“Singled out for Loss”: Narrating Lost American Origins, 1925-1991
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“Singled Out for Loss”: Narrating Lost American Origins, 1925-1991 Megan Elizabeth Haury Charlottesville, Virginia M.A., Georgetown University, 2004 B.A., University of Virginia, 2001 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Virginia December, 2015 ii © Copyright By Megan Elizabeth Haury All Rights Reserved December 2015 iii Abstract “‘Singled Out for Loss’: Narrating Lost American Origins, 1925-1991” argues that narratives of American national origin, far from Being static, singular historical experiences, reflect a process of constant and continuing revision. Twentieth century authors map transnational foundations of America through the construction of narratives formally and thematically centered on loss, which highlight the unstable nature of national origin itself, and offer a deep ambivalence aBout Both national identity and loss itself. Even in the act of restoring forgotten histories of origin that tie America to elsewhere materially, narratively, and culturally, the texts maintain an aesthetic of loss in an attempt to resist reinscribing the power dynamics of linear history and American myth that they hope to destaBilize. William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men (1980), Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House (1925), and Agha Shahid Ali’s A Nostalgist’s Map of America (1991) plot a diverse experience of American spaces, each text restoring violent and troubling histories to the origins of America. Whether in the novel, memoir, or through poetry, narrating lost histories undermines the staBility of national identity by questioning the singularity of founding America and the authenticity of claims for ancestry. The material world—space, landscape, artifact, architecture—serves a significant role in restoring lost histories in the texts, But the texts also demonstrate the ways in which the material world can be used either in service of undermining naturalized identity categories, or in fact, in solidifying those categories. Throughout the texts, America is “Singled Out for Loss,” a line from Ali’s poem “Beyond the Ash Rains”; the title suggests the ways that losses—cultural, material, imaginary, Bodily—have been a necessary aspect of iv founding America, and are marked as such throughout the texts. However, the title also indicates the way that by restoring lost and troubling histories of origin, the idea of the American nation remains in many ways exceptional, “singled out” in part through these connected histories of loss at its foundation. I argue that despite suggesting alternative sites of American origin, ranging from ancient to recent experiences in Asia, the CaribBean, and the Americas, the texts resist flattening multicultural inclusion of those new stories of origin in part by the focus on history as a narrative, performative process—an often ambivalent one that resists a singular experience. As the texts critique the narrative and material complexity of founding the nation, I contend that they offer a model of how to leave space for “lost” violent or trouBled origins without reverting to simplified narratives of American exceptionalism, achieved in part through the focus on loss as a central feature of national origin. v Acknowledgements This dissertation is a project that almost remained incomplete, and so first I want to give immeasuraBle thanks to my director, Eric Lott, for Believing in my dream to return to this project and finish my Ph.D. Being supported by Eric in restarting work on the dissertation made me Believe I could finish it, which in turn made it possiBle—and for that I am beyond grateful. Eric, your feedBack has Been immensely helpful throughout the years spent on this project, and I will treasure the thought that you put into helping my work progress. It has Been such a privilege to work with you. To my amazing committee members, Alison Booth and Caroline Rody, I give equally huge thanks for a similar Belief in me, and in the project—even through the roughest of rough drafts as my work restarted. That Alison and Caroline so willingly picked up work on the project after the intervention of several years means the world to me, and speaks so highly of their amazing support, both professional and personal. To read their feedback on the dissertation is so gratifying, most especially when it offers me very needed critique. Commentary from you Both on my project means more than you know, and I thank you for taking the time to offer it. To my outside reader Sarah Corse, your willingness to read my dissertation and offer such helpful feedBack in such a short window of time is so greatly appreciated. It was an absolute pleasure meeting you, and I am very thankful that you agreed to serve as a reader for my defense. Thank