Showing papers in "Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory in 2001"

Selling Edith Wharton: Illustration, Advertising, and Pictorial Review, 1924-1925

Abstract: ICANNOT consent t? have my work treated as prose by the yard,\" wrote Edith Wharton to her editor and advisor, Rutger Bleeker Jewett, in 1920. Wharton was infuriated that Pictorial Review, the popular women's magazine serializing The Age of Innocence, meant to cut some of her installments to make room for illustrations and advertisements (Lewis 429). As all of her 1920s novels appeared first as serializations in Pictorial Review, this was but one of many encounters Wharton would have with the limitations and demands of popular magazine publishing. While critics have long debated the degree to which Wharton considered—some suggest \"wrote down to\"—her mass audience in the 1920s, some compelling questions remain unanswered: how did Pictorial Review package and sell Wharton's work to its perceived readership? How did the cultural authority of magazine illustration interact with Wharton's often critical position toward magazine preoccupations, particularly female youth, narcissism, and sexual desire? Most important, how did these combined factors affect possible interpretations of narratives such as the 1924-25 serialization of The Mother's Recompense? Illustration, advertising, and promotion copy invited readers of The Mother's Recompense to focus on certain narrative coordinates over others. The conventions and expectations of Pictorial Review's visual environment pointed readers toward a consumer-driven bias in their reading, emphasizing particularly the tie between youth, fashion, and female heterosexuality. Wharton, however, was impatient, both in and out of

"Too Young for the Part": Narrative Closure and Feminine Evolution in Wharton's '20s Fiction

Abstract: Tidely characterized as self-assured, irreverent, and passionate about new experiences, modern youth reaped the criticism of popular journalists as well as authors of fiction.1 Along with this criticism was a pronounced interest in the young generation, combined with a concern about the cultural life that modern youth valued. Prominent authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald attributed energizing possibilities to the young, specifically to young men. Writing that \"Some generations are close to those that succeed them; between others the gap is infinite and unbridgeable,\" Fitzgerald located in his male characters such as Basil Lee the energies of a dynamic future (47). Continuing in this vein, Fitzgerald describes the play of young adolescent boys, noting that \"they were making the first tentative combinations of the ideas and materials they found ready at their hand—ideas destined to become, in future years, first articulate, then startling and finally commonplace\" (47-8). In the youth, or the \"still unhatched eggs of the mid-twentieth century,\" Fitzgerald situates the dynamic possibilities of spurning an older generation's values, with youth creating a pronounced generational chasm, even as they instigated profound change (47). Edith Wharton's twenties novels, however, do not share Fitzgerald's optimism in youthful energy, for they instead highlight the impossibility of young women engaging in any type of progress. Far from energized or promising, Wharton's youth emerge as hybrid, complicated young women who, despite sincere beliefs and personal integrity, cannot meet

Sneaking Around: Idealized Domesticity, Identity Politics, and Games of Friendship in Nella Larsen's Passing

Abstract: iUriní; the post-reconstruction era, novels by African American women often centered around attaining and advancing idealized domesticity. In response to the dangers of segregation, these novels portrayed "black" heroines who, as models of the genteel standard of Victorian conduct, undergo a series of adventures en route to marriage, family happiness, security, and prosperity. Such novels, Claudia Tate argues, attempted not only to counter racist rhetoric, but also to sustain their readers' faith in the struggle for freedom and "racial" advancement by using the tropes of domesticity to provide allegories of "political desire in the form of fulfilled (rather than frustrated) liberational aspiration" (68). The success of these novels arose "from their

Possessed by the Gothic: Stephen Crane's "The Monster"

