Structure, Narrative and Nation in Tourist Performances in Salem, Ma
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TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY: STRUCTURE, NARRATIVE AND NATION IN TOURIST PERFORMANCES IN SALEM, MA Benjamin Grantham Aldred Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Departments of Folklore and American Studies Indiana University June 2009 Aldred ii Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee Sandra K. Dolby, Ph.D., Co-chair Henry Glassie, PhD. Roger Janelli, PhD., Co-chair Pravina Shukla, PhD. Matthew Guterl, PhD. March 23rd, 2009 Aldred iii © 2009 Benjamin Grantham Aldred ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Aldred iv Dedicated to Sarah Osbourne, Roger Toothaker, Ann Foster, Lydia Dustin and the unnamed daughter of Sarah Good, for whom there were no trials. Aldred v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Even given a work as oriented towards the original and personal as a dissertation, nothing is created without support. I would like to thank the following people for their aid in creation. This work would not have been possible without the inspiration of my colleagues. Linda Lee, whose presentation on the Witch Trials Memorial a week before my American Studies qualifying exams, oriented me towards Salem and whose master‘s thesis helped me clarify my thoughts. My friend and colleague John Sumner Majer provided me with the language and translation for historia, which helped orient my thoughts. And my colleagues Adam Zolkover and David Higgins both helped me form my conceptions of Folklore and American Studies as disciplines. This work would have been equally impossible without those professors who have supported me throughout my academic career. Drs. JoAnn Martin, Daniel Rosenberg and Jung-Sun Park initially started me thinking about culture back in college. Dr. Yeidy Rivero helped me think about genre and media in a new way. I would like to especially thank my committee, Drs. Henry Glassie, Roger Janelli, Pravina Shukla and Matthew Guterl who have all served as helper figures at various points in my academic path. And especially Dr. Sandra Dolby, who has supported so many of my research endeavors through the years. And finally, on a personal level, I am immensely grateful for the support of my partner Amelia Newcomer-Leas through the research and writing of this Aldred vi dissertation. I would also like to thank all my parents for keeping their faith in me even under pressure and for nurturing my love of history. Aldred vii Benjamin Grantham Aldred TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY: STRUCTURE, NARRATIVE AND NATION IN TOURIST PERFORMANCES IN SALEM, MA Looking at six performances (including tourist ‗museums‘ and walking tours) for the October influx of tourists to Salem, Massachusetts, this work outlines the way each performance encodes within a structural perspective on the nature of the Salem Witch Hysteria through the selective inclusion, exclusion and parallelizing of various events and characters. These perspectives are analyzed for their broader insight into narratives of national character, examining the way in which national character can be examined not as an objective force influencing production of narratives but as a form of discursive repetition, creating national character through repeated acts of unifying narrative. Also explored are the genealogical roots of these narratives, both in popular media about the witch trials and in historical explorations of the period. The fundamental argument at the heart of the work is that historical narratives are produced by creating a meta-narrative that produces a spectral American character, existing in the minds of the observers but not in any objective way. Aldred viii Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1-What is the Witch Hysteria? ................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2-Salem and the Historia ..........................................................................................15 The Critical Examination of Genre ......................................................................................20 Historia: A New Approach ...................................................................................................24 Chapter 3: History, Tradition and Discourse .........................................................................29 Cultural Studies v. History ..................................................................................................31 The Death of Tradition.........................................................................................................35 A Model from Gender and Psychoanalysis ..........................................................................41 History as Performative .......................................................................................................46 History, Historia and Hysteria ............................................................................................51 Chapter 4-Performance as Strategic, Structural and Cultural ..............................................59 Folklore as Culturally Embedded ........................................................................................61 Folklore as Structural ..........................................................................................................74 Folklore as Strategic ............................................................................................................81 Historia as Folklore ..............................................................................................................84 Chapter 5-Telling the National Story .....................................................................................87 Frederick Jackson Turner ....................................................................................................90 Henry Nash Smith ...............................................................................................................96 Richard Mercer Dorson ...................................................................................................... 102 Nations (re)Imagined ......................................................................................................... 108 Synthesizing American Character Narratives ................................................................... 116 Chapter 6- Context and Historia in Salem, MA ................................................................... 119 Salem in Fiction ................................................................................................................. 120 Overview of Performances .................................................................................................. 126 Museums: Sculpting the Past ............................................................................................. 130 The Witch History Museum ............................................................................................ 132 Witch History Museum Analysis .................................................................................... 137 Salem Witch Museum ..................................................................................................... 140 Salem Witch Museum Analysis ...................................................................................... 148 Walking Tours .................................................................................................................... 149 Aldred ix Salem Historical Tours: Witchcraft Walk ...................................................................... 152 Witchcraft Walk Analysis ............................................................................................... 158 Hocus Pocus Tours .......................................................................................................... 160 Hocus Pocus Tours Analysis ........................................................................................... 164 Performances ...................................................................................................................... 166 Cry Innocent.................................................................................................................... 167 Cry Innocent Analysis ..................................................................................................... 174 Within The Witching Hour ............................................................................................. 178 Within the Witching Hour Analysis ............................................................................... 181 Chapter 7- Conclusion: Consuming History ......................................................................... 186 From History to Narrative ................................................................................................. 189 Consuming America ........................................................................................................... 195 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 202 Aldred 1 Introduction Bridget Bishop‘s fate lies in the hands of the Salem mob. Two hours earlier she was arrested by Constable Herrick and dragged manacled through the street, struggling in her torn red bodice, followed by a growing group of people.