DOCSLIB.ORG

Graduate Committee

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Graduate Committee A PROTOTYPICAL PATTERN IN DREISER'S FICTION APPROVED: Graduate Committee: M r of'so MiA or rofb'esor Committee Member Committee Member Chairm of Graduate Studies in English Dean f the Graduate School /A/0 , 90G A PROTOTYPICAL PATTERN IN DREISER'S FICTION DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Bobbye Nelson Wood, B. S., M. A. Denton, Texas December, 1974 Wood, Bobbye Nelson, A Prototypical Pattern in Dreiser's Fiction. Doctor of Philosophy (English), December, 1974, 157 pp., bibliography, 139 titles. Beginning in 1911 with Jennie Gerhardt and continuing through the publication of The "Genius" in 1915, all of Dreiser's major fiction is curiously marked by the same re- curring narrative pattern. The pattern is always triangular in construction and always contains the same three figures-- a vindictive and vengeful parent, outraged by an outsider's violation of personal and societal values; an enchanted off- spring; and a disruptive outsider who threatens established order. In spite of each work's different characterization, setting, and episode, the narrative conflict invariably arises from the discovery of an illicit relationship between offspring and outsider, and the narrative climax involves a violent clash of wills, with victory sometimes going to the parent and sometimes to the outsider. The denouement is consistently sorrowful and pensive in tone, with a philo- sophical epilogue which speculates on man's melancholy and puzzling fate. A traumatic event in October of 1910 accounts for the recurring pattern and serves as a prototype for Dreiser's major narratives of the next four years (Jennie Gerhardt, The Financier, The Titan, "The Girl in the Coffin," The "Genius"). In October Dreiser was fired from his prestigious position as editor-in-chief of all Butterick publications, because of his imprudent but insistent attentions to Thelma Cudlipp, the seventeen-year-old daughter of one of Butterick's assistant editors. Simultaneously Dreiser lost his job, his grand salary, his respectable reputation, and his young lover, circumstances which led to a time of deep depression and threatened suicide. As a means of personal therapy, the work is important which began in the winter of 1910, for through casting him- self in the role of misunderstood outsider, Dreiser used each narrative to examine his feelings concerning the ruptured love affair and the resulting loss of status. Each narrative thus served as a ritual of exorcism or atonement. The recurring narrative pattern therefore becomes a subliminal roadmap of Dreiser's thinking, as he moved from self-pity in Jennie Gerhardt to The "Genius"'s determined transcendence and reconciliation through art. In addition to personal emotional therapy, the work of the 1911-1914 period established Dreiser's artistic reputa- tion. Although in 1900 with Sister Carrie Dreiser had initially established his literary reputation, he had been forced to table his literary plans for a decade, while he struggled with economics, domesticity, and editorial respon- sibility. When the cataclysmic dismissal afforded him both time to devote to fiction and a unique psychological ap- proach, he became within four years the recognized leader of the new American movement of naturalism and the inspiration for those realists who would come after him. As both a guide to personal therapy and a key to the work with which Dreiser established his artistic identity, the recurring narrative pattern is important. Its examina- tion (1) illuminates an obscure period in Dreiser's life, (2) reveals his personality priorities as he turns the kaleidiscope of introspection to observe the Cudlipp crisis from various angles, and (3) offers to the discerning reader a reliable clue to the developing system of aesthetics of one of America's greatest artists. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE RECURRING PATTERN AND THE PROTOTYPICAL EVENT. ....... 0 0 1 II. THE PATTERN IN JENNIE GERHARDT...... .. 0. 20 III. THE PATTERN IN THE FINANCIER......... .. 0. 39 IV. THE PATTERN IN THE TITAN...-..... 59 V. THE PATTERN IN "THE GIRL IN THE COFFIN" . 80 VI. THE PATTERN IN THE "GENIUS" . .. 0.. a . 97 VII. DREISER AND THE PATTERN ... 0... 119 BIBLIOGRAPHY .. 0 . 