Abstract: ed Port Jetvis, the Ttescotts, in this light, might be a more absttactly American—a Utopian—vetsion of Ctane's own family. 2.The normative mode of American fiction between the Civil War and World War I is taken to be tealism. See Sundquist 3-25, Pizet 1-18. Naturalism is variously defined, but is genetally held to involve the depiction of a mechanistic, radically de-psychologized milieu and, with vatying emphasis, an underlying philosophy of determinism (Sundquist; Pizer; Mitchell 96-99). Notris, Dreiser, London and Crane are considered the central American natutalists. Crane's impressionism, famously identified by Contad, was fitst noted by reviewers such as Edward Garnett and H. G. Wells. Nagel's study codifies the technique as concerned with denaturalizing realism's assumed ground, our ability to perceive and intetptet teality (1-32); he distinguishes its empiricism from the pessimism of naturalism. 3.The Gothic has always been difficult to codify. In Kilgour's account, it is a kind of Frankenstein genie, \"assembled out of the bits and pieces of the past\" (4). Davidson, one of the first ctitics to histoticize the genre, describes the early American Gothic as a historical mode operating in a place traditionally defined by its insufficiency of history (212-36). The category of American Gothic has received considerable attention of late. Martin atgues that in a process begun by Fiedler, critics have come to see the Gothic as \"definitional of Ametican writing\" (x). Goddu reads the American Gothic historically, arguing that it \"registers its culture's contradictions\" (3); she does not, howevet, relate this mimesis to that traditionally claimed for realism. Sundquisr remarks that the Gothic is the grandfather of naturalism, and that the latter mode can entail \"a Gothic intensification of detail that approaches the allegorical\" (13). Wintet links the Gothic novel and the slave narrative. Generally, however, the implications of the Gothic within Ametican realism remain unexplored. 4.See Weathetford. 5.Goddu locates a similar opposition in the strain ofAmericanist criticism that defined American literature's \"power erf blackness\" as symbolic or psychological depth, against the surface trickery of the merely Gothic or the sentimental (6-8). The beginning of such a model can be seen in the tutn-of-the-centuty reviewers' notion that Crane's attention to detail obsttucted his ttuly Gothic intentions. 6.Ftied was the first to notice the extent of the figuration of writing in \"The Monstet\" (1 14-16, 136). His study of Crane is concerned with the patadoxical effects ptoduced by the unconscious itruption of a graphic metaphorics within an impressionist literary style that sought aftet stylistic transparency; he describes an authorly dilemma in which the material surface of the text continually threatens to ftustrate writing's presumed ability to provide unimpeded access to the depths of signification. But I see this imagery in tetms of matking, rathet than wtiting, and as a (tudimentaty) semiotic system rathet than a specific material practice. This aligns it with what I take to be a theme of the story, the failure of social ttanspatency (whereas Fried argues that the play of materiality in the story is precisely incompatible with its thematic impott, and only makes sense within a symptomatic reading of Crane's oeuvre). Stephen Crane's \"TheMonster\"53 7.As Howard writes, standatd accounts of realism view it as a vehicle for social critique; it \"can and does tefer to a 'real world' with a material existence somewhere outside the literary text\" (it). 8.Wotds such as \"revolution,\" \"revolt,\" and \"suppress\" appear in the presentation of vittually every social intetaction in the story; theit effect is mote one of atmospheric coloting than of specific analysis. The best example of, and guide to, this phenomenon of stylistic excess is the desctiption in section XI of Henry Johnson: the bandages around his head reveal only a single \"unwinking eye\" (31 ) which discomfits the judge greatly. This echo of Poe's \"The Tell-Tale Heart\" is set up by innocent idioms that tutn deadly on rereading. Henry, for example, is said to have \"an eye\" for the reactions of othets to his sattorial elegance (15). Once again, this strand of imagety matks the visual—the cteation and viewing of lurid spectacles—

