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Saffar Perez, Amir A., Ma August 2020 SAFFAR PEREZ, AMIR A., M.A. AUGUST 2020 ENGLISH THE DISTORTED WORLD: SOLOMON KANE, HAJJI BABA, THE MAD ARAB AND SHE (82 PP.) Thesis Advisor: Christopher Roman This thesis examines the portrayal of race and gender in serialized works, with a major focus on pulp literature. I argue that lower regarded literature such as pulps has relevance in the discussion gender and race precisely because of their appeal to the masses in comparison to the higher class of literature, and that many of these texts while offensive to the modern reader, still have value and relevancy in literary discussion. To do this, I first examine H.P. Lovecraft and his position in pop culture due to his popularity compared to his pulp peers. I focus on his obsession with the civilized world through his story Rats in the Walls, and how the removal of a person from civilization can doom them. Afterward I turn my attention to James Morier and his work The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Isphahan. I argue that Morier uses this work to exploit the Iranian culture, banking on the fact that it was not well known outside of the Middle East. In the third part I focus on H. Rider Haggard’s She: A History of Adventure, which, while intended to be an antifeminist text, I argue undermines itself and actually provides examples of protofeminist characters and societies in spite of its racist imagery. Finally, I turn my attention to Robert E. Howard’s character of Solomon Kane and his closest comrade N’Longa. I argue that while N’Longa seems to fit the “Magical Negro” stereotype, he is in fact a nuanced portrayal that actually defies that stereotype. Ultimately, it is these lower tier stories that the masses consume, and which define how we perceive the world, and I believe that we need to take them more seriously. The Distorted World: Solomon Kane, Hajji Baba, The Mad Arab and She A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Amir Saffar Perez August 2020 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials. Thesis written by Amir Saffar Perez B.A., University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, 2016 B.S., University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, 2016 M.S., University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, 2018 M.A., Kent State University, 2020 Approved by _________ ________________, Advisor Dr. Christopher Roman __________ _______________, Chair, Department of English Dr. Babacar M’Baye _________ _______________, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Mandy Munro-Stasiuk TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………....iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………….v CHAPTERS I. Introduction: …………………………..…………………………………………......1 Setting the Stage……………………………………………………………………...1 The Method…………………………………………………………………………..2 The Authors………………………………………………………………………......5 Pulps……………………………………………………………………………….....7 Lovecraft…………………………………………………………………………….12 II. James Morier and Hajji Baba: A Case of Pulp Bigotry……………………………..21 III. She and the Oriental Protofeminist………………………………………………….36 IV. Race, Mysticism and the Works of Robert E. Howard……………………………..49 V. Conclusion: ………………………...……………………………………………….71 BIBLIOGRAPHY….………………..……………………………………………………….....73 iv Acknowledgements The first person I must thank is my advisor, Professor Christopher Roman, whose tireless patience and advice is the main reason this thesis was completed. He provided assistance during a tumultuous time which allowed me to truly argue and develop my work beyond the shallow narrative I had started with. I would also like to acknowledge the members of my defense committee, Dr. Vera Camden and Dr. Babacar M’Baye, for their support and advice during my academic career. I extend my thanks to my colleagues Devin, Shibaji and Fahrooq for putting up with my obsession with pulp literature. And finally I extend my love and affection to my family, whose support in this very bizarre time helped push me to finish this thesis. v Chapter I: Introduction 1. Setting the stage Within the first line of H. Rider Haggard’s pulp-novel She (1887), Ludwig Holly notes that “There are some events of which each circumstance…seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget it…It rises as clearly before my mind at this moment as though it had happened but yesterday” (Haggard 1). This notion of memory and by extension legacy carries over throughout the narrative and proves essential in capturing the timeless quality of its immortal titular character. It is within these recollections, which is framed within another recollection, we are presented with a life whole and unbound, of a unique and powerful woman, Ayesha. But it is the nature of the narrative, this memory within memory of a woman that draws my eye. Like Haggard, many of us are drawn in by memories of nations and people long