you for offering me an insightful view of my work from a different perspective. For the professors with whom I studied, taught, and worked at the University of Virginia—Elizabeth Fowler, Victor Luftig, Steve Cushman, Michael Levenson, Jahan Ramazani, Karen Chase, Paul Cantor, Rachel Most, Karlin Luedtke, Gordon Stewart, among vi many others who have crossed my path in some way—I am incrediBly grateful for allowing me to Be a part of your professional life. To experience such a supportive professional community, and to witness your engagement with your work has Been a gift to me. Thank you to everyone in the English Department, faculty, staff, fellow graduate students, and undergraduates, for the multitude of ways you have touched and influenced my professional and personal life. I have such gratitude for being included in your community during this time in my life. ImmeasuraBle thanks to the true friends that I made here, who supported my work life and home life more than they will realize: Gwen Kordonowy, Melissa Schraeder, Bethany Mabee, Lily Sheehan, and all the other welcoming peers I met through the years and got to know, whether on a teaching staff or outside of department life. You are all amazing, kind, impressive, thoughtful people and I am lucky to have gotten to know each of you. Fran Connor, our lunches over the years were the highlight of my week. Thank you for making this process seem possiBle, and even inevitaBle, and thank you for the humor and kindness you added to my life during school. I will so fondly remember this time. Finally, to my family: Beth and Cliff Haury, Mom and Dad, without your unceasing faith, support, and love, my life would Be so very different. I have no words to express my gratitude for the ways you have held me up, Big and small now and always—thank you. To my husBand, I cannot adequately thank you for the constant shifting and adapting and juggling and loving that made this dissertation happen amongst the craziness of our family life. Thank you for this, and I love you. To my sweet BaBies, Asher, Clementine, and Lola, this project is dedicated to you. You can do anything that you set your mind to in life. Love, Mom. vii Table of Contents Introduction: Nation Lost and Found 1 Chapter 1: “So I Went to the West Indies”: Narrative and Mastery in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! 18 Chapter 2: “Not a Distant Ancestor But Grandfather”: Family History and National Narrative in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men 65 Chapter 3: “Simply By Juxtaposition”: Possession and Loss in Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House 112 Chapter 4: “Every Silence in the World / Has Conspired with Every Other”: Cross-Cultural Loss in Agha Shahid Ali’s A Nostalgist’s Map of America 157 Coda: “Out of What Is Lost Grows Something Stronger” 192 Works Cited 198 1 Introduction: Nation Lost and Found You showed me the relics of our former life, proof that we’d at last found each other, But in your arms I felt singled out for loss. -Agha Shahid Ali, “Beyond the Ash Rains” (11-14) I will feel lost, Unhappy and at home -Seamus Heaney, “The Tollund Man” (43-44) All seeing is hooded with loss -Peggy Phelan, Unmarked (16) “An Originary Present” Benedict Anderson famously offers a reading of “the Biography of nations” as tied to personal biography in Imagined Communities, where he argues that biographies, both personal and national, implicate loss as the generative impulse: All profound changes in consciousness, By their very nature, Bring with them characteristic amnesias. Out of such oBlivions, in specific historical circumstances, spring narratives. After experiencing the physiological and emotional changes produced By puBerty, it is impossiBle to ‘remember’ the consciousness of childhood…How strange it is to need another’s help to learn that this naked BaBy in the yellowed photograph, sprawled happily on rug or cot, is you. (204) Growth of this “consciousness,” whether that is of the self or the nation, brings aBout this amnesia that narrative seeks to overcome; the loss, he claims, is exacerBated By the profusion of material evidence for the existence of continuity with that earlier consciousness—evidence that would at first seem to resist loss. Instead, what the Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali calls the “relics of our former life” (11-12) the material “proof” (12) of history that marks the continuity only further underscores the 2 aBsence of memory and the loss of the past: “in your arms I felt / singled out for loss” (13- 14) Ali writes in “Beyond the Ash Rains.” Anderson cites the material history of a person’s youth such as “Birth certificates, diaries, report cards, letters, medical records” (204)— together which, he claims, “simultaneously recor[d] a certain apparent continuity and emphasiz[e] its loss from memory” (204).