COPYRIGHTED by RUTH BELI, GOBER 1957 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE AMERICAN NOVELIST INTERPRETS THE STUDENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION BY RUTH BELL GOBER Norman, Oklahoma 1956 THE AMERICAN NOVELIST INTERPRETS THE STUDENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION APPROVED BY ÎSIS COMMITTEE TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION..................................... 1 II. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD.............................. 8 III. WILLA CATHER..................................... 46 IV. SINCLAIR LEWIS........................ 68 V, GEORGE SANTAYANA................................. Il8 VI. THOMAS WOLFE..................................... 142 VII. FINDINGS.......................................... 191 BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................. 204 iv THE AMERICAN NOVELIST INTERPRETS THE STUDENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION "For a century and a half, the novel has been king of 1 Western literature." It has both mirrored and influenced popular thought as it has found readers throughout the West­ ern world. "The drama and the poetry, but chiefly the novel, of America have risen to a position of prestige and of influ- 2 ence abroad seldom equaled in history." Consequently, the content of the novel is of concern to educators. The present study is concerned with the interpretation of the student of higher education in the United States as found in the work of certain prominent American novelists of the twentieth century. The procedure used in selecting the five literary writers included an examination of annotated bibliographies of the American novels published during the twentieth century. The formidable number of writers who have used student 1------------------------------------------------------------- Henri Peyre, The Contemporary French Novel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955]> 3. ^Ibid., 263. 2 characters indicated a need of delimitation. Many novels were examined, read, and evaluated. Finally, the decision was made to limit the study to only a selected few major novelists. Of the writers chosen, only their novels in which a student of higher education was cast in a major or in a significant minor role were considered. Each novel contained sufficient information about the college student in his milieu to give value to the interpretation of the novelist. The novels of each of the five writers were examined to determine just which were pertinent to the central pur­ pose of this research. An analysis of the content resulted in the exploration of three major areas; (l) the identifica­ tion of the student of higher education, (2) the educational experience, that which was basic and that which was incident­ al, and (3) the evaluation of the experience of higher edu­ cation. Bibliographies examined during the process of select­ ing the novels for this study were compiled by the following: 3 4 5 6 7 Crawford, Dickinson, Hart, Hoffman, Mott, Spiller and 3 Bartholow V. Crawford, Alexander C. Kern, and Morriss H. Needleman, Outline History of American Literature (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 3rd ed., 1$53). 4 Asa Don Dickinson, Best Books of Our Time, 1901-1925; Best Books of the Decade, l92b-l$35; Best Books of the Decade, l93b-1945 (New York; H. W. Wilson Company, l93l-194b). Barnes D. Hart, The Popular Book, A History of Ameri- ca's Literary Taste (New York; Oxford University Press, 1950). (Footnotes continued on next page) o and others. Because the Interpretation of the student in the nov­ el reflected, at times, the experience of the writer, con­ sideration will be given to the life span of each author. The five are listed in the order of the chapters in which they will be discussed: F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1940; Willa Cather, 1876-1947; Sinclair Lewis, 1885-1951; George Santa­ yana, 1863-1952; and Thomas Wolfe, 1900-1938. Each exper­ ienced life on the campus of a college or university, and each portrayed students in one or more novels. Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise "haunted the decade like a song, popular but perfect....a book which college boys really read is a rare thing, not to be dismissed idly in a moment of severe sophistication."^ It was a "novel based upon the author's intellectual confusions and liberated sex adventures,and indicated a change in American writing. It tells "the story of the illusions and disillusions of a __ g Frederick J. Hoffman, The Modern American Novel, 190O-I95O (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1951). — y - Frank Luther Mott, Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States (New York: MacMillan Company, 1947). 8 Robert E. Spiller, Willard Thorp, Thomas Johnson, and Henry Canby, eds.. Literary History of the United States, Vol. Ill (New York: Macmillan Company, 1948.) ^Glenway Wescott, "The Moral of Scott Fitzgerald," P. Scott Fitzgerald, The Man and His Work, ed. by Alfred Kazin (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1951), 119. 