Guiding Metaphors: Robert Frost and the Rhetoric of Jamesian Pragmatism

Abstract: Pragmatism's current revival has borne on its broad ban- ners the promise of many good things, not least among them the hope of a final settlement in philosophy's long quarrel with poetry. No literary critic would want to scoff at such a possibility, especially when the peace, or at least the version that has been projected by Richard Rorty, is to be effected by what is essentially philosophy's surrender of its higher ground, and the shelving of its claim to have access to a truth truer than any fiction can offer. No doubt a large part of pragmatism's appeal lies in the proposal that philosophy and literature begin to asso- ciate on a level playing field, that literary criticism has at least as much to say about the products of the philosophers, as philosophy does about those of the poets, and that interleague games should now become a regular part of the intellectual schedule. Indeed, Rorty would go fur- ther, arguing philosophy should recognize the bankruptcy of its preten- sions, and admit that the real interest of its greatest texts derives from their status as works of imaginative literature, self-supporting structures of narrative and metaphor. For it is shared metaphor that is finally the basis of the consensus and communication: the intellectual community that philosophy has so long and so misguidedly sought in the Utopian regions of rationally revealed truth. To a literary critic, this may seem a consummation devoutly to be wished; I want to argue however that Rorty's version of the pragmatic sanction comes at too high a cost—the cost of avoiding a considera-

Authentic Reproduction: The Picturesque Joaquin Miller

Abstract: Joaquin miller (1837-1 91 3), now largely forgotten, is arguably a central figure in the history of western American authorship and a connecting link between the so-called San Francisco circle of the 1 860s and the flowering of western realism toward the century's end. Miller emerged—exploded, rather—during the early 1870s, a time when western literature was still essentially a promise, not yet delivered goods. Throughout the 1870s and later, Miller's international celebrity as a western writer was equaled only by Mark Twain's and Bret Harte 's, though their literary efforts met with a considerably warmer reception. In fact, the public cared less for Miller's actual poetry, much of which was dismissed and attacked, than for the face and the figure, the icon that Miller became. Drawing on the surging popularity of western types such as Daniel Boone and on the expanding market for sensational dime novels, Miller invented himself as a poetic frontiersman, the \"Byron of the Rockies,\" or \"Poet of the Sierras\" as he was known. He was the first author to capitalize fully on the myth of the West and to circulate a western persona to economic advantage. After his extraordinary ascent in 1871, his face and figure were ubiquitous. He had become a public relations genius, and an authot of wide renown.

Framing the Past: Postmodernism and the Making of Reflective Memory in Art Spiegelman's Maus

Abstract: hen art spiegelman's Maus ?: A Survivor's Tale (1991)— the second volume of his Pulitzer prize-winning account, in comic-book format, of his family's persecution during the Holocaust1— made it on to the New York Times' best-seller list, the editors initially placed the work on the fiction side of the ledger.2 They believed, apparently, that a work written in comic-strip style, with humans depicted as animals, could not legitimately be labeled as a true story. Only after Spiegelman himself sent a letter to the Times, protesting his book's placement, were the editors persuaded to switch Maus to the nonfiction side of the list. Spiegelman wrote, in part, \"If your list were divided into literature and nonliterature, I could gracefully accept the compliment as intended, but to the extent that 'fiction' indicates that a work isn't factual, I feel a bit queasy\" (\"A Problem of Taxonomy\" 2). In a terse editor's reply, the Times noted that the Library of Congress had categorized the book as nonfiction, and, \"Accordingly, this week we have moved Maus ÍÍ to the hard-cover nonfiction list, where it is No. 13\" (\"A Problem of Taxonomy\" 2). The debate over the status of Spiegelman's work should not be seen as simply an example of the obtuseness of the Times' editorial-board

Pride Lands: The Lion King, Proposition 187, and White Resentment

Abstract: My son, Alexander, is a white male with blue eyes and blond hair. He has never discriminated against anyone in his little life (except possibly young women visitors whom he suspects of being baby-sitters). But public policy now discriminates against him. The sheer size of the so-called 'protected classes' that are now politically favored, such as Hispanics, will be a matter of vital importance for as long as he lives. And their size is basically determined by immigration. Peter Brimelow, Aiien Nation (1995)

