The American Novel Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture
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A Companion to the American Novel Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture This series offers comprehensive, newly written surveys of key periods and movements and certain major authors, in English literary culture and history. Extensive volumes provide new perspectives and positions on contexts and on canonical and post-canonical texts, orientating the beginning student in new fields of study and providing the experienced undergraduate and new graduate with current and new directions, as pioneered and developed by leading scholars in the field. Published Recently 61. A Companion to Thomas Hardy Edited by Keith Wilson 62. A Companion to T. S. Eliot Edited by David E. Chinitz 63. A Companion to Samuel Beckett Edited by S. E. Gontarski 64. A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction Edited by David Seed 65. A Companion to Tudor Literature Edited by Kent Cartwright 66. A Companion to Crime Fiction Edited by Charles Rzepka and Lee Horsley 67. 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A Companion to the American Novel Edited by Alfred Bendixen A C O M P A N I O N T O THE AMERICAN NOVEL E D I T E D B Y ALFRED BENDIXEN A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication This edition first published 2012 © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Alfred Bendixen to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A companion to the American novel / edited by Alfred Bendixen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-0119-6 (cloth) 1. American fiction–History and criticism. 2. National characteristics, American, in literature. 3. Literature and society–United States. I. Bendixen, Alfred. PS371.C714 2012 813.009–dc23 2011042863 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 11/13 pt Garamond Three by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited 1 2012 Contents Notes on Contributors ix Preface xix Acknowledgments xxi A Chronology of the American Novel xxii Part I: Historical Developments 1 1 The Development of the American Novel: The Transformations of Genre 3 Alfred Bendixen 2 The American Novel: Beginnings Through the American Renaissance 19 Maria Karafilis 3 The American Novel: Realism and Naturalism (1860–1920) 42 Jeanne Campbell Reesman 4 Modernism and the American Novel 60 Peter L. Hays 5 Beyond Modernism: The American Novel Between the World Wars 76 Alfred Bendixen 6 The Cold War Novel: The American Novel Between 1945–1970 90 Sharon Becker and Wendy Martin 7 The Novel in a Changing America: Multiculturalism and Other Issues (1970–Present) 109 Martha J. Cutter vi Contents Part II: Genres and Traditions 127 8 Fear, Ambiguity, and Transgression: The Gothic Novel in the United States 129 Charles L. Crow 9 The American Historical Romance: From James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne to Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, and E. L. Doctorow 147 Emily Miller Budick 10 Making This Whole Nation Feel: The Sentimental Novel in the United States 170 Marianne Noble 11 Social Protest, Reform, and the American Political Novel 187 Chip Rhodes 12 The American War Novel Tradition and the Individual Soldier 206 James H. Meredith 13 From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Comic Traditions in the American Novel 218 Judith Yaross Lee 14 Plotting a Way Home: The Jewish American Novel 241 Derek Parker Royal 15 Chicano/a Traditions in the American Novel 259 Juan J. Alonzo 16 African American Traditions and the American Novel 274 Melvin Donalson 17 The American Novel of Mystery, Crime, and Detection 291 Leonard Cassuto 18 O Brave New Worlds: Science Fiction and the American Novel 309 Eric S. Rabkin 19 Dreaming of a White Future: Mary E. Bradley Lane, Edward Bellamy, and the Origins of the Utopian Novel in the United States 323 Jean Pfaelzer 20 Queer Theory and the American Novel 342 Deborah Carlin 21 The American Short-Story Cycle: Out From the Novel’s Shadow 357 Robert M. Luscher Contents vii Part III: Major Texts 373 22 The Woman’s Law in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter 375 Monika Elbert 23 Writ in Water: The Books of Melville’s Moby-Dick 394 Wyn Kelley 24 Wonder of Wonders: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin 408 Susan Belasco 25 Citational Strategies and Literary Traditions: Placing Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady 422 Greg W. Zacharias 26 Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:s A Child’ Search for Comfort and Peace 443 Michael J. Kiskis 27 What Women Want: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening 454 Emily Toth 28 Private Fleming’s Various Battles: Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage 465 James Nagel 29 Lily’s Story: Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth 475 Kathy Fedorko 30 The Confessional Narration of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises 488 James Nagel 31 Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and the Myth of the Land 499 Richard Lehan 32 Ground Zero: Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury 510 Philip Weinstein 33 A Bigger Vision: Richard Wright’s Native Son and the Great American Novel 525 Andrew Warnes 34 Our Invisible Man: The Aesthetic Genealogy of US Diversity 537 John Carlos Rowe 35 The Visionary Exuberance of Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March 554 Ben Siegel 36 The Flesh and the Word: Toni Morrison’s Beloved 570 Valerie Smith viii Contents 37 A Different Kind of Love Story: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road 582 Olivia Carr Edenfield Selected Readings in the Genres of the American Novel 598 Index 610 Notes on Contributors Juan J. Alonzo is Associate Professor of English at Texas A&M University, where he teaches courses in Mexican American literature and culture and Film Studies. He specializes in representations of ethnicity in American literature and film, and on issues of adaptation as they relate to ethnic identity. His essays have appeared in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Western American Literature, and Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage. Alonzo’s book, Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes: The Ambiv- alence of Mexican American Identity in Literature and Film (2009), is a comparative study of the literary and cinematic representation of Mexican American masculine identity from early twentieth-century adventure stories and movie Westerns through contem- porary self-representations by Chicano/a writers and filmmakers. Sharon Becker currently teaches American literature as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Towson University, MD. She received her PhD from Claremont Graduate University where she also served as associate editor of Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplin- ary Journal. She specializes in the literature and culture of the first half of the twentieth century, with a particular focus on men and issues of gender and identity. Her dis- sertation investigated the literature produced by male writers living in Los Angeles in the 1930s, and she has also presented papers on John Fante, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac. Susan Belasco is Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.