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University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Winter 1983 COMEDY: THE UNCERTAIN TERRAIN OF JOHN HAWKES PETER M. JOHNSON University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation JOHNSON, PETER M., "COMEDY: THE UNCERTAIN TERRAIN OF JOHN HAWKES" (1983). Doctoral Dissertations. 1412. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/1412 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This reproduction was made from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. 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COMEDY: THE UNCERTAIN TERRAIN OF JOHN HAWKES University of New Hampshire Ph.D. 1983 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 COMEDY: THE UNCERTAIN TERRAIN OF JOHN HAWKES BY PETER M. JOHNSON B.A., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1976 M.A., University of New Hampshire, 1978 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of' New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English December, 1983 This dissertation has been examined and approved. n/sspr^l-inn d \ rt& .i-n rr fiary H/^rin^hprg Professor of English h j L t. v^x>A^fl Philip ft. Nicoloff, Piyyfessor of English Melody g/. Graulich, Assistant Professor of English Melvin T. Bobick, Professor of Sociology Paul T. Brockelman, Professor of Philosophy / W 7 /?f? Date To Carol who has developed a great sense of humor. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to give a special thanks to Gary Lindberg, who not only advised me throughout the stages of this dissertation, but who also has influenced the way I read and write about literature. I also thank Melody Graulich and Phil Nicoloff who read through muddled drafts of this dissertation with patience, and who consistently offered constructive criticism. My gratitude goes to Mel Bobick and Paul Brockelman, too, for their prompt reading of the final draft of this manuscript. And I express my appreciation to Joan Goodrich for her expert typing. Finally, I give my heartfelt thanks to my family and friends, especially to my wife Carol, who discovered that there is often nothing funny about spending time with a person engaged in a study of comedy. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................... iv ABSTRACT ............................................... vi CHAPTER PAGE I. JOHN HAWKES' COMIC METHOD ..................... 1 II. CHARIVARI ...................................... 35 III. THE LIME TWIG.... .............................. 56 IV. SECOND SKIN ................................. 113 V. THE TRILOGY .................................... 152 VI. EARLY AND LATE NOVELS: A SUMMING UP ......... 247 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................... 279 v ABSTRACT COMEDY; THE UNCERTAIN TERRAIN OF JOHN HAWKES by PETER M. JOHNSON University of New Hampshire, December 1983 This dissertation examines the nature and function of John Hawkes' comic method. Although most critics ack­ nowledge that Hawkes writes comedy, very few of them agree on the moral nature of this comedy. Chapter I examines these differing responses to Hawkes1 work and offers an alternative way of evaluating his humor, based on his own and other critics' comments-.on comedy. This chapter also suggests that our responses to Hawkes' humor occur on an uncertain terrain where two or more, sometimes opposite, reactions to a text clash, forcing us into con­ tinuous moments of indecision. Chapter II deals with Hawkes' first novel, Charivari, which is important because in it we find Hawkes experi­ menting with comic techniques which he employs in later novels. Chapter III explains how comic techniques in The Lime Twig trap us between our emotional, moral, intellectual, vi and aesthetic concerns for Michael and Margaret Banks and William Hencher. Comedy forces us to judge these charac­ ters' human failings, though we also sympathize with them and recognize our own faults in them. Chapter IV discusses Skipper's contradictory nature in Second Skin, explaining how comic techniques make us ques­ tion his attractive self-portrait and realize his respon­ sibility for the tragic events in the novel. Chapter V illustrates what happens to comedy in The Blood Oranges, Death, Sleep & the Traveler, and Travesty when we become less concerned with the comedy of charac­ ter and action and more interested in the author behind the trilogy who is playing with language and form,, Chapter VI deals with The Passion Artist and Virginie: Her Two Lives. In Hawkes' most recent novels the nature and function of comedy is not always clear because Hawkes seems to treat seriously the same sexual attitudes and practices that he ridiculed in previous novels. This chapter ends by suggesting that Hawkes' comedy is maxi­ mized when, as in The Lime Twig and Second Skin, all of our concerns— emotional, moral, intellectual, and aesthetic— are played off each other, so that, as Hawkes himself says, we are challenged "to know ourselves better and to live with more compassion." CHAPTER I JOHN HAWKES' COMIC METHOD For fans of John Hawkes' comedy, there is good news. Most critics now consider him to be a comic writer— some­ thing many of us have argued all along. Hawkes himself, from the beginning of his career, has always maintained that he was writing comedy, and in a prefatory remark to his latest novel, Virginie: Her Two Lives, he freely ad­ mits his comic intentions and his deliberate attempts to parody certain writers."^ The Massachusetts Review has re­ inforced Hawkes' position as a modern American comic writer by including an excerpt from Virginie in its recent comedy issue, which also includes the work of other literary 2 jesters like Robert Coover, James Tate, and Russell Edson. But although most critics now seem to accept that Hawkes writes comedy, still very few of them can agree on the nature of this comedy, and some are offended by its appar­ ent implications, questioning the worth of comedy which, they argue, presents a dark, immoral vision. ■^John Hawkes, Virginie: Her Two Lives (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), prefatory remark. 0 John Hawkes, "An Amorous Bestiary," The Massachusetts Review, 22 (Winter 1981), 603-20. 1 2 James Wolcott, in a review of Virginie, launches the latest attack on Hawkes' work. He argues that the quality of Virginie1s moral vision mirrors the quality of Hawkes' mind, and he believes that there is "something unclean" about that mind. "No matter what riotous coupling is taking place in barnyard or boudoir," Wolcott writes, "one is always aware of Hawkes conducting the action from the pit, at sluggish tempo." Wolcott goes on to say that Hawkes' "imagination has turned into a sick ward" and that it might be best for 3 him "to step out for an invigorating bolt of air." Certainly Wolcott's review seems unjust because it attacks Hawkes personally, as well as his work. At least Hawkes' previous detractors leveled their remarks at his 4 novels. The Goose on the Grave has been called "unreadable" ; The Blood Oranges has been described as a "bloodless, aca- 5 demic exercise" ; and Travesty has been dubbed a "dead and g empty book." 3 James Wolcott, "Straw Dogs," rev. of Virginie: Her Two Lives, by John Hawkes, The New York Review of Books, 10 June 1982, pp. 16-17. 4 John Wain, "The Very Thing," rev. of Lunar Landscapes, by John Hawkes, The New York Review of Books, 26 February 1970, p. 38. ^Stephen A. Black, "John Hawkes, The Blood Oranges, rev. of The Blood Oranges, by John Hawkes, west Coast Review, 7 (October 1972) , 7"6. g Sheldon Frank, "John Hawkes' Imitation Travesty.11 rev. of Travesty, by John Hawkes, Chicago Daily News, 20 March 1976, p. 11. 3 In a sense, Wolcott's review could be said to represent the low point of anti-Hawkes criticism.

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