Encoding Imperialism: Homelessness in American Naturalism, 1890-1918. Janet M

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1995 Encoding Imperialism: Homelessness in American Naturalism, 1890-1918. Janet M. Whyde Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Whyde, Janet M., "Encoding Imperialism: Homelessness in American Naturalism, 1890-1918." (1995). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 6058. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6058 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. 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 bleedthrough, substandard margin^ and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely, event that the author did not send UMI 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. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs inchided in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ENCODING IMPERIALISM: HOMELESSNESS DM AMERICAN NATURALISM 1890-1918 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Janet M. Whyde B.A., Texas A&M University, 1985 M.A., North Carolina State University, 1991 August 1995 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9609132 UMI Microform 9609132 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dedication Jakob William Hendrix 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to all those who saw me through the sometimes exhilarating, often painful, process of writing this dissertation. Of especial importance, of course, are the members of my committee—Carol Mattingly, Carl Freedman, Panthea Reid, Richard Moreland, David Wills—all of whom expressed unreserved support for my project. The chair of this committee, Dr. John Lowe, deserves inexpressible thanks for his unwavering faith in and perceptive criticisms of my work. I thank all of these people with the hope that someday I may repay their kindnessess. Others, however, also contributed to the completion of this work, which came about despite, or perhaps because of, particularly distressing obstacles. I thank all of my friends, but especially those who helped me when I was unable to help myself: Charlotte Mclnnis Curtis and family, Judith Duplessis, Paul Nielsen, Lynna Dunn, Laurie Amston, and Robert Peneguy. For their support and faith in me, I also thank Erik Bledsoe, Keith Hendrix, James and Janet Hendrix, and Terry Newgard. And although they often questioned the wisdom of spending a lifetime reading and writing about novels, I thank my family for trusting my judgment and my aspirations. I give special thanks to Drayton Vincent, without whom this dissertation would never have gotten finished. But most of all I thank my son, Jakob, whose unconditional love and acceptance often served as a reason to continue. 111 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Dedication ................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments ................................................................................... iii Abstract..................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 Introduction: Establishing Boundaries ......................................... 1 Chapter 2 Homelessness: Exposing the Mutability of Social Boundaries ..................................................................... 25 Chapter 3 The Body as "Domicile of Origin": Homeless Women in Space........................................................... 84 Chapter 4 Arguing Imperialism: Naturalism's Structural Display of the O ther..................................................................... 138 Bibliography............................................................................................ 176 V ita.......................................................................................................... 190 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract Homelessness occurs with uncommon regularity in the works of American naturalists, and in each case, the result of a character's homelessness results in a crisis of social identity and self definition. This pattern recurs in the works of the canonically identified naturalists, such as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser, as well as other writers who have only been tangentially associated with naturalism—Edith Wharton and Paul Laurence Dunbar, for example. In this study, I analyze the relationship between homelessness as it is represented in the novels and the political debate over the United States's imperialist aspirations at the turn of the nineteenth century. In chapter 2,1 look closely at the effects that the loss of home has on the protagonists of Dunbar's The Sport of the Gods (1901), Norris's Vandover and the Brute (1894), and Wharton's The House of Mirth (1903). Through the physical dislocation of the characters, these writers explore the integral relationship between identification of the self within the structure of a home and the subsequent disruption of self identity caused by its loss. Chapter 3 expands the definition of home by looking specifically at the coterminous relationship between the woman's body and the space that she inhabits. Examining Wharton's Summer (1918) and Dreiser's Jennie Gerhardt (1911), I demonstrate that, because of the social expectations that women should embody domestic values, women’s homelessness is represented as a process of failure to project the self into the world. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The final chapter demonstrates that the structure of the narratives enact the process of display necessary for the domination of the other and that this structure dramatizes and exposes the mechanism of colonialization. American naturalism ultimately reinforces the values of imperialism while critiquing the destructiveness of conspicuous consumption. vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 1 Introduction: Establishing Boundaries In the city at that time there were a number of charities, similar in nature to the Captain's, which Hurstwood patronized in a similiarly unfortunate way. One was a convent mission-house of the Sisters of Mercy in 15th Street—a row of red brick family dwellings before the door of which hung a plain wooden contribution box, on which was painted the statement that every noon a meal was given free to all those who might apply and ask for aid. This simple announcement was modest in the extreme, covering as it did a charity so broad. Institutions and charities are so large and so numerous in New York that such things as this are not often noticed by the more comfortably situated. But to one whose mind is upon the matter, they grow exceedingly under inspection —SisterCarrie (1900) One of the first boundaries that individuals encounter is the one that defines the home and family from the outside. Who are the members of the family and the community? What are the parameters of the home territory? For the United States, these basic questions took on a public character at the turn of the nineteenth century, fueled by the announcement

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