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The American Gold Diggcr, 19NH95O University of Alberta A Girl's Guide to Cultural Capital: The American Gold Diggcr, 19NH95O Christina J. Barabash O A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts Department of English Edmonton, Alberta Spring 2000 National Library Bibliothèque nationale 191 ,Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliogmphie SeMces services bibliographiques 395 Welîïngtcm Street 395, rue WeUingtm Ottawa ON KIA ON4 OttawaON KiAûN4 Canada canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Li'brary of Canada to Biôliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or selI reproduire, prêter, distri'buer ou copies of this thesis in mkroform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microficheffilm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur fonnat électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thése. thesis nor substantial exbrslcts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT This thesis traces the emergence of the gold digger as a recognizable figure in twentieth-century American culture and establishes her as part of a tradition of configuruig women's identities in relation to economic circumstance. It looks at her historical predecessors and her relationship to evolving modes of commercialhtion through sociocultural writings from the pendThis thesis focuses on the gold digger in four particular historical, economic, and culniml configurations: the prototypicai gold digger in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie; the quintessential gold digger Lorelei Lee of Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who defines gold digging in the American consciousness; the gold digger as gangster mol1 in Dashiell Hammett's Red Hamesr, the evolving, highiy adaptable gold digger of the 1940s and 1950s in Dawn Powell's New York novels, particularly Angels on Toast, A Time To Be Born. The Locusts Huve No King, and The Wicked Pavilion. The gold digger locates cultural anxiety and excitement about new discourses of urban living, fashion and glamour, and intersections of consumerism and art. The figure of the gold digger complicates ferninine ideals, the dichotomy of work and leisure, and the ideology of the American Drearn. Thanks go to my parents, Margaret and Gene Barabash, for their encouragement, which took many fom. Specid thanks go to Professor Edward Bishop for his questions and understanding. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 1 The Awakening-of Consumer Desire: The Needs and Conditions of an Aspiring Gold Digger 2 A Spotlight of One's Own (and a fur coat a year): Sister Carrie and the Gold Digger Naissante 3 "Lady" Lorelei's Lovers: 41 Gentlemen P refer Blondes and the Fashioning of a Legend 4 A Finished Wornan: 73 Crime and the Gold Digger in Dashiell Hammett's Red Hurvest 5 Portrait of the Artist as a Gold-~igger: 87 Polymorphic Gold Digging in Dawn Powell's New York Novels 6 Works Cited and Consulted 125 1 The Awakening-of Consumer Desire The Needs and Conditions of an Aspiring Gold Digger In 1999, women flock to a singles convention in Silicon Valley, hoping to meet an eligible bachelor of the newest batch of tycoons: the computer-genius- millionaire (McKinnon). The Learning AMex in New York offen courses on meeting and marrying the rich, and Ginnie Sayles, guru of the movement, tours North American and does guest spots on ûprah, practicaily guaranteeing that following her advice will land you a millionaire (MacDonald). So is the gold digger having a resurgence? Or, in this age of the e-commerce boom and the self-help book epidemic. is there a new figure evolving and emerging? Gold-digger figures are linked to intersections of extreme economic shifts and revaluations of social patterns. In this thesis, 1 have traced the emergence of the gold digger dong the trajectory of historical social changes and sociological writings and iiterary texts. The early twentieth-cenbq gold digger, as written by Theodore Dreiser, Anita Loos, Dashiell Hammett and Dawn Powell, is a complex figure, constantly shifting between caricature and societai bel, representing both reproduction and subversion of the status quo. She deserves a place in the shidy of Aumicm literature because her genesis, career, and demise are ail implicated in the discoune of the Amencan dream and the realities behind it. The sïrdarities between Dreiser's Carrie and the Iater 2 gold digger figures in Loos and Poweli's fiction, as well as in Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Hanest, suggest that the gold digger is not an aberration or oddity, but a type of the modem era. The differences between these figures suggest the changes in western culture's perception of itself as a modern money-credit economy while artistic expression and cultutal control in representation becorne increasingly linked to, and complicated by, the market. 