Dangerously Free: Outlaws and Nation-Making in Literature of the Indian Territory

DANGEROUSLY FREE: OUTLAWS AND NATION-MAKING IN LITERATURE OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY by Jenna Hunnef A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Jenna Hunnef 2016 Dangerously Free: Outlaws and Nation-Making in Literature of the Indian Territory Jenna Hunnef Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2016 Abstract In this dissertation, I examine how literary representations of outlaws and outlawry have contributed to the shaping of national identity in the United States. I analyze a series of texts set in the former Indian Territory (now part of the state of Oklahoma) for traces of what I call “outlaw rhetorics,” that is, the political expression in literature of marginalized realities and competing visions of nationhood. Outlaw rhetorics elicit new ways to think the nation differently—to imagine the nation otherwise; as such, I demonstrate that outlaw narratives are as capable of challenging the nation’s claims to territorial or imaginative title as they are of asserting them. Borrowing from Abenaki scholar Lisa Brooks’s definition of “nation” as “the multifaceted, lived experience of families who gather in particular places,” this dissertation draws an analogous relationship between outlaws and domestic spaces wherein they are both considered simultaneously exempt from and constitutive of civic life. In the same way that the outlaw’s alternately celebrated and marginal status endows him or her with the power to support and eschew the stories a nation tells about itself, so the liminality and centrality of domestic life have proven effective as a means of consolidating and dissenting from the status quo of the nation-state. I introduce my argument with a brief reading of the Oklahoma Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1982 before turning to the settler-colonial politics of outlawry in my first two chapters’ respective analyses of Charles Portis’s True Grit (1968) and turn-of-the- century narratives of the life of Belle Starr, the so-called “Bandit Queen.” The two remaining chapters take up the invocation of outlaw rhetorics in texts that approach the ii politics of outlawry from an Indigenous perspective, including Green Grow the Lilacs (1929) by Cherokee poet and playwright R. Lynn Riggs, and three fictional accounts of the life of Ned Christie, so-called “Cherokee outlaw,” by John M. Oskison (1926), Robert J. Conley (1991), and Robby McMurtry (2009). A brief Afterword extends the implications of my argument to political disputes that continue to afflict Oklahoma, and the Cherokee Nation in particular, in the twenty-first century. iii DEDICATION For my grandmothers, Bernice Jean Bowler and Johanna Gerarda Hunnef, with gratitude for their strength, humour, and perseverance, and above all, with love. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has received generous support from various federal, provincial, and institutional sources. I would like to express my deep and abiding gratitude for the assistance I received from the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies, the University of Toronto Department of English, and the U of T Graduate English Association. This project would not have been possible without the substantial support I received from these institutions. At this time I would also like to acknowledge the diverse body of previous scholarship that has deeply influenced this project and my thinking on this topic. I am deeply indebted to my advisor and mentor, Daniel Heath Justice, for the time, care, and intellectual rigor he invested in this project from the moment he first agreed to supervise my progress. Daniel never hesitated in making that decision, nor did he ever waver in his commitment to my project, even after leaving U of T to accept a position at the University of British Columbia. I am not merely a better scholar because of his guidance and influence; I am, without a doubt, a better person. Wado, Daniel! I would also like to thank the other members of my supervisory committee, Neal Dolan and Sarah Wilson, for their roles in this project. Neal was perhaps the most inclined to challenge my ideas, but those challenges were always voiced in the spirit of generosity, demonstrating what positive and collegial academic exchange can, and should, look like. Sarah’s greatest gift to me was her ability to encapsulate and articulate both the germ and value of my ideas, especially when I was least capable of doing that for myself. I have also had the great pleasure and privilege of being a teaching assistant for both of these formidable scholars and to have witnessed and learned from their exemplary pedagogical methods. I am enormously grateful for the time and effort they have invested in my intellectual growth. I would also like to thank the rest of my examining committee, Lynne Magnusson, Melissa Gniadek, and the incomparable Jace Weaver, for their provocative questions, insightful criticisms, and thoughtful engagement with my work. Jace deserves v special acknowledgment for his supportive critique of my project and excellent suggestions for future revisions. Many, many thanks. Probably the most formative experience of my doctoral years was a research trip I took to Oklahoma in July 2013. I was deeply impressed not only with the beauty of the landscape, but also the generosity, hospitality, and kindness shown to me by many different people who provided me with places to stay, excellent conversation, and good food. I would like to thank all of the participants of Salon Ada 2013, especially our generous hosts LeAnne Howe and Jim Wilson, and my fellow participants, including Daniel Justice, Allison Hedge Coke, Dustin Mater, and the late Greg Rodgers. Speaking of the Starr home site, I am grateful to its current owners, Dr. Ron and Deborah Hood, for their generous hospitality and the care with which they have restored Starr’s final resting place and former home. Thanks, too, to Kimberli Lee for taking me on a driving tour of the Cookson Hills and for a lovely home-cooked meal. I am grateful for the assistance provided by the Department of English’s incredible team of eminently capable administrators, especially Tanuja Persaud, Marguerite Perry, Sangeeta Panjwani, and Ashifa Rajwani. I am endlessly grateful for the friendship, collegiality, and laughter that I have shared with dozens of brainy individuals over the years. There are many more individuals deserving of thanks than I can name here, but some include: Sherrin Berezowsky, Alyson Brickey, Kirby Brown, Nina Budabin McQuown, Ross Bullen, Kate Burtis, Rebecca Campbell, Andre Cormier, David Drysdale, Alexander Eastwood, Nadine Fladd, Philip Glennie, Patricia Graham, Andrew Lubowitz, Devin Miller, Rebecca Murie Wenstrom, Tina Northrup, Stephanie Oliver, Elan Paulson, Mandy Penny, Sarah Pesce, Erin Piotrowski, Talia Regan, Alicia Robinet, Jennifer Rose, June Scudeler, Kristen (Leavitt) Taylor, Michael Taylor, Alan Thompson, Ann Thompson, Pauline Wakeham, and Kyle Wyatt. Finally, I owe most of my thanks to my family. My parents, John Hunnef and Karen Bowler, are and will always be my most ardent and enduring supporters. Any success I’ve achieved is the direct result of their hard work, sacrifice, and love. My brother, Geoff, and sister-in-law, Sou, have not only given me much-needed encouragement along the way, but also the gift of my sweet and precocious niece, vi Phoenix. Many thanks to all of the members of my large extended families of Hunnefs, Bowlers, Kapilas, Badhwars, and Nayars, especially my grandmothers (to whom this dissertation is dedicated) and Kamlesh Kapila. Last (but always first in my heart), I am grateful for my partner, Rajan Kapila: for his irreverent humour, for his unwavering patience, for the model of generosity and compassion he demonstrates every day, for his loyalty, friendship, and unshakeable faith in me and my abilities. I would never have gotten through this ordeal without him and his support. Thank you, my love. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................... v Table of Contents .................................................................................................... viii List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................. x List of Figures ........................................................................................................... xi List of Appendices ................................................................................................... xii Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Outlaw Nation ...................................................................................................... 8 Rhetorical Outlaws ............................................................................................. 10 Chapter 1: Mattie Ross’s Outlaw Economy in Charles Portis’s True Grit ....... 16 Charles Portis’s True Grit .................................................................................. 19 The Four Pillars of Mattie’s Personhood ..........................................................

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