149 CHAPTER I THE RECURRING PATTERN AND THE PROTOTYPICAL EVENT The Pattern Beginning in 1911 with Jennie Gerhardt and continuing through the publication of The "Genius" in 1915, all of Dreiser's major fiction is curiously marked by the same re- curring narrative pattern. The pattern is always triangular in construction and always contains the same three figures-- parent, offspring, and outsider. Narrative conflict invari- ably arises from the discovery of an illicit sexual relation- ship between offspring and outsider, a relationship that violates the parent's moral code, threatens disruption of established social order, and generates intense feelings of vengeance and reprisal. In spite of different characteriza- tion, setting, and episode, the -climax is always a clash of wills, with victory sometimes going to the parent, some- times to the outsider. The denouement is consistently sor- rowful and pensive in tone, and in two out of the five works, a philosophical epilogue reports that it is man's melancholy fate to watch in wonder and uncertainty as the fruit of his desire turns to ashes. 1 ,4AA. - -- -.- , .- , -. Mi 2 In Jennie Gerhardt, for example, Archibald Kane, a wealthy carriage-maker and a firm believer in class responsi- bility, struggles to protect his son Lester from the clutches of a beautiful but impoverished outsider named Jennie Ger- hardt. Using his wealth and position as levers, Mr. Kane threatens disinheritance unless the liaison is broken, and he is successful. Sorrowfully but with the perception and sensitivity that is such an integral part of her personality, Jennie urges Lester to obey his father's wishes and claim his inheritance. Because she loves Lester, it is no satisfaction to Jennie to learn that in his bitterness he is slowly com- mitting suicide, symbolically glutting himself on the very goods so highly prized by the society he leaves Jennie to join. Too much food, liquor, and travel, too many servants, and too little exercise at last take their toll, and Lester dies, helpless and unhappy. In Jennie Gerhardt, though the parent figure is victorious over the outsider and social order is preserved, the outcome is bitter, and the melodra- matic denouement treats in full detail the pathos of this dubious and emotionally blighting victory. The Financier (1912) continues the triangular narrative pattern, but this time it is the ruthless, individualistic outsider named Frank Algernon Cowperwood who conquers. Cow- perwood falls in love with the vivacious young daughter of a Philadelphia contractor and stock broker, and succeeds in making her first his lover and then his wife, in spite of 3 the fact that at the climax of their long battle her staunch Irish Catholic father has him sent to prison for two years. The fast-paced narrative tone indicates Dreiser's lively in- terest in his subject, and the action strongly implies that a dominating, confident, utterly ruthless mind--"fitter" than its contemporaries--ought to be victorious over a con- ventional society. More than likely, however, this tone was in keeping with the facts of the pyrotechnical career of the high-living model for Dreiser's story, Charles Tyson Yerkes, the Chicago street-railway tycoon. A thoughtful and intro- spective epilogue slows down the pace, prophesies doom for a relationship running so blatantly counter to society's mores, and examines speculatively the seeds of defeat that lie with- in the fruit of such a victory, in spite of personality structures. "What wise man might not read from such a beginning, such an end?" 1 he asks. The Titan, second in the trilogy that was to cover Cow- perwood's life, takes a mellower tone, and the battle shifts from a literal triangular confrontation to a metaphorical. Here Cowperwood is opposed by an established coalition of Chicago businessmen, who speak of themselves in parental images and who work to defeat Cowperwood's plans for a street- railway monopoly, as punishment for his piratical raids on 1 Theodore Dreiser, The Financier (1912; rpt. Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1946), p. 503. 4 their wives, daughters, and vested business interests. And they are successful in driving him from Chicago, although their method of arousing citizens' committees eventually defeats their monopolies also and leads to public ownership of utilities and municipal transportation. Cowperwood turns toward Europe for new business prospects, but the old exhi- laration in conquest is gone, and domination is only a dull habit, not a joy. The old game of Cowperwood versus the con- ventional world, in other words, is no longer fun, and a philosophical epilogue suggests that morality will in the long run prevail over ruthless individualism. In "The Girl in the Coffin" (1913), a play which inter- rupted Dreiser's work on The Titan, the outsider, a much re- spected labor leader named John Ferguson, and the parent figure, an Italian immigrant mill worker named William Mag- net, struggle over Magnet's consuming desire for revenge upon his dead daughter's unknown lover. Magnet never learns that Ferguson is the father of the aborted baby that killed his daughter, and the conflict is resolved by both men's renewed dedication to humanitarian service, a goal more important than either revenge or physical desire. A word reported from the deathbed of the daughter praises this position and tacitly urges both men to devote their energies to helping their suffering brothers, thereby winning both fame and a more lasting personal satisfaction. 5 The "Genius" (1915) also resolves the narrative con- flict arising from the triangular pattern with a dedication to an independent goal--art.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Download File