since passed. The less we know of them factually, the more our imagination can encompass and create within those gaps of memory. But in doing so we rob that history of its agency, of its ability to tell the story of its people, of its nation, of its faith on its own terms. We take away the uniqueness of history to replace it with the increasingly mundane creativity of modern-day pop culture. As far back as 1937, critics could see the problems of devouring a culture and nation without having little connection to it, with Wallace Brown noting in his criticism of “Lalla Roch” that “The criticism is that the poem misrepresents actual eastern life by presenting only one side of the picture” (166) and upon taking that side, proceed to exaggerate to oblivion. But why do 1 so? One easy answer is that it was difficult to fact check the farther back you go. Now it’s easy to spot a liar, but in 1824? This would be a far more difficult endeavor. And while travel guides existed, they too were tinged with bias, as these travel guides were often the source for these sedentary writers, they were the basis for these stories. Even further on, National Geographic became the western world’s go-to guide to everywhere else, in spite of its early bias. Not every writer wrote from ignorance or secondhand accounts; some actually went to the places they wrote about, and proceeded to write whatever they wanted. This thesis aims to look at several obscure (from a modern perspective, at least) texts from three authors in particular: Justinian Morier, Rider Haggard and Robert E. Howard; these texts being Hajji Baba, She: A History of Adventure, and Solomon Kane respectively. These texts and their authors are oftentimes offensive, but occasionally stumble upon something meaningful and profound. I will dissect these texts and their historical and academic merits. As a counterpoint, I will also highlight H.P. Lovecraft and his relevance in the discussion of pulp at the end of this Introduction.. 2. The Method When looking at how we teach literature, it’s impossible to catch it all. The teacher has to pick the best of the best, the works that encompass a genre or era, as they have no time read it all. But even then, stories fall through the cracks. When discussing modernist stories such as Heart of Darkness, little is made of its publication history. Most students don’t even realize it was originally published in Blackwood Magazine, and most do not know how the form of the story affects its narrative. The serialized nature of these stories meant that each section had to be self- contained in order to keep the reader engaged with every issue. Within modernist history, there is 2 an even less talked about aspect: the pulps. These pulp paper magazines, defined by cheapness and volume, serve as the bedrock of early Americana pulp culture. These are stories that were sold to the everyman, and disregarded of relevance by its disposable nature. These stories are a struggle to find, and even harder to preserve. Yet, while modernism gave way to post- modernism, few kept an eye on its shadow, pulps often reacting to trends and often surpassing them in scope and idea. As Jason Carney notes, “How can it be a surprise to pulp enthusiast today that its study has become the purview not of literary criticism but of ‘pop culture studies,’” (4) something that makes it nigh impossible to get significant discussion on its nature or value. From the first pulp magazine, The Argosy, to Black Mask to Weird Tales, pulp magazines have had a profound impact on modern media. Tarzan and Zorro debuted within the pages of pulps; although, they are rarely considered as a pulp works, instead turning them retroactively into more “serious works of literature”. The defining ideas of science fiction found their basis in the early sci-fi pulps. Black Mask gave America the framework for its detective shows, Argosy introduced the pulps to the world at large and Weird Tales gave us Cthulhu and Conan; two figures whose representation in modern pop culture is comically large. The form and nature of these forgotten stories and history intrigues me and attracts me into a discussion on their merits in modern gender and race analysis. Its increasingly common to read articles and blogs summarizing authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard as racists and refusing to give their works any credit. But the immediate dismissal does more harm than good, because it prevents us from acquiring meaningful and potentially intriguing ideas from a text. No person and by extension, no text, is completely morally pure. There are shades of grey in the best of us, so to dismiss and reject a text of all academic merit based on the views of an author, deprives the reader of making 3 judgment on the text itself. She and Hajji Baba have historic precedence that is denied in favor of sexier stories and narratives.
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