Becoming a “Nation That Is Not a Nation”: National Image, Lost World Narratives, and American Antarctic Literature

Becoming a “Nation that is Not a Nation”: National Image, Lost World Narratives, and American Antarctic Literature by Matthew Carroll A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2017, Matthew Carroll ii Abstract This dissertation identifies the lost world narrative genre as being central to the history and development of American Antarctic literature, a connection which has not previously been explicitly identified, or explored in any sustained way. As a genre, lost world narratives render places that are “outside time,” which dovetails with the literary figuration of Antarctica as a place of “frozen” time. These facts converge in the lost world narrative of the American Antarctic literary tradition, in which the Antarctic lost world setting serves as a platform for a conservative, or static, national image of American society which is frequently grounded in discourses of evolution, including pre- Darwinian theories of racial difference, that are mobilized in particular to reflect historically contingent, ideologically-motivated ideas of masculinity and race. Such national images are conservative insofar as they foreground discourses which reflect the values and seek to perpetuate the social power of specific groups (namely, white men). Through its examination of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), Charles Romyn Dake’s A Strange Discovery (1899), Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Caspak trilogy (1918), H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (1936), and Marvel Comics’ Ka-Zar (1965-2011), the present work demonstrates that while these aspects provide a sense of cohesion to American Antarctic literature and do, in fact, help to distinguish it from trends in the Antarctic texts of other nations, ultimately that cohesion only represents the projection of a limited national image based on white masculine social hegemony in the U.S.. Despite this normative vision that they advance, however, these texts also exhibit a strong counter-current that manifests in different ways but always works to break down the surface cohesion provided by the conservative iii national images fostered by American Antarctic lost world narratives. iv Acknowledgements There are so many people who helped make this possible. First and foremost I need to thank my supervisors, Brian Greenspan and Brian Johnson. I cannot begin to tell you how much your guidance has meant to me over the past six years. You have both always been critical but kind at every turn. You have given me enough latitude to explore, but reined me in when I drifted too far. You have helped me get through personal and academic crises, and also helped me to celebrate my successes. You got me through the war. There are no other words than thank you, and those do not come close to what you deserve. I would also like to thank my Committee members, both past and present: Rob Holton and Franny Nudelman, who were on my Comps Committee; Adam Barrows and Sarah Brouillette, who were on my DRP Committee and have agreed to serve again for my Dissertation Defence; and Neil Gerlach and Jason Haslam, who are also serving on my Diss Defence Committee. I appreciate all of your valuable time and consideration. More generally, the English Department at Carleton University has been wonderful and supportive for my entire time at Carleton. Particular thanks to Paul Keen, Barbara Leckie, and Travis DeCook for their instruction and guidance, and Andrew Wallace for giving me the opportunity to still TA even though I was halfway across the country. A very special thanks to the administrative staff, notably Lana Keon and her recent successor, Priya Kumar, who have helped make jumping through the University’s hoops as painless as possible. I have been extraordinarily fortunate to have received funding from FGPA at Carleton, as well as SSHRC and OGS. I’m very grateful to Carleton University, the v Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Government of Ontario for the awards they have granted me, which were an absolute godsend. On a more personal note, there are so many other people that have made this possible, both directly and indirectly. I could not name them all even in another ten pages, but an especial few deserve to be singled out. I’m deeply grateful to the formative influences of my previous instructors at MUN who taught me how to write and how to think: Donna Walsh, Brad Clissold, and Danine Farquharson, as well as Fiona Polack, my fantastic MA Thesis supervisor. One other needs special mention. Andrew Loman has been an instructor, a mentor, and a friend to me. His continued encouragement has meant the world. My heartfelt thanks goes to my PhD cohort: Adam Benn, Alex Grammatikos, Aliesha Hossein, and Chris Doody. We shared an office, our classes, and the crucible of doing a PhD together. None of that is easily forgotten, nor will it be. I would be remiss if I did not mention my ex-wife, Sam, who supported me in applying for and completing the early years of this program, and who was willing to move halfway across the country with me and our son so that I could pursue this. I appreciate everything you did for me and Connor in those years. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family, who have been amazingly supportive and understanding of my dropping off the radar for months at a time while I worked on this, but especially my best friend Grubbie, my Mom and Dad, and my second parents Bob and Joyce. You have always, always had my back. I dedicate this work to Karen and Connor. You are my sun, my moon, and my stars, and you got me through the last year of Dissertation hell. I love you. vi Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 – Geographic and Absolute Horizons: The Antarctic and the Limits of American National Image in Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym........................40 Chapter 2 – The Unheroic Era: American Antarctic Literature at the Turn of the Twentieth Century ...............................................................................................................................75 Chapter 3 – The Weird and the Marvel-ous: Post-Heroic National Images in Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and Marvel Comics’ Ka-Zar ............................................139 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................197 Works Cited......................................................................................................................209 1 Introduction On the Origin of Theses Since the mid-1980s, the broad field of Antarctic studies, which has long been almost exclusively the domain of science, has expanded to give serious critical attention to cultural perspectives on the continent. Eminent Antarctic literary scholar Elizabeth Leane calls this shift the “cultural turn” in Antarctic studies (Antarctica in Fiction 6). In the last three decades, cultural engagement with the southern continent has manifested in two essential ways: first, through the creation of new Antarctic art (books, poetry, photography, music), encouraged in part by various national programmes, such as those of the U.S., Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as by new tourism opportunities (7); and second, through the increased academic attention that new and existing Antarctic works have attracted. What has emerged from both of these forms of cultural engagement with Antarctica is that, far from its reality as a barren and inhospitable place, the continent has rich mythological and semiotic roots dating back to the Ancient Greeks’ hypothesis that there must exist “a large southern land mass to balance that of the north” (Leane Fiction 26), which has deeply permeated historical conceptions and fictional representations of the region. Indeed, even in the fifteenth century “the belief in a temperate, inhabitable southern continent was widespread” (27). Although the existence of this temperate, hypothetical continent was ultimately dispelled following James Cook’s circumnavigation of the Antarctic circle in the 1770s and the official discovery of the Antarctica itself in 1820, the notion of a temperate or tropical Terra Australis Incognita 2 populated by “[m]utated humans, animals real and fantastic, and monstrous and demonic creatures” (27) persists even in the Antarctic literature of the 21st century. Another curious trend that has emerged from the subsequent study of Antarctic literary texts is that, although there are some common elements that recur, different nations have distinct Antarctic literary traditions. In fact, Antarctic literary criticism has generally tended towards using national frameworks to decode the continent’s symbolic resonances in specific cultural and historical contexts. As Elizabeth Leane claims, approaching Antarctic renderings through various national lenses makes

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