    The Outward Turn: Personality, Blankness, and Allure in American Modernism Anne Claire Diebel Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Anne Claire Diebel All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Outward Turn: Personality, Blankness, and Allure in American Modernism Anne Claire Diebel The history of personality in American literature has surprisingly little to do with the differentiating individuality we now tend to associate with the term. Scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American culture have defined personality either as the morally vacuous successor to the Protestant ideal of character or as the equivalent of mass-media celebrity. In both accounts, personality is deliberately constructed and displayed. However, hiding in American writings of the long modernist period (1880s–1940s) is a conception of personality as the innate capacity, possessed by few, to attract attention and elicit projection. Skeptical of the great American myth of self-making, such writers as Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, Gertrude Stein, Nathanael West, and Langston Hughes invented ways of representing individuals not by stable inner qualities but by their fascinating—and, often, gendered and racialized—blankness. For these writers, this sense of personality was not only an important theme and formal principle of their fiction and non-fiction writing; it was also a professional concern made especially salient by the rise of authorial celebrity. This dissertation both offers an alternative history of personality in American literature and culture and challenges the common critical assumption that modernist writers took the interior life to be their primary site of exploration and representation.
    [Show full text]
  • Strategies in Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire to Resolve the Division Between the Material and the Spiritual
    Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 11-9-1994 Strategies in Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire to Resolve the Division Between the Material and the Spiritual Claas Riese Portland State University Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Riese, Claas, "Strategies in Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire to Resolve the Division Between the Material and the Spiritual" (1994). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4792. 10.15760/etd.6676 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. '""' ,._... THESIS APPROVAL The abstract and thesis of Claas Riese for the Master of Arts in English were presented Nov. 9, 1994, and accepted by the thesis committee and the department. COMMITTEE APPROVALS: fi I C 1_, . -- cara o , hair . ./ Pe { Nancy f orter ' ~teven Fuller Representative of the Office of Graduate Studies ; I/ . DEPARTMENT APPROVAL: Shelley Ree&: Chafr Department of English ******************************************************** ACCEPTED FOR PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY BY THE LIBRARY b on.27' A{l}L?r.n-k+-· /9947 ABSTRACT An abstract of the thesis of Claas Riese for the Master of Arts in English presented Nov. 9, 1994. Title: Strategies in Theodore Dreiser's "Trilogy of Desire" to resolve the division between the material and the spiritual. A study of strategies and attempts in Theodore Dreiser's novels The Financier, The Titan and The Stoic to resolve the conflict between the material and the spiritual.
    [Show full text]
  • Naturalism, the New Journalism, and the Tradition of the Modern American Fact-Based Homicide Novel
    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 margins, 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 corner 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 included 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. U·M·I University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml48106-1346 USA 3131761-4700 800!521-0600 Order Number 9406702 Naturalism, the new journalism, and the tradition of the modern American fact-based homicide novel Whited, Lana Ann, Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • Theodore Dreiser's Ponderation on American Society and Ruination Of
