SENTIMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS: CONTEMPORARY SYMPATHY IN THE NOVELS OF GRACE LUMPKIN, JOSEPHINE JOHNSON, JOHN STEINBECK, MARGARET WALKER, OCTAVIA BUTLER, AND TONI MORRISON Jennifer A. Williamson A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Linda Wagner-Martin William L. Andrews Philip Gura Fred Hobson Wahneema Lubiano © 2011 Jennifer A. Williamson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JENNIFER A. WILLIAMSON: Sentimental Appropriations: Contemporary Sympathy in the Novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison (Under the direction of Linda Wagner-Martin) This project investigates the appearance of the nineteenth-century American sentimental mode in more recent literature, revealing that the cultural work of sentimentalism continues in the twentieth-century and beyond. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of “feeling right” in order to promote a proletarian ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery, this study explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental tropes and ideals. Despite modernism’s influential assertion that sentimentalism portrays emotion that lacks reality or depth, narrative claims to feeling— particularly those based in common and recognizable forms of suffering—remain popular. It seems clear that such authors as Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison apply the rhetorical methods of sentimentalism to the cultural struggles of their age. Contemporary authors self-consciously struggle with sentimentalism’s gender, class, and race ideals; however, sentimentalism’s dual ability to promote these ideals and extend identification across them makes it an attractive and effective mode for political and social influence. The authors in this study draw upon common sentimental themes such as vulnerable womanhood, motherhood and family, caregiving and domesticity, death and the fear of separation, and Christian salvation to establish sympathy for “Othered” members of society. iii Sentimental literature not only helped mark private and public spaces, but it also redefined the family as more than just a biological or economic unit—it bound the family in terms of affection and love. Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, contemporary authors expand the definitions of family and kinship in order to develop sympathy for those who have been cast as outsiders and “Others.” This study examines how contemporary authors modify the sentimental mode through narrative appropriation—adopting the perspectives and voices of “Others” and figuring them as legitimate objects of reader sympathy. Many current sentimental works appropriate the subjectivity of the “Other” in a form of colonial or postcolonial sympathy that assumes or critiques a universal western perspective that believes its power of sympathy to be so strong that it can effectively inhabit the “Others” it seeks to help and improve. iv For my mother v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my committee, without whom this project would not have been possible. I am grateful to Phil Gura for introducing me to sentimentalism and encouraging my pursuit of expanding the scholarly analysis of this subject. I would like to thank Fred Hobson for introducing me to the writings of the Lumpkin family, for many inspiring office chats, and for helping me frame relationships between class and race. I deeply grateful to Wahneema Lubiano for her incredible mentorship and support, for offering countless resources to enrich this project, and for asking questions that helped me reframe my analysis in ever more productive ways. Thank you to Bill Andrews, who encouraged me in my study of slave narratives, who shared his knowledge and helped me, in turn, to see myself as an authority with something to say, and who was so generous with his time and support. I am forever indebted to my director, Linda Wagner- Martin, whose mentorship, whose constant encouragement mixed with gently supportive reminders of her high expectations, and whose tireless efforts on my behalf helped me to develop as a scholar, writer, and person. I am very grateful for the support that this project has received along the way from the Rebekah F. Kirby English Literature Fellowship, the Thomas F. Ferdinand Summer Research Fellowship, the Deborah Warren Shelton Graduate Travel Award, the Center for the Study of the American South Graduate Summer Research Grant, the Northeast Modern Language Association Summer Fellowship, and the Graduate Student Opportunity Fund. I am also grateful to the editors of Modern Language Studies for publishing an early version of Chapter Four. vi Thank you to my Americanists Writing Group, who kept me sane and connected to the world during the arduous, closeted process of writing the dissertation. Your cheerful humor, your willingness to talk about the important things in life—whether it had to do with our dissertations or not—and your impressive, inspiring writing gave me encouragement when I needed it and helped me believe that I could finish what I had started. To Harry Thomas, Angie Calcaterra, Kelly Bezio, Ashley Reed, and Ben Bolling—I love you, I thank you, and I will miss our meetings and the joy they brought to my weeks. Thank you to Harry Thomas, my friend, confidante, officemate, co-teacher, co- conspirator, scholarly sounding board, editor, TV critic, comics pusher, comforter and supporter, hilarious sidekick, voice of reason, advice giver—I am forever grateful to the powers that brought us together my first week of graduate school. You are the reason I’ve survived this crazy process with my whole self intact. I look forward to more adventures with you. There are so many wonderful friends, both in graduate school and in other walks of life, to whom I am forever grateful, including Kasey Cain, Megan Buyrn, Christine Carpino, Joe Cawley, Jon Cochran, Robert Lipscomb, Caroline Adelman, Bill Velto, Meredith Farmer, Sarah Marsh, Kelly Ross, Cindy Current, Jen McDaneld, Lynn Badia, Jess Martell, Zack Vernon, Jennifer Larson, Leslie Davison, Marc Cohen, Meredith Malburne-Wade, Teresa Perez, Cheryl and Albert Meyer, and Billie Akman. Thank you to my wonderful family, who has been excited for me along each step of this journey. I am grateful to my father, who is my trusted sounding board and big picture guy, my constant and reliable source of support, who has always encouraged me and helped me believe in myself. I send my love and deepest thanks to my Granddad Williamson and Grandma Zion for their unflagging support. Thank you to my brothers and sisters-in-law as well as my nieces and vii nephews for your love as well as playtime “work breaks”—John and Brenden, Eric and Becky, and Owen, Avery, Eleanor, Connor, Ali, and Jack. Thank you to Aunt Martha for always being in my corner. Thank you to Uncle Mark and Aunt Julie for your constant support and for offering fun distractions when I needed a break. Thank you to Uncle Paul and Aunt Cathy, Uncle Craig, and Aunt Catherine and Uncle Chuck for always cheering me on. Finally, I would like to thank my mother, who passed away before she could see me complete this project or receive my doctorate. My mother, who showed profound sympathy and reached out to countless others during her lifetime, was in many ways the inspiration for this scholarly project. She deeply shaped the person I am today, and she enthusiastically supported my decision to obtain a PhD. Her daily encouragement was an important part of my life, and I know that she would be thrilled that I have completed this goal. I thank her for not only teaching me that I can achieve anything if I work for it, but also for providing me love, encouragement, and opportunities that would allow me to eventually reach those dreams. Thank you, Mom. I love and miss you. viii PREFACE Critics and scholars of American literature have long held that the twentieth- and twenty- first centuries are supposedly “anti-sentimental.” Under the rising influences of what may appear to be more masculine modes of naturalism, realism, and modernism, contemporary authors and audiences are believed to reject the sentimental as feminized, old-fashioned, and unrealistic. However, this project reveals that the sentimental mode is alive and well in the modern era, as authors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries continue the use of familiar nineteenth-century sentimental forms and tropes that reveal an ongoing engagement with sentimental expression that draws upon its ability to instruct and influence readers through emotional identification. In these texts sentimentalism appears as a key mode of political and social expression. As in the nineteenth-century sentimental novel, contemporary texts redefine the boundaries of the human family, emphasizing emotional relationships that are equated to kinship bonds in order to reorganize social boundaries and instruct readers to identify and sympathize with individuals generally configured as social “Others.”1 As the popularity of romanticized stories of lovers from opposing social groups, superhero epics whose origins are tragic, and series about orphans who create families among wizards and other magical beings reveal, the narrative appeals of emotional connection and kinship ties have