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RIDING WAVES OF DISSENT: COUNTER-IMPERIAL IMPULSES IN THE AGE OF FULLER AND MELVILLE A Dissertation by NICHOLAS M. LAWRENCE Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2009 Major Subject: English RIDING WAVES OF DISSENT: COUNTER-IMPERIAL IMPULSES IN THE AGE OF FULLER AND MELVILLE A Dissertation by NICHOLAS M. LAWRENCE Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Larry J. Reynolds Committee Members, Dennis Berthold M. Jimmie Killingsworth John H. Lenihan Head of Department, M. Jimmie Killingsworth August 2009 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Riding Waves of Dissent: Counter-Imperial Impulses in the Age of Fuller and Melville. (August 2009) Nicholas M. Lawrence, B.A., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; M.A., Western Carolina University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Larry J. Reynolds This dissertation examines the interplay between antebellum frontier literature and the counter-imperial impulses that impelled the era‟s political, cultural, and literary developments. Focusing on selected works by James Fenimore Cooper, Margaret Fuller, Francis Parkman, and Herman Melville, I use historicist methods to reveal how these authors drew upon and contributed to a strong and widespread, though ultimately unsuccessful, resistance to the discourse of Manifest Destiny that now identifies the age. For all their important differences, each of the frontier writings I examine reflects the presence of a culturally-pervasive anxiety over issues such as environmental depletion, slavery, Indian removal, and expansion‟s impact on the character of a nation ostensibly founded on republican, anti-imperialist principles. Moreover, the later works reflect an intensification of such anxiety as the United States entered into war with Mexico and the slavery debate came to increasingly dominate the political scene. Chapter I emphasizes the ideological contestations bred by the antebellum United States‟ westward march, and signals a departure from recent critical tendencies to omit iv those contestations in order to portray a more stable narrative of American imperialism. The chapter concludes by arguing that Cooper established an initial narrative formulation that sought to suppress counter-imperial impulses within a mainline triumphalist vision. Chapter II examines Fuller‟s first published book, Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, in the context of hotbutton controversies over expansion that informed the 1844 presidential contest; employing the metaphor of the dance as her governing trope for engaging unfamiliar landscapes, peoples, and even modes of community, Fuller placed persistently marginalized counter-imperial impulses at the center of her western travelogue. Chapter III discusses Parkman‟s sub-textual engagement with controversies surrounding the Mexican War; though thoroughly invested in conquest ideologies, Oregon Trail nevertheless resonates with the war‟s most popular negative associations. Chapter IV explores Melville‟s attunement to national ambivalences towards rhetorics of Manifest Destiny from the late 1840s through the early 1850s. During this stage of his career, Melville both payed tribute to the Anglo-American triumphalism freighting the antebellum era, and enacted a powerful articulation of the era‟s counter-imperial impulse. v To my son, Hayden Reese Lawrence vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful for the opportunity to acknowledge the many people to whom I am indebted. I want to begin by thanking the English Department faculty and staff members at Texas A&M, for their inexhaustible intellectual and emotional support, and constant willingness to answer questions, at every stage of my graduate studies here. Along these lines I especially want to thank Sally Robinson, the department’s outstanding Director of Graduate Studies, and on whose listening ears, sound advice, and overall good cheer I relied throughout the writing of my dissertation. I also want to give a special acknowledgment to Paulette Lesher, for so patiently and cheerfully answering my endless stream of questions throughout my time at Texas A&M. Thanks also to the English Department for the summer dissertation fellowship I was awarded in 2008; it was during that summer that my project really took shape, and I came to fully believe in what I was doing; thanks are due to the department also, as well as to the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, for providing me with invaluable opportunities to present my work to colleagues at seminars and symposiums throughout the writing of my dissertation. I have been continually grateful for the high level of generosity and intellectual community fostered by members of this English Department as well as across the field of English studies. Thanks to Susan