    Vol. 5, No. 6 Asian Social Science From American Dreams to American Tragedies — Theodore Dreiser’s Ponderation on American Society and Ruination of Morality Chengcheng Zhang & Hui Zhang Foreign Language Teaching & Researching Department, Hebei University Baoding 071002, Hebei Province, China E-mail: [email protected] The research is financed by Hebei University Humanity and Social Science Project. No. XSK0701025 Abstract Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser is one of America's greatest naturalist writers. He believed that human beings are helpless in the grip of instincts and social forces beyond their control, and he judged human society as an unequal contest between the strong and the weak. Both of his masterpieces Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925), which were mostly based on his personal experience, expanded and clarified those themes. By comparing Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, this thesis analyzes the author’s exploration of the possibilities of 20th century American life with its material profusion and spiritual doubt of the life value. Keywords: American dreams, American tragedies, Comparison, Morality 1. Historical background 1.1 About the author Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was the ninth of 10 surviving children in a family whose perennial poverty forced frequent moves between small Indiana towns and Chicago in search of a lower cost of living. In 1943, he wrote to one of his friend, “unlike yourself I am biased. I was born poor. For a time in November and December once I went without
    [Show full text]
  • The Psychology of Literary Allusions in Theodore Dreiser's The
    Citation: Aurangzeb, S., Iqbal, L., & SahibzadaJehanzeb. (2020). Cultural and Historical Progression: The Psychology of Literary Allusions in Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier (Trilogy of Desire). Global Regional Review, V(I), 169-175. https://doi.org/10.31703/grr.2020(V-II).18 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.31703/grr.2020(V-II).18 DOI: 10.31703/grr.2020(V-II).18 Cultural and Historical Progression: The Psychology of Literary Allusions in Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier (Trilogy of Desire) Sahibzada Aurangzeb* Liaqat Iqbal† Sahibzada Jehanzeb‡ Vol. V, No. II (Spring 2020) | Pages: 169 ‒ 175 p- ISSN: 2616-955X | e-ISSN: 2663-7030 | ISSN-L: 2616-955X The psychology of allusion is often multi-faceted as a reference to an artefact, which could be a character from a literary piece, the quoted words of a character, a place in the country or an event from history. The reference item should be familiar to the readers. The current research identifies literary allusion in The Financer (1912) and the characters referred to Ouida's Tricotrin (1869), Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847), Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr's A Bow of Orange Ribbon (1886), Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Kenelm Chillingly (1874), and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1603) which is explained with Abstract reference to the plot of Theodore Dreiser’s Trilogy of Desire: The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914) and The Stoic (1947). The available literature review testified that a thorough evaluation of the allusions within the novel had not been accomplished to date, although these allusions link the literary pieces of the greatest minds in literature.
    [Show full text]
  • The American Tragedy Murder
    HARVEYSLAKE.ORG The American Tragedy Murder Official Detective Stories presents The American Tragedy Murder By Grant Frobisher On July 31, the body of twenty‐six year old Freda Theodore Dreiser had published the most monumental of his novels, An American Tragedy, in 1925. He based it on an McKechnie of Edwardsville turned up in Harvey’s Lake at actual case that had unfolded in the vicinity of Herkimer, New Myers Grove, near Sandy Beach. Two teenagers in a rowboat, York, between 1905 and 1908. A murdered woman, Grace Nathan Schoenburn and his girlfriend, saw the body floating Brown, was found with a bruise on her forehead in Big Moose face down; it was also spotted from the shore by a five year Lake. Investigators learned that she and a man named old girl, Betty DaCosta. Chester Gillette were lovers, that she was pregnant by him, Shortly thereafter police arrested Robert Allan Edwards, and that he wished to marry another, and wealthier, woman. age twenty‐three, also of Edwardsville, and charged that he Gillette was found guilty and electrocuted at Auburn had bludgeoned the pregnant McKechnie with a blackjack in Penitentiary in March 1908. order to be free to marry the younger, wealthier and prettier The All‐American looking Robert Edwards, better known Margaret Crain, a native of upstate New York. as Bobby, was a young man whose aspirations for a college Page 1 HARVEYSLAKE.ORG The American Tragedy Murder degree had been sidetracked by the Depression. He had to life. drop out of Mansfield State Teachers’ College and take a job On the evening of July 30, Edwards and McKechnie drove as a mine surveyor with the Kingston Coal Company.