10 Edgar Kemler, The Irreverent Mr. Mencken (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 19$0 ), I32 . 4 young man in quest of himself. "Sinclair Lewis's Main Street.revealed how the in- 12 tellect was tortured in a small Minnesota town." In his address, "The Fear of American Literature," which Lewis d e ­ livered in Stockholm on December 12, 1930> when he became the first writer of the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, he characterized Thomas Wolfe's novel Look Homeward, Angel as "worthy to be compared with the best 13 in our literary production." Lewis's Main Street, when first published, "seemed to be fulfilling Henry Mencken's vision of a national literature, no longer imitative and timorous, that would represent a first hand examination of 14 the native scene in wholly native terms," Education was among the phases of American life which the novelists were free to examine. Characters in the fiction of the five writers are in­ volved in the educational process; they respond to it and their experiences become vivid to the reader. "One test of excellence in fiction is the creation of characters that n---------------------------- Heinrich Straumann, American Literature in the Twentieth Century (London: Hutchinson House, l9Sl)i 10b. 12 Kemler, op. cit., 131-132. 13 Harry E. Maule and Melville H. Cane, eds.. The Man From Main Street, A Sinclair Lewis Reader (New York: Random kouse, 1953}> 1). 14 Maxwell Geismar, The Last of the Provincials: The American Novel, 1915-1925 (London: Seeker and Warburg, 19^7)» TT: -------------- ----------- live in the imagination and stay with the reader as permanent acquaintances," writes Joseph Warren Beach. He lists among the characters which satisfy this test Eugene Gant and George Webber as interpreted by Thomas Wolfe. General Divisions of the Study Each of the five writers is treated in a different chapter. The focus is on the student of higher education as portrayed by the novelist in the specific novel indicated. Writer Student Novel F. Scott Fitzgerald Amory Blaine This Side of Paradise Nick Carraway The Great GatsGy Willa Cather Tom Outland The Professor's House Sinclair Lewis Carol Kennicott Main Street George Babbitt Babbitt' Martin Arrowsmith Arrowsmith Sam Dodsworth Dodsworth Ann Vickers Ann Vickers Gideon Planish Gideon Planish Neil Kingsblood Kingsblood Royal George Santayana Oliver Alden The Last Puritan Thomas Wolfe Eugene Gant Look Homeward, Angel Time and the River George Webber The Web and the Rock You Can't do Home Again --------1 5 Joseph Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 19^1 )> 18-19. 6 The college or university student as interpreted in the novels reveals different attitudes toward education. Among the students may be found satirists, affirmers, and seekers. The satirists attempt to bring about improvement by the use of derision, ridicule, or irony. The affirmers recognize inherent weaknesses but continue to assert their faith in the educational experience. The seekers have longed for more than they have been able to discover and are un- satisfied--yet they continue to search in the belief that education has something more profound which may be revealed. The time has come to discover in the brain-cells all the beauty and all the potential explosions that America has been discovering in its outer atoms. Our new Colum­ buses will sail the seas of education, literature, and the holy spirit of man. And what they discover may be some fabulous new continent within the skull. As the "new Columbuses" sail the seas of literature they may find in their anthologies of American writers works of each of the five novelists selected for this study. Each has made for himself a prominent place among the literary writers of the United States. Most anthologies now used in college and university classes in literature include their writings. Fiction is subjected to close study, because: Fiction, even more than poetry, music, or painting, sets everything in motion in us: our senses...our 1 5 -------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Viereck, "The Frontier Behind the Forehead," Current Issues in Higher Education (Proceedings of the Ninth Annual National Conference on Higher Education, 195^)» 22. 7 sensibility, our intellect, our religious, philosophical, and social views, our aesthetic joys, our desire to know ourselves better and to penetrate into other lives and to approve of ourselves in our favorite heroes.17 Since fiction has these potentials, the writer of the book length novel has an opportunity to reveal the life of a character in a significant manner. His interpretation of the student of higher education has value to those who are interested in American education. 17 Henri Peyre, op. cit., 7. CHAPTER II F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Two approaches to the interpretation of the student of higher education are represented in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby. Amory Blaine's educational experiences in the first novel are pre­ sented chronologically. Nick Carraway's college experiences in the second novel are revealed through his occasional ref­ erences to past events.