Stabile, in whose amazing course on women‟s memoir writing the seeds of my Margaret Fuller chapter were planted, and who over the years has taught me much about being a reader and cultural critic. Thanks to Jeffrey vii Steele, for taking the time to offer feedback and advice on my treatment of Fuller at the American Literature Association conference in 2006. And a special thanks to the anonymous readers at Western American Literature, for their helpful feedback on my work on Francis Parkman‟s Oregon Trail, and for their decision to publish an excerpt of my chapter in their journal. I am delighted to be able in this space to acknowledge Joe Golsan, Ede Hilton, Pixie Wellington, and everyone I have worked with at South Central Review over the years, for providing me with so many opportunities to grow as a critic, an editor, and a multi-tasker; and speaking of the incomparable Joe Golsan, I would be remiss here if I did not give a shout-out to the 2008-2009 North Carolina Tar Heels, whose dramatic national championship run paced the homestretch of my dissertation in strange and exhilarating ways. Thanks also to the board members and artistic contributors to Stage Center Community Theater in Bryan, for the much-needed imaginative and social outlet away from academia, and for showing such confidence in me over these last several years. I am proud to call many of you good friends. Thank you, Douglas Brooks, for everything. Your intellectual vigor, breathtaking talent, personal warmth, and—most of all—your sense of life as an adventure never to be taken for granted, I will never forget. Doug, you were the kind of teacher that I will spend my lifetime trying to be. While a graduate student at Texas A&M I have been blessed by many friendships that will forever enrich my life. I especially want to thank Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Chris Morrow, Brad Thomas, Dawn Thomas, Shannon Peters, Sarah Peters, Antony Rintala, viii Amy Montz, Jeremiah Hickey, Meghan Gilbert-Hickey, Cody Barteet, Miranda Green- Barteet, Steve Terry, Gina Opdyke Terry, and Nicole McDaniel Carder. To the four incredible people who served on my dissertation committee I am of course especially and eternally grateful. Thanks to John H. Lenihan for the great conversations about the myths and realities of the American West early in the development of my project, and for pointing me in the direction of many historians whose work proved invaluable throughout the process. Thanks to M. Jimmie Killingsworth, who welcomed my wife and me to this department so graciously when we arrived, and from whom I have learned so much about argument, writing, and the American soul. Thanks to Dennis Berthold, whose door was always open to me during the writing of my dissertation, and whose generous and piercing feedback immeasurably improved the final product. To my committee chair, Larry J. Reynolds, whose even-handed and innovative scholarship, and overall professionalism, I will always aspire to emulate: I cannot say enough about how fortunate I feel to have you as a mentor and friend. Your uncanny sense of when to push me and when to provide emotional support, as well as your steady encouragement that I stick to my guns, made all the difference over the last few years. It is no exaggeration to say that without you, neither the conception nor the completion of this project would have been possible. During coursework as a Master‟s student at Western Carolina University, I recall a professor reflecting on the first day that in all likelihood, the reason we were sitting in that room at all was because someone had taken the time to read to us when we were ix children. To my father, Sheldon Lawrence and my mother, Linda Hamby, and to my stepfather Charles Hamby, I thank you all so much for always encouraging me not only to read, but to be as fair-minded and independent as I could be; I thank my three wonderful parents for the love and support you have always given me, and the unflagging faith you have shown in me, through good times and bad. I also want to thank my wonderful brother, Mychal Hamby, whom I love dearly, and of whose physical and intellectual talents, and kind heart, I have always been more than a little in awe. For my wife, Dana Eatman Lawrence (it was exciting but also really tough business, both of us finishing dissertations at the same time, wasn‟t it?), there are no words to sufficiently express the gratitude and undying love that I feel. I can only say here that through the best and darkest moments of this process alike, you have been a steady fount of love, patience, and encouragement that I could do this thing, or anything else that I set my mind to. Finally, I am so happy to be able to thank my son and eternal best buddy, Hayden Reese Lawrence, for making every day a surprise and an adventure, and for always teaching me what matters most in life.