Upkeep: Maintenance in American Representations of Work, 1945-Present Brandon Benevento University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected]
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University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 4-25-2019 Upkeep: Maintenance in American Representations of Work, 1945-Present Brandon Benevento University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Benevento, Brandon, "Upkeep: Maintenance in American Representations of Work, 1945-Present" (2019). Doctoral Dissertations. 2120. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/2120 Upkeep: Maintenance in American Representations of Work, 1945-Present Brandon Benevento, PhD University of Connecticut, 2019 This study investigates maintenance as an under-theorized component of social criticism in American novels, 1945 to the present. In this, it contributes a literary argument to growing interdisciplinary study of maintenance. “Upkeep” argues that authors of novels use maintenance, often unconsciously, to link representation of characters working in discreet settings to larger systemic and structural critique. At the same time, authors often elide forms of maintenance, for example the upkeep of domestic space. As such attention to representation of maintenance offers a critical reading tool which illuminates a text’s political and cultural commitments and literary agenda. After establishing a range of questions articulated by maintenance studies, I employ “maintenance” as a reading device. First, I argue that Wright’s Native Son reimagines the Marxist base outside the traditional white productive sphere by setting Bigger Thomas in a basement job where he is responsible for heating the mansion of a rich white family. Second, I argue that white male-authored suburban novels depict a fantasy of (reversed) victimization by foregrounding the extent of upkeep responsibilities falling to white men. Third, I argue that The Shining depicts maintenance (of corporate property and practice) as a method by which white men are seduced by misogynistic, racist and patriarchal values. Fourth, I argue that US neoliberal rationality involves, unlike its Keynesian predecessor, a devaluation of maintenance visible in Housekeeping as well as in Marie Kondo’s celebrity. Last, I provide a coda that uses combined academic and creative styles to advance a series of arguments and concerns about maintenance, Brandon Benevento University of Connecticut, 2019 such as its status as satisfying activity, its proliferation across different types of work, its embeddedness in social systems and liberal media (real estate leases) and its problematic overlap with the constant growth of consumerism. i Upkeep: Maintenance in American Representations of Work, 1945-Present Brandon Benevento B.A., Saint Michael’s College, 2002 M.A., Wesleyan University, 2009 M.A., University of Connecticut, 2014 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy At the University of Connecticut 2019 ii Copyright by Brandon Benevento 2019 iii APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Upkeep: Maintenance in American Representations of Work, 1945-Present Presented by Brandon Benevento, B.A., M.A. Major Advisor__________________________________________________________________ Dwight Codr Associate Advisor_______________________________________________________________ Clare Eby Associate Advisor_______________________________________________________________ Chris Vials University of Connecticut 2019 iv Acknowledgements Thanks to you who toss your empty cans, sandwich wrappers and losing lotto tickets onto the cracked asphalt of my aging strip mall. Your small acts of human filth afford me, the landlord, something to clean when not writing. Also, the money you spend on beer, food and lotto keeps me afloat. The privileged view of social interdependency gained from picking up trash, and collecting rents, has informed this project from the beginning. A sincere thanks to the tenants, employees, contractors and customers indirectly underwriting this project. Thanks also to cars for a ripe sense of cognitive dissonance. At an early age I recognized that my love for cars didn’t jive with their isolating, environmentally damaging, sprawl producing nature. I have ever since struggled to form concrete positions; nary a one will be found in the vicinity of this dissertation. The UConn English department has graciously accepted my dissonant, trash-strew work since day 1. My officemates, especially Nicole Lawrence and Hayley Stephan provide expletive- laden collegiality which I already miss. Thanks to Eleanor Reeds for getting me through the first years of graduate study. Many professors and staff deserve special mention for their support, including Sharon Harris, Veronica Makowsky, Jerry Philips, Kathleen Tonry, Kathy Knapp, and Mary Udal. Thanks also to the student workers in Gina’s office, especially Julia Marrinan, Ali Oshinskie and Abby Rockefeller for their friendship, and for making the future bright. A college student for over two decades, I’ve had many extraordinary teachers. Thanks to Christina Root at Saint Michael’s College, and especially Clare Eby at UConn, for recommending nearly every novel discussed herein. No teacher has had the impact on my academic development as Chris Vials. In his courses and reading groups, Chris introduced the concepts and texts underpinning this project. Gina Barreca’s professional support, constant v heckling, friendship, and Monday lunches remain my favorite part of grad school. And endless thanks to Dwight Codr, my major advisor. A man who speaks in paragraphs about other people’s work, Dwight knew what I wanted to do before I did. Dwight, picking you as my advisor remains my best academic decision. I forgive your periodic escape attempts. Nice try. This project owes you a raving debt. Thanks to my wife, Amy, for supporting me in every way, for watering the plants, and for accommodating this clumsy and un-diapered monster I’ve patched together in our home office. It eats our time, chews the edges of our sanity, and leaves text all over the house. Sorry about that. Hopefully the next one will be cleaner. Amy, your love, friendship and the daughter you’ve given us are the best of life. That daughter, Hypatia, has become a patient, funny, smart and kind little person, in the time it’s taken me to write chapter or two. Many thanks to her non-negotiable demands: to dance to the Muppets, to walk to the train station, to read books and snack on the sofa. As the monster in the office grew, these small things showed truth in the cliché that having a child puts everything into perspective. Patia, I can’t thank you enough for showing up to this party. I’ve saved the obligatory reference to maintenance for the person holding my world together with constant acts of care. My aunt, Carol, has been a mainstay throughout my life. As my mother’s best friend she was there at every milestone and holiday. Carol, to see you become Patia’s best friend, to watch you teach her, and read and play and conspire together is wonderful. You embody the word family and I can’t thank you enough. Last, I dedicate this project to my mother, who died as it unfolded. Mom, losing your daily support and bottomless optimism is the worst of life. Some solace comes from seeing you in Hypatia and telling her about you. Still, your absence from our lives remains gaping. I was vi driven to this work by your absurd notion of the inherent value of books and thought and education. I stuck with it because you told me it was “the best thing I’d ever done.” I think that yellow end table I built you was pretty cool too, but I’ll take your word for it. Thanks, Mom. vii Table of Contents Introduction 1 A Case for Maintenance Chapter 1 41 Basement Blueprinting: Aspiration, Descent, and Maintenance in Native Son, The Street, and Invisible Man Chapter 2 100 Masculinity and Mass Maintenance: Dystopia, the Suburbs, and Upkeep in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and Player Piano Chapter 3 154 When Caretaking Goes Wrong: Maintenance and the Horrific Corporation in The Shining Chapter 4 179 Shedding Stuff: Neoliberal Possessive Individualism and Maintenance in Housekeeping and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Coda 1. “Very Well Contented”: 237 The Maintenance of Work (And the Work of Maintenance) in Robinson Crusoe 2. Flat Roofs and Long Leases: 247 Technologies of Maintenance at the Great American Strip Mall Origins 263 Sarah Winchester and Paris, in Connecticut. 1 Introduction: A Case for Maintenance [I]t takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that. -Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Red Queen to Alice. This dissertation uses the term “maintenance” and the related term “upkeep” in a capacious fashion, as work that keeps up utility systems, homes, factories, bodies, machines, relationships, empires, corporations, democratic institutions, and bathrooms, public and private. Comprised of caretaking tasks—wiping and fueling, feeding and fixing—maintenance keeps these categories in place, against various entropic forces. In short, maintenance keeps the there there, and the happening happening. The wide definition of maintenance used and generated in this dissertation provides a reading and writing practice that addresses work at both the granular level and in the context of larger systems and structures. By expanding the site of production across time and space, and blurring lines between production,