and the idea of a 

shared human destiny. These crises affirm what the novels already dramatize: that the well-being of the self is 

inseparable from the condition of others. 

Equally important is the role of art as a cultural laboratory for exploring human connection. Both The PowerBook 

and Hotel World stage experiments in narrative that allow readers to imagine alternative modes of relationality. 



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By weaving together disparate voices and times, the novels enact what Mikhail Bakhtin described as the 

“polyphonic” dimension of literature, where multiple consciousnesses coexist without being reduced to a single 

viewpoint. This openness invites readers to see themselves not only as protagonists of their own lives but also as 

minor characters in the stories of others. Such a realization fosters humility and empathy, virtues crucial for 

sustaining human interconnectedness in an era of division and uncertainty. 

Ultimately, the contemporary resonance of these novels lies in their insistence that human beings are 

fundamentally relational. To live is to be implicated in the lives of others, across space, time, and circumstance. 

The novels affirm that while loneliness and disconnection are inevitable aspects of the human condition, they are 

never final. The possibility of renewed connection—through memory, desire, or narrative—remains ever-present. 

In extending this insight beyond the literary domain, we can see that the task of the present age is to cultivate 

practices of solidarity that honor both individuality and community. Literature, by dramatizing these complexities, 

offers a vision of interconnectedness that is as ethically compelling as it is aesthetically profound. 

7. Conclusion 

To summarize, whether it is the individual himself or the outside world on which the individual depends, both 

subjectively or objectively connect individuals and others through various clues. When a natural person is endowed 

with the identity of a social person, it’s impossible for him to escape from the symbolic order’s control. Although 

people will inevitably have time alone and moments when they feel lonely in their hearts, individuals are always 

in constant interaction with the others inevitably. 

References 

[1] Eugen, B. (1974). Understanding Lacan. In Understanding Lacan. International Universities Press. 

[2] Evans, D. (1996). An introductory dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Routldge. 

[3] Gao, L., Zhu, M., & Yang, Y. (2022). A study of Ali Smith’s narrative techniques in the Hotel World. 

Comparative Study of Cultural Innovation, 22(09), 10–13. 

[4] Lacan, J. (2007). The ethics of psychoanalysis. Routledge. 

[5] Smith, A. (2002). Hotel world (1st Anchor Books ed.). Anchor Books. 

[6] Winterson, J. (2001). The PowerBook. Vintage. 

[7] Zeng, Y. (2017). A queer utopia in The PowerBook [Master's thesis, Huazhong Normal University]. 

 

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