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Durham E-Theses Remembering to Forget: Native American Presences and the U.S. National Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century Euro-American Fiction MCDONNELL, ALEX,JAMES How to cite: MCDONNELL, ALEX,JAMES (2016) Remembering to Forget: Native American Presences and the U.S. National Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century Euro-American Fiction , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11849/ Use policy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 (CC0) Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 1 Alexander James McDonnell Remembering to Forget: Native American Presences and the U.S. National Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century Euro-American Fiction. Abstract This thesis interrogates the part played by the figure of ‘the Indian’ in the formation of the U.S. national consciousness as reflected in the nineteenth-century fictional works of James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Montgomery Bird, Lydia Maria Child, Helen Hunt Jackson and Herman Melville. I propose that new understandings can be reached concerning Indian representations and national identity in the selected texts via an approach that combines postcolonial and psychoanalytic theories, in particular as detailed by Ranjana Khanna in Dark Continents (2003). I explore how the national ideals articulated by Cooper, Bird, Child and Jackson are predicated on repression identifiable in historical revisionism, disavowal, ideological rhetoric, generic conventions and so forth, which reflects a melancholic nationalism more generally concerning the colonial subjugation of Native Americans. I demonstrate that where the national origins mythology of The Last of the Mohicans is ‘haunted’ by inassimilable historical memories associated with frontier conquest and displacement, the Indian-hating premise of Bird’s Nick of the Woods is yet more melancholic in being overwhelmed by the genocide it seeks to justify. In contrast, Ramona and Hobomok effectuate their own forms of epistemic violence in assimilating the Indian into the national body. However these novels also allow for the principle of an autonomous Indian perspective, which jeopardises the idea of state legitimacy that is crucial for their national ideals. In Melville’s The Confidence-Man a historically recuperative national vision is absent and this allows indirect recognition of the Indian ‘phantoms’ of the nation’s past. These works encompass psychological, ideological and cultural patterns of negotiation with a Native American presence that reflect different facets of the nineteenth-century American psyche and its evolution. My readings of these patterns provide a new perspective on how the nineteenth-century American national consciousness is unable to reconcile its history of imperialist, frontier expansion to its ‘ego-ideal’ as a democratic institution distinguished from its European predecessors. 2 Remembering to Forget: Native American Presences and the U.S. National Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century Euro- American Fiction. Alexander James McDonnell Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Studies Durham University 2016 3 Table of Contents Statement of Copyright ........................................................................................................ 6 Acknowledgments................................................................................................................ 7 Dedication ............................................................................................................................ 8 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 9 0.1 Postcolonial Psychoanalysis .................................................................................. 10 0.2 American Literary Backgrounds ............................................................................ 13 0.3 Mapping the Thesis ................................................................................................ 17 0.4 Frames and Methods: Postcolonial Psychoanalytic Concepts ............................... 21 0.5 The Evolution of Postcolonial Psychoanalysis ...................................................... 30 0.6 Literary Criticism on Native-American Representations in American Fiction ..... 41 0.7 Indian Representations, National Identity and Memory in Nineteenth-Century American Literature ............................................................................................... 54 0.8 Chapter Outlines .................................................................................................... 56 CHAPTER 1: The Indian and Melancholic Nationalism in The Last of the Mohicans ............................................................................................................................................ 61 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 61 1.2 Cultural and Psychical Continuity and The Revolution ........................................ 68 1.3 Theories of Civilisation and National Expansion .................................................. 72 1.4 Demetaphorisation of the Indian and Ideologies of Progress ................................ 77 1.5 The Indian as a Facet of American Identity ........................................................... 89 1.6 The Spectre and The Historical Memory of Frontier Conquest .......................... 101 1.7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 108 4 Chapter 2: The War between Savage and Civilised, Melancholic Dissonance and the ‘Fallen’ Condition of the American State in Nick of the Woods ................................ 111 2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 111 2.2 Hybrid Genres and Unstable Boundaries ............................................................. 116 2.3 The Conflict between Savagery and Civilisation ................................................. 130 2.4 State Expansion and the Repression of Ethical Concerns ................................... 137 2.5 Gendering the Frontier ......................................................................................... 148 2.6 Nathan’s Role and Ideological Instability ............................................................ 159 2.7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 165 Chapter 3: American Identity and Anglo-American Relations in Hobomok ........... 169 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 169 3.2 Theoretical Models of Collective Memory and Trauma ...................................... 170 3.3 The Place of Hobomok within the Canon of Nineteenth-Century American Literature .............................................................................................................................. 181 3.4 Patriarchy, the Traumatised Puritan Psyche and Proto-Feminism in Hobomok .. 187 3.5 Spectres and Epistemic Violence ......................................................................... 203 3.6 Representations of Indians and the Collective Memory ...................................... 212 3.7 Inter-racial Marriage, Assimilation and The Creation of a New American Identity . .............................................................................................................................. 220 3.8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 233 Chapter 4: The Conflict between Indian Reform and Indian Sovereignty in Ramona .............................................................................................................................. 235 4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 235 4.2 The Idealisation of the Franciscan Mission System and Californio Culture ....... 240 4.3 Domesticity and Indian Reform ........................................................................... 247 5 4.4 U.S. Policy and Frontier Violence ....................................................................... 251 4.5 Noble Savagery and Indian Reform ..................................................................... 261 4.6 Indian Subjectivity and Identity in the Context of Sovereignty and Assimilation .... .............................................................................................................................. 271 4.7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 285 Chapter 5: Satire, Symbolism and the Exorcising of Historical Ghosts in The Confidence-Man.............................................................................................................. 287 5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 287 5.2 The Meaning Behind the Mask: The Role of the Confidence-Man, Satire and National Deception ............................................................................................................. 290 5.3 National