University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Winter 2007 Dirty whites and dark secrets: Sex and race in "Peyton Place" Sally Hirsh-Dickinson University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Hirsh-Dickinson, Sally, "Dirty whites and dark secrets: Sex and race in "Peyton Place"" (2007). Doctoral Dissertations. 409. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/409 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DIRTY WHITES AND DARK SECRETS: SEX AND RACE IN PEYTON PLACE BY SALLY HIRSH-DICKINSON BA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1992 MA, University of New Hampshire, Durham, 1998 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English December, 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3290102 Copyright 2007 by Hirsh-Dickinson, Sally All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3290102 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED c 2007 Sally Hirsh-Dickinson Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation has been examined and approved. Dissertation Director£§arah Way Sherman, Associate Professor of English Brigitte (Bailey, Associate Professor of English Monica Chiu, Associate Professor of English John Ernest, Eberly Family Distinguished Professor of American Literature, West Virginia University elia Konzett, Assistant Professor of English t O / U s / o l - Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION To Spencer and Trixie Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Having spent many years involved in this project, I have many people to thank for seeing me through to the end. I must begin with Professor Sarah Sherman who directed this endeavor and shepherded me through the dissertation process of scholarship with kindness, wisdom, grace, and patience. I thank her for bearing with me throughout, and for advising me on matters both professional and practical. In addition to my gratitude for Sarah’s feedback on my work, it is Sarah I must thank for impressing upon me that a bowl of cereal does not a dinnertime meal make and for taking the time to introduce me to Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. I am grateful to the members of my dissertation committee— Professors Brigitte Bailey, John Ernest, Monica Chiu and Delia Konzett— for their patience and insight and for a great conversation in the end. Professor Peter Mascuch introduced me to Peyton Place during my last semester of coursework. Little did I know that it would be the book that changed my life. This paper benefited from the many thoughtful responses it received along the way from several members of the English 999 reading group in the UNH Department of English. Laura Smith deserves special recognition for keeping me well stocked with chocolate at critical junctures and for keeping my spirits from ebbing during the final push. Cindy Glidden, the Graduate School’s formatting guru, fielded a barrage of nerve-wracked, detail-oriented questions with a saint’s patience and good humor. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I owe a large debt of thanks to an enormously supportive faculty in the Department of Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College who brought me on as a Visiting Instructor while I was still in the midst of my early draft. It was that year of teaching full time that reminded me how much I really do love this work. Professor Thomas Kealy took the time to read messy drafts of a middle chapter and said delightfully encouraging things about it. Professor Ann Page Stecker always made sure I was extraordinarily well and finely fed. Professor Hester Fuller provided me with an opportunity to present my work-in-progress to the Colby-Sawyer faculty as part of the college’s Faculty Development Seminar. Elizabeth Krajewski, Carrie Thomas, and Landon Hall at the Susan Colgate Cleveland Library at Colby-Sawyer all acted as sounding boards for my ideas when I found myself in need of a stroll away from my workspace at the window. On the homefront, Clara Burroughs helped me to keep my home in order and my head on straight with many a coffee-and-baby talk. My colleagues at New Hampshire Public Radio were ever-encouraging and kept me socialized by providing me with many a lunch date. Karol, Ed, Ashley, Amy and Amanda Iwany provided a loving home away from home to my daughter during my working hours. Yangchen, Jeff, Tenzin, Norbu, and Ngawang Dickinson also put in many hours keeping Trixie entertained, well fed and well rested as I wrote. Paula and David Dickinson did the same, making sure that Trixie never lacked for books during her visits, and that I never lacked for a quiet space in which to think and write. Josephine Crisp shook a loving finger in my face and told me to get the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vii paper done already. I thank my sister-in-law Sarah for not telling her brother that he was crazy to marry someone who was A.B.D. My dearest, darlingest friends, Mariana Patton and Dawn Dreyer always reminded me of ail that I do have, even when what I didn’t have was a done dissertation. And there are still more.... I must take a moment to express my deepest appreciation to my phenomenal mother-in-law, Donna Duclos, who has always shown enormous generosity of time, spirit, space (for which we are eternally thankful), and faith that I would really get it done...eventually. Had she not surprised me with the gift of a laptop computer, I might still be toiling away at this project. My brother Marc empathized with me in my initial ambivalence and overwhelmedness in this undertaking and stuck by me throughout. My parents never doubted that I would do this...the hard way. And so I did with their love and support. My fabulous, fantastic daughter Beatrice helped me to get my priorities straight. And then there is Spencer: my partner in marriage, parenthood, and playtime. It is entirely possible, as he well knows, that I wouldn’t have done this without him. Spencer, may you never again ask me how many pages I have written at the end of a day. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION................. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................................................v ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 1 1. BANNED AND CONTRABAND, DOG-EARED AND DIRTY: THE RETURN OF PEYTON PLACE .............................................................. 14 2. THE COLOR OF INCEST: SEXUAL ABUSE, RACIAL ANXIETY, AND THE 1950S FAMILYIN PEYTON PLACE ............................................................... 76 3. DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES: RAPE, RACE AND PEYTON PLACE 118 4. A GOOD WHITE MAN IS HARD TO FIND,OR THE GOOD RAPIST, THE BAD RAPIST AND THE ABORTIONIST: PEYTON PLACES CRISIS OF MASCULINITY............................................................................159 5. HOME IS WHERE THE HAUNT IS: DOMESTIC SPACE, RACE, AND THE UNCANNY................................................................................................208 C O N C LU SIO N ................................................................................................................271 WORKS CITED .............................................................................................................. 282 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ix ABSTRACT DIRTY WHITES AND DARK SECRETS: SEX AND RACE IN PEYTON PLACE by Sally Hirsh-Dickinson University of New Hampshire, December, 2007 "Dirty Whites and Dark Secrets: Sex and Race in Peyton Place" suggests that