Autobiography As Repetition in the Works of Walker Percy. Edward Joseph Dupuy Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College

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Autobiography As Repetition in the Works of Walker Percy. Edward Joseph Dupuy Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1993 Autobiography as Repetition in the Works of Walker Percy. Edward Joseph Dupuy Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Dupuy, Edward Joseph, "Autobiography as Repetition in the Works of Walker Percy." (1993). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5498. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5498 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographicaily in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9401519 Autobiography as repetition in the works of Walker Percy Dupuy, Edward Joseph, Ph.D. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col.,1993 UMI 300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS REPETITION IN THE WORKS OF WALKER PERCY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Edward Joseph Dupuy B.A., St. Joseph Seminary College, 1980 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1989 May 1993 Acknowledgments Novelists, we are told, project parts of themselves into the characters they create. They disperse or fracture themselves into their various works. Critics, on the other hand, work in an opposite direction. They take what others have given them and try to fashion a whole from disparate parts. Contrary though their motions may be, both a novel and a work of criticism strive for the same goal. They try to offer something inviting and enduring. If this work has anything of those qualities, it is largely because of those from whom I have received so much. Thus, I wish to thank my parents, whose abundant generosity during these last six years of graduate study has helped me stay focussed on my work. To my wife, Jan, I say thanks for everything, but especially for the time and support I needed to get this work done. Although she endured a rigorous schedule of work and children during this last year, she still found time to help me with my work. To our three children—Benjamin, Madeleine, and John—I say thanks for enduring a closed study door. My dissertation committee at LSU has been equally generous. James Olney’s wisdom and encouragement offered themselves as quiet guides. And John R. May’s keen eye challenged me to sharpen my prose. Thanks, too, to Peggy Whitman Prenshaw, John Lowe, John Whittaker, and David H. Smyth. Professor Lewis P. Simpson, who was not on my committee, nevertheless offered his valuable comments and encouragement, as did Patrick Sam way, S.J. and Fred Hobson. Sr. Jeanne d’Arc Kernion, O.S.B. and Mrs. Jennie LeBeau kindly proofread the typescript for me. The monks of St. Joseph Abbey and Seminary not only gave me a foundation in the Liberal Arts several years ago, but also provided me this last year with a quiet place to work. Fr. Matthew Clark, O.S.B., was kind enough to lend me his computer, and Fr. Adrian Hovey, O.S.B., helped set it up. On the business of computers, I am most grateful to Mr. Rene B. deLaup, whose wizardry and expertise saved me countless hours of work, and to Mr. Marc Fluitt, who lent me a laser printer. Mrs. Mary Bernice Townsend Percy was very generous with materials such as audio and video tapes that came from her private collection. For those, and for giving me a copy of Henry Kisor’s memoir, I offer my gratitude. I also want to extend a general thanks to the interlibrary loan staff at Middleton library at LSU and to the staff of the Southern Historical Collection at the Wilson library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Preface If it is true that critics are closet autobiographers, that whatever they write about someone else’s work inevitably bears the impression of their own lives and selves, then readers should be forewarned; you are undertaking an exploration into my own life. I first became aware of Walker Percy some time during my years at St. Joseph Seminary College, a small liberal arts college in Covington, Louisiana. This is the same school where Percy taught one year and where he delivered the commencement address in 1983. He was an acquaintance of the rector-president of the college—a "priest-sociologist"—and I saw them from time to time walking around the campus. I was not an avid reader during those years, so when I learned that Percy wrote novels, I did not rush out to get one of his books. I did have the occasion, however, to buy Love in the Ruins tor a friend of mine during the summer of 1979. I bought the book from The Kumquat, the bookstore in Covington owned by Percy’s daughter, Anne Moores. Mrs. Percy happened to be working in the store when I went in. After I paid for the book, she said, "Walker is working upstairs. He’ll be down in a few minutes if you’d like to talk to him." Being somewhat like Will Barrett of The Last Gentleman, an affable, albeit iv "addled young man," I declined. What was I going to say to this man? Why should I want to talk to him? So I took the book, wrote a note to my friend, a large part of which I copied from the dust cover—something about the "apocalyptic" nature of the work—and delivered it. Later on, I bought a paperback copy of the book for myself, read it, and became even more addled. I enjoyed the story, what I could make of it, enjoyed the descriptions of the "Love Clinic" and Tom More’s lapsometer, but I had no idea of what Percy was up to. All the same, I sensed that he was "onto something," a favorite phrase of his. So I read it again. Soon, I was hooked. I had to read his other works. I gradually realized that this man was writing about me! It was not an altogether pleasant realization, for, if you know Percy’s characters, you know that they are a rather wounded lot. How could he know me so well? How could he show me my own wounds? Thirteen years and one graduate degree later, I seek an answer to those questions in this study. I return, then, to the place I began. I think it is accurate for me to say that it was through reading Walker Percy that I ever came to do graduate work in English. I would like this study, the culmination of that work, which is also a beginning, to be seen as a tribute to him whose work has opened new possibilities for me. I can only hope that it is a fitting tribute. Table of Contents Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................... ii Preface ........................................................................................................................ iv List of Abbreviations .............................................................................................. viii Abstract ...................................................................................................................... ix Introduction .......................... 1 Chapter One Autobiography, Repetition and Percy ...................................................... 16 1. Autobiography: A Necessary Attempt at Limiting the Term 16 2. Autobiography and Time: Repetition .................................................. 20 3. Autobiography, the Novel, and Percy.................................................. 49 Chapter Two Repetition and A utos. The Unformulability of the Self ....................... 71 1. A Semiotics of the S elf ............................................................................ 71 2. The Openness of the Sign: Binx Bolling .......................................... 90 3. The Dislocated Self: Language, Place, and Will Barrett ......................102 Chapter Three Repetition and Bios. Surviving Life in a Century of Gnosticism and Death ...............................................................133
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