Harriet Wilson's Our Nig and the Labor of Citizenship

Abstract: Harriet wilson's Our Nig begins somewhat incongruously with the story of a young white woman's seduction and "fall." In its overall outlines the story of Mag Smith seems better suited to an earlynineteenth-century seduction novel than the semi-autobiographical tale of a black indentured servant. Yet, for all its incongruity, it is Mag's story which sets the tone and the theme for the rest of the narrative. Her seduction, described mainly in terms of her "unprotected, uncherished, uncared for" loneliness (5), is incidental to the narrative's focus on her economic difficulties and social exile. Though it includes the usual platitudes about woman's "priceless gem" (6), the text chooses to foreground not Mag's shame, but her dogged independence and preference for poverty-stricken self-sufficiency over condescending charity. "Disdaining to ask favor or friendship from a sneering world," Mag vows to "die neglected and forgotten before she would be dependent on anyone" (7,8). Accepting charity would require accepting the inferior place and role in the community that a charity case merits, in addition to the censure of her immoral behavior. Mag chooses instead to find what dignity and status she can by earning her own living at the community's (literal) margins. Such independence requires employment, however, and that proves a serious stumbling block for Mag. She is forced to the brink of starvation by those with less claim to the resources of her native community than herself, "foreigners who cheapened toil and clamored for a livelihood" (8). Yet, in the end, so powerful is the desire to avoid the imposed helplessness of paternalistic charity, Mag opts to

"The More I Say I": Frost and the Construction of the Self

Abstract: Ichard poirier's book Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing was .the first book of criticism that I read well. By \"well\" I mean that my responses to it were complex and confusing. I did not simply agree with it, and thereby feel endorsed. Nor did I simply disagree with it and feel superior or indignant. In fact, Poirier's landmark book on Frost challenged what I had meant up to that time by the word \"agreement.\" I found that the more I agreed with what Poirier was saying about Frost's work and sensibility, the more agitated I became, the more it felt like a disagreement. And the more finely I tried to write about where I disagreed with him, the more it seemed like the words I was writing were identical with his. The gap between my view and Poirier's view of Frost disappeared to the extent that I tried to describe it, and yawned widely as I tried my best to align my view with his. Flannety O'Connor once said that she could name her dog \"Spot,\" and her mother could name a dog \"Spot\" and by that same name each of them would mean vastly different things (236). I feel much the same about my view and Poirier's view of Frost. At the limit of Poirier's powerful influence on my sense of what kind of poet Robert Frost is, and what kind of attention his poems reward, I find myself splitting from his reading of Frost: Poirier to the good company that holds Robert Frost to

Maus , Holocaust, and History: Redrawing the Frame

Abstract: ����� In an age when concentration camps become tourist attractions, Holocaust specials boost t? ratings, "Survivor" conferences benefit the local economy, and Holocaust films merit Oscars and pad Hollywood's pocketbook, one has to wonder if the Holocaust has become little more than just another commercially determined spectacle. We can easily imagine a time in the near future (if it hasn't happened already) when swastikas, Auschwitz tattoos, ss insignias, and camp uniforms will sell alongside peace signs, tie-dyed t-shirts, and Mao jackets. This fear of the market's ability to detach political and historical symbols from their political significance and historical context in an effort to increase consumption, in large part, makes one wary of Holocaust representations. Clearly, however, there is a danger in not representing the Holocaust, and this danger has led many, as James Young points out, to draw ever more attention to the Holocaust. In fact, "Holocaust memory has begun to find its critical mass in something akin to a Holocaust 'museum boom.'" Young goes on to point out that "Holocaust memorials are produced specifically to be historically referential, to lead viewers to an understanding or evocation of events" (qtd. in Hoberman 24). We may be alarmed, then, when a book like Maus / appears and is later nominated by the National Book Critics Circle for an award for biography and Maus I/ earns Spiegelman a Pulitzer. A "graphic novel," Maus I was first serialized in a somewhat different form in the underground comix magazine Raw between 1980 and 1985, then cast in book form in 1986 under the title Maus: A Survivor's Tale, I: My Father Bleeds History. Parts of volume two, Maus: A Survivor's

