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University Microfilms International 300 North Ze«b Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 4B106 USA St. John's Road, Tylor's Qrssn High Wycombe. Bucks, England HP10 8HR * — 77-31,906 KINCAID, Juliet Willman, 1941- THfi NOVEL AS JOURNAL: A GENERIC STUDY. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1977 Literature, modern University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan ww © Copyright by Juliet tfllltnan Kincaid 1977 THE NOVEL AS JOURNAL i A GENERIC STUDY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Juliet Willman Kincaid, A.B., M.A, ***** The Ohio State University 1977 Reading Committeei Approved By John M. Muste Arnold Shapiro Patrick Mullen Advisor Department of English To Ross Macdonald, yoga, and "nevertheless,” without whose help this dissertation could not have been written. ii VITA September 11, 1 9 ^ 1 . Born - Charleston, West Virginia 1963 . , . .A.B, ' Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia 1965-1967. .......... National Defense Education Act Fellow, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 1 9 6 7 ........... .. • M.A., University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 1967-1969.................. Instructor of English, Marshall.University, Huntington, West Virginia 1972-1977...... Graduate Teaching . Associate, Department of English. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATIONS "How I G.et My Students to .Love Me." Moreover. Spring 197^. "Juliet and the Jesus Freak." Moreover. Srping 1975. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field1 English Literature Modern British and American Literature, Professor John M; Muste Nineteenth Century British Literature. Professor James Kincaid American Literature to 1900. Professor Richard Weatherford The Novel, Professor Daniel Barnes iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION . ............. ....... VITA . ........... ......... Chapter I. PARADIGMS. ? Of the N o v e l ........ ........... Of the Journal .................. Of the Novel as Journal.......... II., THE'DIARY DEVICE ............ .. To Implement Plot, ........ To Add Verisimilitude............ To Shift Point of View . , . III. "THE SOUL IN ACTION" . The Spiritual Diary ....... The Confession................. The Psychological Novel. ...... Change as a Common Denominator . ‘ IV. THE INTELLIGENTSIA ........ Philosophical Novels ............ Novelists oh the Novel ...... Conclusions .............. BIBLIOGRAPHY , . CHAPTER I — PARADIGMS < • , A diary-hovel is not a rare thing. People around the world have written them and have been writing them almost since the novel itself came into existence. But critically the hybrid form has been neglected. To be sure, there are articles on individual diary- novels, studies of diary-novels written by a single author* and indeed one study of selected French nou­ veau vague novels, many containing diaries. Still, no one has written a systematic study of the diary in the novel. To redress the neglect of this special type of fiction, I have therefore written this dis­ sertation. Here, in the initial chapter, I will establish the fdundation for the rest of the study. Specifically, through presentation of a set of abstract qualities, or paradigms, for the novel and for the journal,1 I will build a third set of paradigms for' the novel as journal in order to establish that it is a legi- •timate sub-genre of the novel, as worthy of study as the frequently discussed epistolary novel. The con­ clusions of this chapter will form the foundation 1 ■ .2 for the rest of .the dissertation which concents itself • with the functions of the diary in a broad range of novels2 and generally with the relationship of form and 4 content in fiction. In the second chapter, for instance,. I will concentrate on the mechanical uses of the diary in the novel and deal with such works^ as Richardson's Pamela. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Camus' The Plague. Joyce's. The Portrait of the Artist, and Stegner's The Spectator Bird. In the third chapter I will deal with the frequent association of the diary-novel with assorted types of psychological novels including Gide's The Pas­ toral Symphony. Updike's A Month of Sundays. Dostoyev­ sky's Notes from Underground. Kaufman's Diary of a Mad « Housewife and numerous others. In the fourth and final chapter, before stating conclusions, I will focus on the special use of the diary-novel. for philosophical and theoretical purposes. Important works discussed include Sartre's Nausea. Bellow's Dangling Man, Gide's The Counterfeiters. Huxley's Point Counterpoint. Les^ * sing's The Golden Notebook, and Moravia's The Lie. Without further introduction, then, I shall begin my examination of the diary in the novel. Of the Novel Perhaps the idea of, establishing paradigms or patterns for two such sprawling genres as the novel and the journal is presumptuous for, like all 3 abstractions, these paradigms do not bear much resemr blance to,the individual novels that you and I read. But these paradigms are, like the novels themselves, . convenient fictions, not at all real but with a lot ... * * of truth in them. I wiil begin with the end. In the terms of Frank Kermode, the novelist like the prophet of apocalypse proceeds with a sense of an ending, if not perfectly defined in advance then at least approximate. Fictions are "in concord" with their endings.** Just as the prophet interprets history in the light of his fore­ gone conclusion— the precise date of the second coming- so the novelist operates in such a fashion that his completed work operates within the framework estab­ lished by its ending. To be satisfying aesthetically the book should hang together* all preceding action ‘ must get the reader to the end which, once read, is seen as the logical outcome of all that went before, no matter how surprising it may seem upon the initial reading of it. Fo'v example, the reader is perhaps saddened by the death of Catherine at the end of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. but the reader does riot reject that conclusion because it is in the nature of fiction, especially fiction about war; that the worst possible thing will happen. In addition, 'Hem- ♦ i * ingway has never permitted us to forget Catherine's ■ • ^ narrow hips. He has built foreshadowing into the middle of the book (indeed, the very tone of the work from the start communicates to the reader that this is a sad book, one likely to end in sadness) which makes the conclusion fitting, which ties.the novel into a coherent, logical structural whoie. In other words, with the novel often the tail wags the dog. To clarify furtheri just as the prophet interprets history in such a way as to predict his particular ' version of the apocalypse, as Kermode notes, so the novelist creates a history for the reader. Actually, most writers, not just novelists, proceed in the same waiy. A learned colleague of mine whose studies focus on documentary writings of the Early American period has pointed out that nearly every kind of writer— the biographer, the autobiographer, the historian, the novelist— every kind but the true diariBt, fills in the middle in termB of the end. Even when his subject is alive and kicking, a biographer works towards the conclusion of his subject's achievement. The autobiographer works towards making sense of what he is. The historian is out to prove that we are all going to hell in a handbasket— or he showB us how we have already arrived, Every writer seems to know how everything turns out and so he writes accord­ ingly. Only the diarist does not know how things 5 will turn out, But more of that later, » - I . On the basis of the preceding point, that the novel moves toward an ending corisistent with its parts, I would also like to restate the truism (having, of course, exceptions like all generalizations, but useful in setting up abstractions like these,para- * digms) that a novel has its structure imposed on it by the God-novelist from some, sort of reference point outside the world of the novel.

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