Lost Ladies: the Isolated Heroine in the Fiction of Hawthorne, James, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner
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University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 1973 LOST LADIES: THE ISOLATED HEROINE IN THE FICTION OF HAWTHORNE, JAMES, FITZGERALD, HEMINGWAY, AND FAULKNER SHARON WELCH DEAN Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation DEAN, SHARON WELCH, "LOST LADIES: THE ISOLATED HEROINE IN THE FICTION OF HAWTHORNE, JAMES, FITZGERALD, HEMINGWAY, AND FAULKNER" (1973). Doctoral Dissertations. 1022. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/1022 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 73-25,782 DEAN, Sharon Welch, 1943- LOST LADIES: THE ISOLATED HEROINE IN THE FICTION OF HAWTHORNE, JAMES, FITZGERALD, HEMINGWAY, AND FAULKNER. University of New Hampshire, Ph.D., 1973 Language and Literature, modem University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1973 SHAMON WKLCH DKAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. LOST LADIES* THE ISOLATED HEROINE IN THE FICTION OF HAWTHORNE, JAMES, FITZGERALD, HEMINGWAY, AND FAULKNER by Sharon Dean B.A., University of New Hampshire, 1965 M.A., University of New Hampshire, 1969 A DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate School Department of English June, 1973 This dissertation has been examined and approved. Dissertation director* Philip L. Nicoloff, Prof. of English Carl Dawson* Aeso. Prof. of English Hugh M. Potter III* Asst. Prof. of English l l Charles E. Clark* Asso. Prof. of History Peter S. Pemald* Asso. Prof. of Psychology Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to the University of New Hampshire for a dissertation grant-in-aid (1971) which enabled me to begin this study and to my doctoral committee for their helpful guidance, I wish especially to thank Dr. Philip Nicoloff who devoted many hours to reading and suggesting alterations in the manuscript and without whom this project might never have come into being. i i i TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................... v I. INTRODUCTION i THE LOST L A D Y ............... 1 1. If Women Had Other Objects ......... 1 2. Critical Schools and Methods ..... 6 3. A Note on the T e x t s ............... 10 II. ANGEL OR DEVIL? HAWTHORNE'S HESTER, ZENOBIA, AND MIRIAM....................... 11 III. PORTRAITS OF A LOST LADY* JAMES'S THE WINGS OF THE DOVE AND THE GOLDEN B O W L ........... 41 IV. GOLDEN GIRLS AND LOST WOMENi THE HEROINES OF F. SCOTT FITZGERAID .................. 96 V. THE LOVELY CREATURE IN THE GREEN HATi THE HEROINES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY........ 12fe VI. WILLIAM FAULKNER AND THE "HEART'S DARLING" . 158 VII. YOU DON'T MARRY SEMI RAMIS . .......... 186 FOOTNOTES............... 202 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................. 231 i v ABSTRACT The plight of the lost lady is captured in Hawthorne's The Marble Faun when Miriam Schaefer cries out that "when women have other objects in life, they are not apt to fall in love." In much of the best American fiction, women do not have other objects beyond the domestic. The source of the lost woman's dilemma, however, is that even the domestic role is denied her. Because she is a sexual threat or because love is impossible in a wasteland society, she is exiled by women who conform more than she, by men, and by the world as a whole. As a result of her exile, she seeks an impossible escape from isolation, most often via an illicit love relationship. When this fails, she accepts— or even chooses— her isolation and in doing so practices some form of martyrdom as the only role left her. Such a woman appears frequently in the works of Hawthorne, James, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner. She is represented specifically by Hawthorne's Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter, 1950), Zenobia (The Blithedale Romance. 1852), and Miriam Schaefer (The Marble Faun. 1859)» by James's Kate Croy (The Wings of the Dove. 1902) and Charlotte Stant (The Golden Bowl, 190^), by Fitzgerald's v Gloria Gilbert (The Beautiful and Damned. 1922) and Nicole Diver (Tender Is the Night. 1933)t by Heming way* s Lady Brett Ashley (The Sun Also Rises. 1926), Catherine Barkley (A Farewell to Arms. 1929)» and Maria (For Whom the Bell Tolls. 19^0), and by Faulkner*s Caddy Comp son (The Sound and the Fury. 1929). Laveme Shumann (Pylon. 1935)» and Charlotte Rittenmeyer (The Wild Palms. 1939)* The elements of sexuality, isolation, and sacrifice are the dominant characteristics of these women. They reveal not just the author’s vision of womanhood but also his vision of life. For Hawthorne and James, the social order must survive and the woman who threatens to destroy this social order, most often by ignoring its laws against adultery, must atone for her sin. The Hawthorne and James lost woman, therefore, accepts isolation for society rather than continuing to seek isolation from society. On the other hand, Fitzgerald does not so clearly endorse the value of the social . orderi his heroine pays tribute to the isolated moments of love and practices her renunciation more for an individual than for society as a whole. Like Fitzgerald, Hemingway believes in the worth of the isolated moment, but like Hawthorne and James, he sees also that this isolation can destroy. Where the Hawthorne and James woman sacrifices for the social order which is valuable and the Fitzgerald woman sacrifices for the individual, vi the Hemingway woman sacrifices for her lover because the social order is necessary if a male is to live productively. Finally, in Faulkner, the value of society is neither asserted nor deniedt when Faulkner's lost woman renounces, she does so in order that some one else, most often a child, may at least have a chance for survival in society if he chooses this over isolation. Hawthorne, James, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner all use the lost lady as a vehicle for exploring the conflict between isolation and society. She is an especially appropriate vehicle because of her limited feminine role. Where the man may live hi8 life, the female must surrender hers. Where the man may find fulfillment outside of love, the female may not and, what is more, either loses the love that temporarily sustains her or never finds love at all. By forcing his lost lady into this kind of plight, the writer stresses the importance of maintaining male and female uniqueness. He finds inspiration from his heroine and yet keeps her always at an idealizing distance so that she cannot demand too much of him or plunge him into the inertia a perfect love relationship might engender. Most important, the heroine, by suffering and by sacrificing, attains the necessary depth needed for tragic stature., v i i The lost woman is remembered precisely because she is left with nothing but pain and because she self lessly endures this pain with humility and with dignity. v i i i CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION! THE LOST LADY 1. If Women Had Other Ob.jects In Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Miriam Schaefer captures the essence of the dilemma that faces a type of woman in American literature who may appropriately be called the lost lady. "It is," she says, "a mistaken idea, which men generally entertain, that nature has made women especially prone to throw their whole being into what is technically called love. We have, to say the least, no more necessity for it than j men^j » only we have nothing else to do with our hearts. When women have other objects in life, they are not apt to fall in love” (659).