"A Wreckage of Races" in Jack London's South Pacific

Abstract: From the time of Captain Joseph Ingraham's 1791 encounter with the islands that U.S. gazetteers named after him and declared \"the first discovery under the flag of the United States,\" the South Pacific has been discussed, debated, admired, and denounced in U.S. literature, culture, and politics.1 The Ingraham group of islands, actually part of the group Mendaña had named the Marquesas in 1595, continued to be rediscovered by U.S. travelers and writers. The Marquesas comprise a signal destination in U.S. representations of the South Pacific. The initial South Pacific point of anchor for U.S. travelers, the Marquesas were also the first extra-continental territory claimed by the U.S., when Captain David Porter renamed them the Washington Islands in 1813. Herman Melville visited them in the early 1840s, and the Marquesas were Jack and Charmian London's first stop in the South Pacific on their celebrated 1907-1908 cruise of the region. Jack London's representations of this voyage in his ship, the Snark, contributed some of the most notable features of a U.S. literature of the South Pacific. London followed a long line of U.S. writer-travelers in the region, including Melville, Henry Adams, and Mark Twain. London's representations of the area are notable for their continuation of a popular representation of the Pacific. His stories and articles on the subject reached a wide-ranging audience in such publications as The Saturday Evening Post before being presented in collections including The Cruise of the Snark (1908), South Sea Taies (1911), and Son 0/ the Sun (1912).2 London's narratives of the South Pacific, however, register a significant departure from his U.S. predecessors because his Oceania

Thoreau's Gramática Parda: Conjugating Race and Nature

Abstract: Thoreau's essay \"Walking\" proposes a movement beyond the nation and its politics, beyond the law, into a \"nature\" imagined as primordial, prior to \"civilized\" culture. The idea of walking becomes a metaphor for metaphor itself, the passage across boundaries, beyond proper limits or distinctions, but it is also a metaphor for the end of metaphor, the impossible unmediated encounter with the real and the wild. The essay repeatedly asserts the fundamental separateness of the natural and the political, in order to promise a departure from politics: the \"political world\" has \"its place merely, and does not occupy all space\"; one can easily walk beyond the \"narrow field\" of \"politics,\" the \"most alarming\" of all man's \"affairs,\" into wild nature (ioo-i).z Nevertheless, \"Walking\" implies a more fundamental politicization of the very concept of nature in its plural meanings, both human and nonhuman, than this gesture of separation might suggest. What it calls for is

William S. Burroughs and Corporate Public Relations

Abstract: The spring of 1914 was an awkward time in labor history. The power of the Progressive era, which had secured important reforms and exposed corporate corruption duting a period of relative prosperity, began to wane. A recession had reduced demand for manufactured goods, increased unemployment, and lowered the stock matket. Though radical otganizations pushed ahead for greater reform, more moderate workers quailed in the face of potential unemployment. While the labot atmosphere shifted, miners for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, an arm of the Rockefeller's Standard Oil Empire, sttuck for higher wages and better working conditions. Without pay, workers were evicted from their homes and began to live in latge shanty towns with their wives and children. After months of conflict, the Colotado state militia razed the strikers' camps, setting off a stampede and creating fires which killed twenty. The Ludlow Massacre, as it came to be called, was a nadir in labor relations. Radicals such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman offered the incident as proof of the heartless profiteering of capitalists in attempts to rally a slumping labor movement.1 But the Ludlow Massacre also represented

Descartes's Corps

Abstract: The body haunts us. It molests us wherever we are, whether we imagine ourselves beyond it, transcendental and without place, or whether we dismiss the tuse of such displacement and locate ourselves as positioned subjects. It will not matter. The body remains, disturbing us however we conceive the self. This is the case at both ends of modernity: at the beginning, in the wtiting of those two who will have turned away from others and toward themselves in a gesture toward knowledge of self that would be sufficient to ground a world, in Montaigne and Descartes;1 and at modernity's end, in the anthropological writing of one who turns toward others to ground knowledge of himself, in Renato Rosaldo. : The body troubles these apparently vety different projects and necessarily so, for the body will have been the contact zone for any and all relations among others, even among ourselves. Between me and myself the body remains, lies in state, grounding the possibility of anthropos and of anthropology. \"Mais enfin me voici . . .\" (Descartes, Méditations 91; Works 157); \"Me voici devenu grammairien . . .\" (Montaigne Essais l.xlviii.400; Essays 209):' these phrases instance early modern articulations of the I that, in