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Permeable Boundaries: Globalizing Form in Contemporary American and British Literature

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University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 4-2015 Permeable Boundaries: Globalizing Form in Contemporary American and British Literature Nancy Caronia University of Rhode Island, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation Caronia, Nancy, "Permeable Boundaries: Globalizing Form in Contemporary American and British Literature" (2015). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 343. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/343 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PERMEABLE BOUNDARIES: GLOBALIZING FORM IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AND BRITISH LITERATURE BY NANCY CARONIA A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2015 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION OF NANCY CARONIA APPROVED: Dissertation Committee Major Professor Ryan Trimm Richard McIntyre Peter Covino Nasser H. Zawia DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2015 ABSTRACT Efforts to define globalization often are delimited by concrete articulations focused on and about the economic and political processes within a global sphere. These processes dominate global studies in economics, feminism, history, law, sociology, and literature. “Permeable Boundaries: Globalizing Form in Contemporary American and British Literature” is an interdisciplinary literary study that explores how gender, racial, and ethnic categories are connected not through economic models, but through the subjective processes of agency, self-identity, and narrative making. These discrete processes of consciousness expand how globalization is imagined through the human condition. Engaging with American and British texts focused on the global cities of London and New York offers new ways to think about how marginalized individuals and communities make choices and view themselves as central protagonists in their lives. Globalization can be viewed as more than an economic construction that leaves those without capital on the margins as victims and rubes. This examination is about finding the means to embrace an English vernacular as more than a construction of Western hegemony that marginalizes those with no economic or political clout. I draw on feminist readings from second and third wave feminists in the development of this argument, but am not interested in a proscriptive fix that simply replaces a dominant gender or racial construct with another, just as constricting construction. Rather, I add to existing discussions of globalization and literary studies by raising questions of agency, identity, and narrative form in an effort to show how consciousness both influences and is influenced by the global sphere. The feminist readings are engaged with sociology, history, psychology, political science, law, as well as narratological theory that focuses on how narrative is formed through agency and self- identity. As case studies, my chapters offer readings of Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe (2001), Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003), Louise DeSalvo’s Casting Off (1987), and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One (2011). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project has been by turns challenging and rewarding due in no small part to those who have supported my work and my vision. First, I offer thanks to Professor Ryan Trimm for his professionalism and commitment to this project. Our conversations have fueled my passion for contemporary literary studies. Without his encouragement and enthusiasm, this dissertation would not have been possible. I offer my gratitude to Professor Richard McIntyre for his honest conversations, frank commentary, and support of my professional endeavors. Professor McIntyre made it possible for me to teach my first course in URI’s Honors Program and I will be forever grateful to have been placed in a classroom with URI’s most ambitious undergraduates. I am especially thankful for Professor Naomi Mandel’s support and encouragement to forge my own path within the academy. Professor Lynne Derbyshire has been a supporter both pedagogically and professionally, serving as a committee member to this project and offering support to the diversity initiatives I have undertaken on campus. I extend my thanks to Professor Peter Covino for his support of my scholarship, including publishing my research and writing an essay for Personal Effects: Essays on Memoir, Teaching, and Culture in the Work of Louise DeSalvo, a collection I co-edited with Professor Edvige Giunta, a colleague, mentor, and friend who has inspired my work in Italian American Studies. I would be remiss if I did not thank Professor Austin Busch and Professor Sharon Lubkemann Allen, whose pedagogical excellence and passion for comparative literary studies continue to inspire my own work in contemporary literary studies. I offer my gratitude to the friends and colleagues I have made at URI—Dr. Michael Becker, Professor Jenn Brandt, Steven Brown, Dr. Kim Evelyn, Rebekah Greene, Dr. Benjamin Hagen, Brittany Hirth, Professor Donna Hughes, Marcy Isabella, Professor Eva Jones, Professor J.C. Lee, Professor Rachel May, Dr. Sara Murphy, Professor Annie Russell, Professor Michael Starkey, and Anna Vaccaro. Your intellectual and gustatory sustenance is appreciated and I look forward to years of continued conversation, laughter, and good food. To Margaret Beatty, Cathy Chou, Carmel Ferrer, and Judy and Kim Herkimer—friends who have supported me with laughter, conversation, and the occasional fabulous meal—I offer my heartfelt thanks. iii Lastly, I offer my gratitude to URI’s Honors Program, my home base during the completion of this project. Sincere thanks not only to Professor Derbyshire, the Honors Program Director, but also to Professor Cheryl Foster, Professor Carolyn Hames, Brian Clinton, Deborah Gardiner, Caitlin Green, and Kathleen Maher—one could not ask for better colleagues. I only hope I am so fortunate in all my future endeavors. iv DEDICATION For my niece, Sabrina Marie Iraggi ~ No matter the distance, you are always close in my heart. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………. ii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………... iii Dedication……………………………………………………………………. v Table Of Contents……………………………………………………………. vi Introduction: From the Margin, Left of Center: Self-Definition in the Global City……………………………..……………………………………….…… 1 Chapter 1: Resisting Displacement in Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe………………………………………………………………….……… 36 Chapter 2: Narrating Female Choice in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane…………... 69 Chapter 3: Fierce: Female Appetite in Louise DeSalvo’s Casting Off…….... 115 Chapter 4: “Eating the Neighbors: Images of Gender and Race in Colson Whitehead’s Zone One……….……………………………………………… 163 Conclusion: Finding Grace…………………..……………………………… 200 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………. 211 vi Introduction: From the Margin, Left of Center: Self-Definition in the Global City The transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation and that always seems fraught with danger. Audre Lorde In “Permeable Boundaries: Globalizing Form In Contemporary American and British Literature,” agency is a central form of narrative making in contemporary fiction. Individuals who are normally objectified and marginalized are empowered by their ability to self-define and act rather than react. Objectification and marginalization by outside or oppressive forces are problems with which to deal, not modes of being that define worth. Life is viewed not through a dominant, oftentimes male, gaze, but through a lens of a self-defined agency.1 Instead of objects who have things happen to them or on them or about them, the protagonists in Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe (2001), Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003), Louise DeSalvo’s Casting Off (1987), and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One (2011) are subjects who articulate agency—the ability to define and shape their own lives—no matter their gender, class position, ethnic or racial categorizations. bell hooks argues that those who look for “legitimation” or “validation” outside their selves forfeit the “power to be self-defining” (Feminism 95). In giving up this right, the subject position is compromised, objectification becomes internalized, and agency is a reactive construct that supports a false notion of the self. Rather than thinking about agency as a byproduct of resistance or rejection to erasure, hooks insists that women 1In film, according to Laura Mulvey, females are portrayed as images of male fantasies, based upon both desires and fears. This one-dimensionality empowers men as active participants who maintain “a controlling and curious [male] gaze” in the construction of their fantasies, but disempowers women since they are viewed and represented as passive objects with no desire for sexual pleasure or agency outside of a man’s needs (8). 1 define their worth free from the judgment of an outsider gaze entangled by hegemonic power constructs. Agency becomes an individual subjective process that supports and is part of a multi-vocal community. Women do not acquire agency, but learn how to use the agency they possess. They are not supplements or gaps in otherwise dominant narratives; they create the dominant narrative. This view of agency is rooted in second wave feminism,
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