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    Table of Contents ISSUE 11 • 2016 4 6 22 36 50 Featured Articles 4 Kaye on Jay: Revisited by Judith S. Kaye 6 Asian-Americans and the Law by Denny Chin & Kathy Hirata Chin 22 People v. Gillette and Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy: Law v. Literature by Susan N. Herman 36 “Jacobin Winds”: Chief Justice James Kent and the Origins of the Citizenship Prerequisite for Admission to the New York Bar by Craig A. Landy 50 The Formation of New York’s Commercial Division – A History & Memoir by Mark H. Alcott Departments 3 From the Executive Director 58 A Look Back… and Forward 63 Society Officers, Trustees & Supporting Members 64 Are You a Member? From the Executive Director Dear Members, JUDICIAL his, our 11th issue, continues the high standards of scholarship and engaging topics in a NOTICE beautiful publication; a tradition begun by our Founder, Judith S. Kaye. Her passing this year makes the issue very personally poignant. To my recollection, every issue bears her stamp in someT fashion. For instance, when our extremely gifted and diligent editors finished their review and the • final proofs were sent to Judge Kaye, she always found another edit as she donned her journalist hat…often Editor-In-Chief buried in a footnote that was one of dozens! She has contributed regularly to this publication as a writer. Henry M. Greenberg A particular interest for her was John Jay. We published her article Kay on Jay in Issue 8. There, she focused on Jay the Family Man. In this issue, Judge Kaye reports on an event she attended at John Jay College of Managing Editor Criminal Justice where a bronze statue of John Jay was unveiled.
    [Show full text]
  • Theodore Dreiser Naturalist Or Theist DUSTIN HEUSTON
    theodore dreiser naturalist or theist DUSTIN HEUSTON in literary criticism theodore dreiser s name has become synonymous with naturalism naturalism however has cer- tain philosophical problems attending it while apparently freeing an individual from the tensions of normal ethical sys- tems such as a religion naturalism fails finally to provide any relief for the one problem that most of the systems profess to answer the problem of death similarly when an individual adopts a naturalistic ethic he is apt to become a hedonist be- cause a naturalistic ethic gives apparent sanction to the gratifi- cation of his senses since these are natural productsbyproductsby of his chemical makeupmake up the adoption of this hedonistic view in turn offers some serious problems particularly on the nature of the universe 1 although dreiser was concerned with some of the prob- lems that attend a hedonistic life 2 it was his inability to solve the problem of death that ultimately led him to abandon his philosophy of naturalism in favor of a theistic solution in the genius 1915 and an american tragedy 1925 dreiser has his protagonists investigate religion while under mr heustonhouston is instructor in english at brigham young university for an excellent discussion of the philosophical problems that attend hed- onism see yvor winter s chapter on wallace stevens in his book in defense of reason denver the university of denver press 1943 foror example in the financier dreiser predicts that cooperwoodcowperwoodCowperwood will find great fame but sorrow sorrow sorrow
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of Theodore Dreiser's the Financier, the Titan
    http://www.epitomejournals.com Impact Factor 3.656, Vol. III, Issue VII, July 2017, ISSN: 2395-6968 Towards Moralising Capitalism: A Study of Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier, The Titan and The Stoic Dr. Nyaa Hans Ndah The University of Bamenda Higher Teachers‟ Training College Department of English Modern Letters E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT Theodore Dreiser is a prominent 20th century American novelist who has elaborately articulated the intricacies of capitalism and the need for reforms in his Cowperwood trilogy. To this effect, this study examines the predicament of the masses in the American capitalist space. The study also investigates the arrogance and affluence that the bourgeois live in, against the backdrop of the misery of the proletariat. Using Alfred Adler‟s individual psychology and the Marxist theoretical approach, the study is based on the premise that in the Cowperwood trilogy, Dreiser castigates the excesses of modern capitalism and in the process, suggests means of moralising this ideology. The study also revealed that capitalism could be reformed through spiritual revivalism, the strengthening of family ties, and a rethinking of the American Dream. KEYWORDS Capitalism, moralisation, proletariat, spiritual revivalism, American Dream 1 NHN Dr. Pramod Ambadasrao Pawar, Editor-in-Chief ©EIJMR, All rights reserved. http://www.epitomejournals.com Impact Factor 3.656, Vol. III, Issue VII, July 2017, ISSN: 2395-6968 RESEARCH PAPER Introduction This article is based on the premise that in the Cowperwood trilogy, Theodore Dreiser is devoted to the cause of castigating the excesses of modern capitalism on the one hand, and on the other hand, making an effort to attempt a solution towards moralising capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Iii Theodore Dreiser's an American Tragedy
    CHAPTER - III THEODORE DREISER’S AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY- A DREAM GONE SOUR The decade after the Civil War, new literature began to appear in the U.S. Its forms were dedicated to a single theme; the life in America was a fluid and wide open race in which every one competed on equal basis, i.e. winner takes all. The 1920s were the salad days of great American novel, which includes the pervasiveness of ambition from Lewis, William, Hoyed Dell and Sherwood Anderson. On the editorial side, Horace Liveright put that authority to effective use. Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was the first American writer, who is not of the old American tradition. He was peculiarly nebulous, emotional and a traditionless character, who asserted with the blunt directness, that no other American writer at the turn of the century could match. Since the beginning, his mother urged him the need of strength, ambition, practical approach in life, and to defend himself. Further, he prepared himself for the battle of life. Like her, he was very much optimistic and a dreamer. For him success could mean burning with desire. He dreamt of the mansions that “should belong to me [...] the beauties who should note and receive 134 me.”1 Pluck and luck meant success, and success meant wealth and women. In the summer of 1920, when he was living in Los Angeles, Dreiser began writing An American Tragedy. It is difficult to establish in a systematic way as to when did he first contemplate to write this book, but the structure, and idea were in his mind long before he was compelled to write it.
