The Family Motif in Thomas Wolfe's Drama and Fiction
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1976 The aF mily Motif in Thomas Wolfe's Drama and Fiction. John Ruffinle P asant Jr Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Pleasant, John Ruffinr J , "The aF mily Motif in Thomas Wolfe's Drama and Fiction." (1976). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 2936. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/2936 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1.The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. 5. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 76-25,279 PLEASANT, John Ruffin, Jr., 1938- THE FAMILY MOTIF IN THOMAS WOLFE’S DRAMA AND FICTION. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Ph.D., 1976 Literature, general Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48io6 THE FAMILY MOTIF IN THOMAS WOLFE'S DRAMA AND FICTION A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by John Ruffin Pleasant, Jr. B.A., Washington and Lee University, i960 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1965 May, 1976 ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Darwin II. Shrell, under whose direction this dissertation was written, for his suggestions and guidance. By his patience, encouragement, and fidelity to standards, he not only enabled me to complete this work but also showed me how to be a teacher. I am also grateful to my parents, Mr. and Mrs. John K. Pleasant, for their constant support of my doctoral program. Finally, I owe my deepest gratitude to my wife, Martha wofford Pleasant, for her sympathetic ear and constructive voice she gave to this dissertation. TABLE OP CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT ........................................... ii ABSTRACT .................................................. iv Chapter I. TVONAS COLES'S FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS .......... 1 II. THE ROMANTIC HERO AND HIS FAMILY: THE EARLY PLAYS 0* THOMAS NOL^Z ............ 32 III. LOOK HONS/:ARP. ANGEL: EUGENE GANT 1 S ESCAPE PROM FAMILY ........................... 63 IV. FROM DEATH TO MORNING AND OF TIME AND THE RIVER: THOMAS WOLFE'S REAPPRAISAL OF HIS FAMILY HISTORY .............................. 110 Prom Death to M o r n i n g ..........................127 Qf Time and the R i v e r ..........................166 V. GEORGE WEBBER'S EXTENDED FAMILY .............. 213 The Web and the R o c k ............................ 24-1 You Can 'jL.-Go Home A g a i n ....................... 271 VI. 'N'OMa S WOLFE, HIS FAMILY, AND THE FAMILY OF M A N ...................................292 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................. 302 VITA .......................................................... 309 iii ABSTRACT The career of Thomas Wolfe's epic persona is often interpreted as a progressive rejection of his provincial origins, culminating in the last novel, You Can't Go Home Again. Wolfe, in fact, reaffirmed ties with his Asheville family after publication of his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. Furthermore, from his early plays to his posthumous novels, family settings and conflicts provide a shaping milieu for the Wolfeian protagonist. This family motif not only reflects the author's changing relationship with his own family; it also serves as a literary device by which Wolfe recorded his growth as an artist. The primary psychological influences on Wolfe from his early family life were his prolonged dependency on his mother and the family rupture caused by Mrs. Wolfe's manage ment of a boarding house. Those experiences help to explain the conflict in Wolfe's life between his need for a strong parental figure and, at the same time, his desire to escape the constrictions of such a relationship. Wolfe reflected these ambiguous feelings for his family in letters to rela tives during the 1920's. Although he felt estranged from his kinsmen, in his memory he continually recalled scenes from his childhood, iv Wolfe carried those family obsessions into his literary career. In his plays written at Harvard Univer sity, he created dramatic heroes who are pulled between isolation from and union with their families. Prom the romantic consciousness of those dramatic personae emerged Eugene Gant, whose career in Look Homeward, Angel paralleled the first twenty years of Wolfe's life. Eugene resembles his dramatic predecessors in his desire to escape the suf focation of family ties; yet his constant reconstruction of the oast and his strong feeling for blood kin assure the reader that his escape will be geographical, not mental. A recurring image throughout 'Wolfe's fiction is that of the "unfound door," a symbol rich in implications. In Look homeward. Angel. Eugene Gant's door signifies an escape from his tangled heredity into a subjective world of Imagination. When the Wolfeian hero moves beyond home boundaries, however, the door image assumes universal rather than personal significance. Prom 1929 to 1935, Wolfe continued the quest of his romant3c.-epic hero for personal and national identity. Dur- Irr the sane period Wolfe solidified relations with his Asheville family, a change reflected in his treatment of Eugene Gant's family in Of Time and the River. In addition, *•><? narrator of shont stories in Prom Death to Morning and Eugene Gant in Of Time and the 3iver extend their sense of kinship to include "the family of earth." The search for a v door to communal Identity is then seen as a universal quest especially among Americans. Nevertheless, during this middle phase of Wolfe's career, his persona frequently escapes his rootless environment by retreating into a pri vate past, often with overtones of ethnocentrism. From 1935 to 1938, the last three years of his life Thomas Wolfe replaced his romantic hero Eugene Gant with George Webber, a more self-effacing spokesman who sympathet ically and objectively observes human relationships. Like Eugene Gant, Webber is also provided an extensive genealogy 3ut in The H ills Bevond and The Web and the Bjp.c.k, he is identified with the progressive members of his maternal ancestors, the Joyners, and with his progressive father, John Webber. Thus, at the end of his career, Wolfe opened a door to the future instead of the past for his hero. The title of his last novel, You Can't Go Home Again, does not imply a rejection of the past or a rejection of kinship. Instead, it implies a rejection of artistic escape from social responsibility. CHAPTER I THOMAS WOLFE'S FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS In The.Eclipse, of Community Maurice R. Stein writes about the artist's alienation in a disorganized society: But the modern artist, mystic, or philosopher rarely breaks through to community experience, nor does he help to authenticate communal symbols, Mo d e m men of thought are segregated from the everyday vjorld and the peoole who live in it by barriers of sensibility and language. Our artists rjre therefore forced to record their private responses to the strains of civilization without any 'issuran.ee that the meaning of their expression will carry much beyond a small group of similarly inclined creators and critics. That Thomas Wolfe succeeded in penetrating those "barriers of sensibility and language" is attested to by his continuing popularity with the common reader, as well as by a steady accumulation of biographical and critical scholar ship. Louis D. Rubin, Jr., in Thomas Wolfe: The Weather of His Youth. (1955), reports that, at least as late as the mid-1950's, Wolfe's novels circulated in a Baltimore public 2 library in three times the quantity of William Faulkner's. Maurice R. Stein, The Eclipse of. Community (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), p.