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The Hunting Motif in the Literature of the United States

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The Hunting Motif in the Literature of the United States The hunting motif in the literature of the United States: 1782-1992 Justin Bender Department Of English Studies University Of Stirling submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (C) Justin Bender 1995 ># ProQuest Number: 13916351 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13916351 Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract The thesis analyses a representative but by no means complete selection of American hunting texts from 1782 to 1992. The first chapter gives an overview of the history of hunting and important contemporary and related literature. It looks at characters such as Daniel Boone and David Crockett, assesses the changes hunting underwent and mentions the recent developments, such as the rise of the horror thriller. The following twelve chapters analyse novels and short stories by twelve different authors. The main research results are: 1) The establishment of a tripartite structure. Hunting texts can be divided into political, pro-hunting and anti-hunting texts. Pro-hunting text tend to have a self-confident first- person narrator. Anti-hunting texts tend to have a less confident third-person narrator. 2) The use of either an anthropocentric or a biocentric perspective. 3) The animal described in hunting stories is of exceptional size, danger, or beauty. One effect of this is an increased polarisation between hunter and hunted. 4) Several writers employ binary oppositions as a stylistic device, such as life versus death, bravery versus fear, or man versus animal. 5) The hunter is usually described as a lonely, ‘wifeless’ man, either without any relationship at all, or incapable of entering into a relationship. He has also an unusually high potential of aggression, an urge to kill. The diversity and versatility of the hunting motif as well as the large group of texts discovered, and listed in an appendix, demonstrates that hunting stories are an important part of American literature and culture. The feeling of happiness derived from the satisfaction of a wild instinctual impulse untamed by the ego is incomparably more intense than that derived from sating an instinct that has been tamed. The irresistibility of perverse instincts, and perhaps the attraction in general of forbidden things finds an economic explanation here. Sigmund Freud Civilization and its Discontents And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’ Genesis 1:26 Here the aim of the hunter is to take only the doomed surplus. If this can be done, breeding numbers will not be reduced, and hunting at the same level can continue indefinitely. Obviously, such hunting should take place early in the year, soon after breeding, when the population is at its highest. As the season progresses, and more natural mortality has occurred, the crop that can be taken declines. If the hunting is carried out after the main period of natural mortality, not only would there be fewer birds available, but the breeding population might also be reduced, and hence the number that can be hunted the following year. New Generation Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe (1987) Statement of Originality The undersigned hereby acknowledges that this thesis is solely an original work and any references henceforth used have been appropriately acknowledged. Justin Bender > :'h so' . "■'> ■ ■ A cknowledgements This thesis was written at the Department of English Studies at the University of Stirling from October 1992 to June 1995. During this period I was morally and financially strongly supported by my parents Heinz and Christa Bender. Without their help this thesis would not have been possible. In times of crisis Prof. David Punter and Mr Martin Gray from the Department of English Studies helped by reading and commenting on my work. I am also indebted to Dr Nicholas Royle who, in the critical theory seminar which he taught during the spring term in 1995, has given me many helpful ideas and new insights into literay texts. From February 1995 onwards I was supervised by Prof. Dr. Grahame Smith. He provided the so urgently needed dialogue and constructive criticism. For this, and for the respect and friendship with which he treated me, I am deeply grateful to him. I would also like to thank my friend Oliver Gebauer in Hanover, Germany, for his excellent advice and help with computer and software questions. The way in which he arranged the thesis for me on the computer was “simply the best”, and has saved me an enormous amount of time. Stirling, June 1995 Table of contents ___________________________________________________________ I T a b l e o f c o n t e n t s 1. HUNTING IN NORTH AMERICA: A HISTORY................................................ 1 2. THE FIRST DOUBTS: H. ST.JOHN DE CR^VECOEUR............................... 33 3. GOING WILD: COOPER’S THE PIONEERS................................................. 47 4. SUICIDAL FANATICISM: MELVILLE’S MOBY-DICK.................................... 71 5. KILLING FOR PLEASURE: BENEDICT REVOIL.......................................... 90 6. GLORIFYING THE HUNT: THEODORE ROOSEVELT............................... 102 7. THE ART OF KILLING: ERNEST HEMINGWAY ......................................... 111 8. THE DYING WILDERNESS: WILLIAM FAULKNER.................................... 144 9. MENTALLY DERANGED: MAILER’S GRIZZLYHUNT................................ 168 10. SIMPLY HORRIFYING: BENCHLEY’SJAWS ........................................... 187 11. THE FEELING OF UNEASE: RAYMOND CARVER.................................. 205 12. HORROR AGAIN: GODEY’S THE SNAKE................................................223 Table of contents II 13. SAVING THE BEAR: CURWOOD’S THE GRIZZLY KING........................ 239 14. CONCLUSION............................................................................................ 248 15 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AMERICAN HUNTING TEXTS.................... 270 16. BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................... 272 Hunting in North America: a History 1 1. H u n t in g in N o r t h A m e r ic a : a H is t o r y When the first European settlers reached Chesaspeake Bay on May 6, 1607, they were surrounded by nothing but wilderness and dense woodland, with an hitherto unknown abundance of game and fish. The vast forests were seen as dark, hostile, dangerous, threatening and impenetrable, a feeling partly due to the lack of vision and the subsequent lack of control felt while being in the woods. Seventeenth and eighteenth- century descriptions of the American forest as a nearly unsurmountable wilderness with many hitherto unaccounted dangers all create a climate of hostility. Roderick Nash in his extensive analysis Wilderness and the American Mind argues that Good vision was early man's competitive edge in the struggle for existence. Coupled with his brain it enabled him to anticipate, plan ahead, and survive....With his eyes early man bought time and the chance to think. Sight (and openness) meant security. It followed that early man preferred an open environment, where he could employ his vision and his brain, to the shadowy wilderness. In the forest or jungle keen sight counted for little. There the race usually went to the smellers, the hearers, and the physically powerful, and man did not rank high in these categories.1 What Nash states for early man is equally valid for the first Europeans hunting in North America. Hunting conditions were completely different from anything the immigrants had experienced in Europe. There were no vast clear areas, and neither "vision" nor "security". Compared to the European collective a different and individual way of hunting full of risks and dangers had to be developed in order to adapt quickly to the huge wilderness. This is a point of vital importance for a proper understanding of the relation between hunting and wilderness in North America until the middle of the nineteenth century, a relation which is characterized by struggling and fighting for survival. Hunting in North America: a History 2 The importance of vision in hunting is stressed by the Spanish twentieth-century philosopher and hunter Jose Ortega y Gasset in his passionate defence of the chase Meditations On Hunting , written in 1942: He [the hunter] does not believe that he knows where the critical moment is going to occur. He does not look tranquilly in one determined direction, sure beforehand that the game will pass in front of him. The hunter knows that he does not know what is going to happen, and this is one of the greatest attractions of his occupation. Thus he needs to prepare an attention of a different and superior style - an attention which does not consist in riveting itself on the presumed but consists precisely in not presuming anything and in avoiding inattentiveness. It is a "universal"
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