    [Show full text]
  • A Dreiser Checklist, 1998–1999
    57 A Dreiser Checklist, 1998–1999 Roger W. Smith This checklist supplements Theodore Dreiser: A Primary Bibliography and Reference Guide, by Donald Pizer, Richard W. Dowell, and Frederic E. Rusch (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991). It attempts to include all significant pri- mary and secondary works published in the years 1998 through 1999. This bibliography will also be published on the Dreiser Studies website: <http: //www.uncw.edu/dreiser/studies/>. As was the case with past checklists, this update does not include publications in which Dreiser is given only passing mention, nor does it include reviews of secondary sources. It does, however, include reviews of biographies of Dreiser; articles that contain nuggets of biographical detail (no matter how slight) that are not derivative, personal reminiscences about Dreiser, or excerpts from Dreiser’s correspondence; and books and articles that include brief original critical insight or comment on Dreiser or his works. When the relevance to Dreiser is not otherwise clear from the title, items receive brief annotations. Internet publications are not included. For cross-referencing, each item in the checklist is preceded by an alpha- numeric or numeric identifier that essentially follows the system used by Pizer, Dowell, and Rusch in Theodore Dreiser: A Primary Bibliography and Reference Guide. For book reviews, cross-references are provided par- enthetically after the title of the book being reviewed. For reprints and col- lections of essays, they follow the complete citation. I wish to thank Jerzy Durczak and Karin Pfaffenbauer for responding to inquiries about specific theses written abroad. Dreiser Studies • Winter 2003, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT TRUE CRIME DOES PAY: NARRATIVES of WRONGDOING in FILM and LITERATURE Andrew Burt, Ph.D. Department of English Norther
    ABSTRACT TRUE CRIME DOES PAY: NARRATIVES OF WRONGDOING IN FILM AND LITERATURE Andrew Burt, Ph.D. Department of English Northern Illinois University, 2017 Scott Balcerzak, Director This dissertation examines true crime’s ubiquitous influence on literature, film, and culture. It dissects how true-crime narratives affect crime fiction and film, questioning how America’s continual obsession with crime underscores the interplay between true crime narratives and their fictional equivalents. Throughout the 20th century, these stories represent key political and social undercurrents such as movements in religious conservatism, issues of ethnic and racial identity, and developing discourses of psychology. While generally underexplored in discussions of true crime and crime fiction, these currents show consistent shifts from a liberal rehabilitative to a conservative punitive form of crime prevention and provide a new way to consider these undercurrents as culturally-engaged genre directives. I track these histories through representative, seminal texts, such as Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925), W.R. Burnett’s Little Caesar (1929, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me (1952), and Barry Michael Cooper’s 1980s new journalism pieces on the crack epidemic and early hip hop for the Village Voice, examining how basic crime narratives develop through cultural changes. In turn, this dissertation examines film adaptations of these narratives as well, including George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun (1951), Larry Cohen’s Black Caesar (1972), Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me (2010), and Mario Van Peeble’s New Jack City (1991), accounting for how the medium changes the crime narrative. In doing so, I examine true crime’s enduring resonance on crime narratives by charting the influence of commonly overlooked early narratives, such as execution sermons and murder ballads.
    [Show full text]