THE SHORT STORY COMPOSITE and the ROOTS of MODERNIST NARRATIVE by KATHRYN GRACE MATHENY FRED WHITING, COMMITTEE CHAIR PHILIP B

THE SHORT STORY COMPOSITE AND THE ROOTS OF MODERNIST NARRATIVE by KATHRYN GRACE MATHENY FRED WHITING, COMMITTEE CHAIR PHILIP BEIDLER JOLENE HUBBS JAMES MCNAUGHTON HEATHER CASS WHITE A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2012 Copyright Kathryn Grace Matheny 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT While the story cycle form has been popular for centuries, as seen in works like The Decameron and One Thousand and One Arabian Nights , it is especially important to modern Anglo-American literature. Twentieth century short story composites by James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, and Ernest Hemingway represent high points not simply for the genre, but also for modernist literature. Despite the centrality of these texts to the genre and to the period, the connection between time and form has often gone unexplored. Indeed, short story composite theory is still a bit unfocused, defining itself in reaction to the genres with which the composite is often confused, especially the novel. While it is important to disentangle the short story composite from these other genres, paradoxically, it is counterproductive, even harmful, to do so without acknowledging the ways in which they do undeniably overlap. Particularly, a refusal to draw comparisons between modernist novels and short story composites represents a missed opportunity to consider the field of modernist narrative holistically. Clearly, a more nuanced articulation of short story composite theory is necessary. It would provide clarity for composite works and help articulate the structural properties of composite narrative more generally, a concern central to understanding modernist narrative practice. Through examining works that range from high to low to popular, I argue that the short story composite encompasses a variety of forms and modes of writing ii but displays similar central characteristics organic to the period. The first two chapters work to situate the debate within various dovetailing contexts, including the history of the short story genre in the nineteenth century as well as the twentieth century shift of literary and critical production to the academy. Another chapter will also identify the concept of 'textual autonomy' as an especially problematic aspect of composite narrative theory, determined as it is by those contexts that shaped the genre and its criticism. Finally, a final chapter interrogates the relationship between modernity and narrative through the lens of WWI fiction. Writers discussed include Joyce and George Moore; Anderson and Hemingway; Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder; Sarah Orne Jewett, John Steinbeck, and Willa Cather; and John Dos Passos, William March, and e. e. cummings. iii DEDICATION For Kathy Koenen, Alissa Matheny, and Roger Matheny—who never made me believe this was foolish or impossible. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have been possible without the guidance of my committee and the support of my family and friends. I am the most grateful to Dr. Fred Whiting for taking on a dissertation that ranges over so many fields of the discipline. He helped me shape my ideas, but more than that, he encouraged me to shape my own ideas, and to have confidence in my ability to articulate them. His discernment, patience, and wit were crucial to the success of this project. I also thank the rest of my committee for their time and energy. Dr. Philip Beidler had many useful comments on the shape and management of the project. Dr. Jolene Hubbs provided a fresh perspective on my critical and rhetorical practices. Dr. James McNaughton, even in the early stages, pointed me in productive directions and challenged me to dig deeper. Finally, Dr. Heather White never failed to remind me what it means to be a confident scholar. Just as important, however, have been the perennially supportive attitude of my family, and the help of my friends, who equipped me to face day-to-day challenges. Dr. Austin Whitver has been the best sounding board a person could have, and Brian Jones and Sara Whitver provided excellent, enduring, essential moral support. v CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...ii DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………...……………………...….iv INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...1 1. The Divided Consciousness and the Legacy of the Short Story in Modernist Narrative…………………………………………………………………………………………………………...22 2. Narrative Control, The Modern Artist, and the Curious Collaboration of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder………………………………………………………………………………………….85 3. The Complex Nature of Textual Autonomy in Modern Narrative………………………….……139 4. Dismantling the Machine, Reassembling the Parts: WWI Fiction and the Ends of Composite Narrative………………………………………………………………………………………..187 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………………………………..……….241 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...245 vi Introduction The narrative form known as the short story cycle or short story composite 1 occupies a shadowy position in contemporary criticism. When the term is invoked to describe a narrative tendency, that is, to serve as an adjective indicating a text's formal or narrative idiosyncrasies, it passes without objection and interrogation—and without contributing anything particularly helpful to our understanding of the work. For example, James Nagel uses the term rather loosely in his introduction to The Contemporary American Short-story Cycle : "It is a convention that needs to be recognized and understood as not simply ancillary to the more significant 'novel' but as integral to literary history, with an ancient origin and a set of narrational and structural principles quite distinct from other fictional modes." 2 As admirable as this defense is, Nagel is describing a "convention" and a "fictional mode," one which stretches back thousands of years; the term is merely an adjective useful for classification. When discussion turns to the short story composite as a full-fledged genre, however, it quickly becomes clear that there is a reason for the term's typically broad use: a widely applicable and theoretically rigorous theory of the short story 1 While critical consensus seems to favor the use of short story cycle , I will employ the accepted but less popular label short story composite , as it better reflects the multifaceted nature of the genre's narrative structure, which cannot be boiled down to cyclicality or sequentiality. 2 James Nagel, The Contemporary American Short-story Cycle: The Ethnic Resonance of Genre (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 10. 1 composite has yet to be fleshed out. There are many reasons for this, not least of all the nature of the genre itself. Encompassing numerous formal strategies and narrative approaches, it does not lend itself to easy explanation, not even in a critical environment that all but dogmatizes multiplicity and ambiguity. Still, J. Gerald Kennedy finds the critical neglect of the genre "inexplicable," conjecturing, "Perhaps the very ambiguities that complicate formal definition have likewise deterred theoretical reflection." 3 A good illustration of the scope of the genre—and the scope of the problem—can be found in the works of William Faulkner. The Unvanquished , published in 1938, has sometimes been described as a "story novel." Arguably, it shadows a central protagonist and focuses on the exploits of a single family in Mississippi during the Civil War. Its stories are arranged chronologically, and they sometimes follow each other in time so closely that they might be chapters in a book; yet each story is an independent, fully rounded whole. Taken together, they resonate in a way they otherwise might not. The work originated in serial publication, with stories presented singly, and in a slightly different order. Only one story, "An Odor of Verbena," was especially written for the collected version, ostensibly to provide closure, although several stories were revised so as to create more connections between them.4 Go Down, Moses , on the other hand, is a disparate collection of short stories, perhaps an incongruous accumulation of story clusters. Published just four years after The Unvanquished , it follows several protagonists, most but not all of which form branches on one sprawling family tree, despite their widely dissimilar races and socioeconomic 3 J. Gerald Kennedy, introduction to Modern American Short Story Sequences: Composite Fictions and Fictive Communities , ed. Kennedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), xi. 4 Forrest Ingram, Representative Short Story Cycles of the Twentieth Century: Studies in a Literary Genre (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 106. 2 positions. Their narratives place them in settings from the country to the town to the backwoods, and though the stories are arranged in roughly chronological order, the tendency of the narrator to at any point range associatively over the expanse of the family mythology creates a sense of dislocation in time and even setting. Like its earlier counterpart, Go Down, Moses was published serially, with the exception of two stories, "Was" and "The Fire in the Hearth," which provide the rest of the stories with a contextual introduction. The Unvanquished and Go Down, Moses represent different aesthetics, the one friendly to the general periodical reader 5 and the other more inaccessibly

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