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Reframing the Subject: Abjection in Twentieth-Century American Literature

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Reframing the Subject: Abjection in Twentieth-Century American Literature University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2004 Reframing the Subject: Abjection in Twentieth-Century American Literature Amy Leigh White University of Tennessee, Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation White, Amy Leigh, "Reframing the Subject: Abjection in Twentieth-Century American Literature. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2004. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4567 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Amy Leigh White entitled "Reframing the Subject: Abjection in Twentieth-Century American Literature." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Mary E. Papke, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Allen Dunn, Amy Elias, Stephen Blackwell Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I amsubmitting herewith a dissertation by Amy Leigh White entitled "Reframingthe Subject: Abjection in Twentieth-Century American Literature." I have examinedthe final paper copy of this dissertation forform and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degreeof Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. We have read this dissertation Accepted forthe Council: Vice Chancellor an Graduate Studies REFRAMING THE SUBJECT: ABJECTION IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Amy Leigh White May 2004 ii Copyright © by Amy L. White 2004 All rights reserved. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To those who have affirmedmy selfin multiple ways, I would like to say thank you: To Gloria Ceteznik and Rolynn Anderson, high school English teachers who allowed me to fall in love with the subject. To the followingEnglish professorsat Seattle PacificUniversity, who provided me with a strongfoundation in the discipline, were outstanding models of how to integrate faith and learning, and encouraged me to pursue graduate education: Dr. Luke Reinsma, Dr. Mark Walhout, Dr. Rose Reynoldson, Dr. Fan Gates. And particularly to Dr. Janet Blumberg, whose courses introduced me to Kristeva and Lacan and inspired a love forliterary theory, who shared her lifein and out of the classroom, and who encouraged me to get this degree and be a teaching, writingChristian feminist. To the followingprofessors at WesternWashington University, fortheir kindness, mentoring, and recommendation that I pursue this degree: Dr. Donna Qualley, Dr. Nancy Johnson, and particularly Dr. William (Bill) Smith, forthe outstandingcourse in teaching composition. To my professorsat the University of Tennessee, forchallenging graduate courses that developed my understandingof scholarship and teaching: particularly to Dr. David Goslee, Dr. Stanton Garner, Dr. Allison Ensor, and Dr. Howard Pollio, whose class in existential phenomenology was vital to the development of this project. iv To my doctoral committee, fortheir wisdom, time, and direction in improving this work: To Dr. Stephen Blackwell, foryour willingness to join the project and for your perceptive insights, particularly on Nabokov. To Dr. Amy Elias, for directing my reading in postmodemism, forpushing me to remember the "big picture," and for your tough questioning of my purpose and methodology. To Dr. Allen Dunn, for your course in modernist/postmodernisttheory, your directing me toward object-relations psychology, and your knowledge of psychoanalytic theory and philosophy which was immensely helpful. And especially to Dr. MaryPapke, forcourses in American Literature and James/Wharton that I thoroughly enjoyed,for first steering my James paper toward abjection and loaning me Kristeva' s Powers of Horror, foryour help in planning this project, for your carefulediting of every word and split infinitive,and for your support and encouragement during my time at the University of Tennessee. To the friends who have walked with me during these years in Knoxville: To Valerie Ling and Shelley Woods, for your consistent friendship, love, and Thursday night laughter and prayers. To Mi Yong Kim-Hawkins and Shannon Campbell, foryour support. To the ultimate frisbeefolks, forproviding me with much-needed breaks from academia and many funhours by the river in sun, rain, and wind. To friends fromSeattle who continue to cheer me on: Jammie Shreve, Carrie Conklin, Julie Gerbracht, and Lindsay Flowers. And particularly to Amy Hammontree, Tricia Patterson, and Rachel Snyder, forstaying close even after I switched coasts. Your lifelongfriendship is a source of deep comfort, understanding, and joy. To MaryMcMillan Terry, whose friendship has been God's best surprise for me in Knoxville. Our conversations about abjection and selfhoodhave helped this project in V numerous ways. Your intellect, your enthusiasm, and your encouragement have sharpened my thoughts and provided much joy since August of 2000. To Doug Terryas well, for your friendship andsupport. To my grandparents,Howard and Mary Kitts and Ernestand Joanna White, for your unconditional love and for letting your homes always be my own. To Grandmother and Grandma, foryour constant love, carepackages, and encouragement while I worked on this "big paper." For Granddaddy, whose spirit during sickness and death offereda vivid illustration that the self is not equal to the abject body. And to Grandpa, for your lifelongexample of selflesslove to God and others. To Deborah and Calvin White, Mom and Dad, who have helped and supported all of my efforts, both academic and personal. Thanks for the books, the education, and the example of valuing graduatestudy. I am immensely gratefulfor your encouragement, guidance, and friendship. Your constant love is the foundationof my selfand continues to reflectthe best in me. ''Thank you" is never enough forall you have given me. To God--my Author and Audience: forblessing me with all of the above­ mentioned people, forcarrying me through long semesters and difficult weeks, for continually replacing my disappointment, fatigue, confusion,and near-sightednesswith sufficientgrace, strength, wisdom, and perspective--for all the tangible reminders of your love. For your incarnationand its model of abjection as the prerequisite to relationship. For being the Word, and Thou, who makes me I. "Not that we are competent to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God." (II Cor. 3:5) vii ABSTRACT In response to major societal change in the earlyyears of the twentieth century, modern psychology suggested new ways of thinking about selfbood. One's relationship with oneself, one's subjectivity, came to be viewed as being processedthrough a matrix of factorsthat the self is subject to. The notion of the Cartesian"self' was thus seriously questioned. Is there an essential self? To what extent is self conditioned by environment? Can we know ourselves? If not, is the self worth talking about? Making these social, psychological, and philosophical challenges to the subject visible, abjection in twentieth-century literature shows authors examining these questions in their treatment of literary subjects. According to Freud, the basis of selfbood is an identificationof the self in the eyes of an Other. Identity is thus established through relationship. The prerequisite to relationship, however, is the selfs process of mapping its own psychologicalboundaries. While this individuation, parallel to Jacques Lacan's mirror phase, occurs in infancy,the self must also guard against later challenges to unity. Any encounter that tests the boundary of selfbood challenges the self to engage in abjection, or the separation from what it is not. In Julia Kristeva's theory of subjectivity, the abject represents what is cast aside as neither subject nor object. The psychological state of abjection, then, may be produced when one experiences a lack of recognition or misrecognition froman Other that leaves one's self feelingcast out, cast down, or cast aside--in effect,beside one's self viii In this project I examine portrayals of the abject in novels written by authors in differentdecades of the twentieth century: James, Olsen, Nabokov, DeLillo, and Morrison. Related to parenting, children, love, death, madness, and criminality, abjection is necessarily involved in literature's primary themes. The theory of abjection also provides a method for analyzing variables that affecta person's ongoing experience of being a human subject: gender, economic status, social class, race, and the corporeality of the body. These categories are linked, in a theory of the abject, by the core psychological factorof an unsettled subject. In highlighting the distinction between thinking and being, between self-consciousness and identification fromand
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