1 have selected for this study of girlfnendidate as cultural capital tex& that have some fiuidity in terms of their position in the cultural field. I deliberately chose novels that were part of the popular discourse but were also acciahed, to varying extents, as literary . The construction of the gold digger is based on the tension between mythic and reaiistic; she is both a dRamlike vision and a grasping creature with base desires. Ra& House Historicat Dictionary of American Slang records the first use of the term gold digger in 19 15. Aithough the entry cites examples from as late as 1988, eleven of the fifteen usages are from texts between 1915 and 1941. The gold digger is, for the most part, a figure peculiar to this period of American culture, when Amencans tried to move fast enough to keep up with the new flickering representations of thernselves. She is also particularly interesting to a study of the economic clunate and culture that emerges in the United States in the htthree decades of the twentieth cenwbecause she is at once woman and object. She is written and created as an economic symboI: the gold digger embodies the tension between woman as object and woman as subject. This may also be one reason why the gold digger has been ignored in serious studies of popular modernist culture. She is always already objectified and she herself is quite likely aware of it. This thesis explores sites where the gold digger emerges, in reality and cultural artifacts, and the ways that representations of the gold digger affected and were affected by socioeconomic conditions. The gold digger can be traced historically as an important figure in popular modernist texts and a sensitive indicator of econornic imbalance. The gold digger is closely related to the flapper. Both figures are "good-time girls," preoccupied with partying, the latest fashions, and sexual experiences. The flapper is typically described, however, as carefree: "The generic fiapper is the nice girl who is a littie fast, who takes the breath of staid observers with her flip spontaneity, her short-lived likes and dislikes.. .. Flappers .. had to be rather well off. Unprosperous folk did not have the cash or time to belong.. ." (Stevenson 124-25). Martin Pumphrey suggests that the flapper's story is a product of advertising. Aithough her "unencumbered simplified clothing, shon hair and boyish figure, rebellious lifestyle and putsuit of pieastue, did genuinely challenge nineteenth- cenhiry constructions of femininity," the most important feature of the flapper was that her hectic social Me and quest for individuality required clothes for innumerable occasions: traveliing, shopping, lunching, weddings, outdoor amusements, tea, dining, theatre, dancing.. .. Constantly in movement, the Rapper required cars, trains, and planes at her disposal. Enjoying sport and the healthy He, she needed outfits for driving, golf, and tennis. Looking for a suntan in summer and sküng in winter, she took advantage of the summer cruises and winter holidays being offered by the new tour companies. Seeking nightlife, she frequented places of luxury and expense. (186) The story presented by advertisers is rich in visud effect. Advertising, however, works by leaving nanatives incomplete. The inferences or conclusions that the reader is prompted to make become is a powemil part of the sell. Gaps aiiow a certain amount of identification on the part of the viewer while enabling the construction to be strictiy surface and perfectly, modernly smooth. However, the gaps cm also highlight the assumptions and inequities underlying the advertisement's meaning. Purnphrey notes the silences in the flapper's narrative. Her success as a symbol necessitates that "she is neither vamp nor tramp" and yet we never see her at work, not do we have any idea how she earns the money she spends. She enjoys the New Freedom not in terms of a career or politicai action but in terms of carefree leisure, leisure without consequences. Her image beckons to othea to follow-to be essentiaily themselves-but evades the question how they are to gain the money to do so or how they should deal with the social conflicts they (but apparentiy not she) must inevitably encounter. Her expression of individuality and penonaüty is wholly constnicted around a powemil consumer fantasy that excludes economic limitations, class resuaints, and conflict. (186-87) The gold digger shares in this consumenst fantasy of the flapper's subjective desires but by definition, the gold digger is an econornicdy based creation. For ail her fiothy lingerie and sensual fashion, the gold digger addresses the economic reality of the "new" consumer desires.
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