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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1979 The ndiI vidual in the Family: a Critical Introduction to the Novels of Anne Tyler. Stella Ann Nesanovich Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Nesanovich, Stella Ann, "The ndI ividual in the Family: a Critical Introduction to the Novels of Anne Tyler." (1979). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3454. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3454 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]. 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Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE FAMILY: A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVELS OF ANNE TYLER 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 Stella Ann Nesanovicfe B.A., Louisiana State University in New Orleans* 1966 M.A., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1968 December, 1979 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. EXAMINATION AND THESIS REPORT Candidate: Stella Ann Nesanovich Major Field: English Tide of Thesis: The Individual in the Family: A Critical Introduction to the Novels of Anne Tyler Approved: g. Major Professor and/Chairman Dean of the Graduate School EXAMINING COMMITTEE: UK Date of Examination: November 29, 1979 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT There are many people I wish to thank for helping me in the research, composition, and final preparation of this study. Foremost among these, of course, is Anne Tyler herself. For several years she has patiently answered my questions and provided invaluable information about her life and work. I also wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee, especially Dr. Donald E. Stanford, under whose direction this study was written; Dr. John R. May, whose meticulous reading of my rough draft proved exceedingly helpful; and Dr. John Wildman, whose sensitive evaluation of my work greatly encouraged me. Dr. Rebecca Crump and Dr. Fabian Gudas, the other members of my committee, have also been helpful in the final preparation of this dissertation, and I wish to acknowledge their guidance. Besides the members of my committee, however, there are many others I wish to thank for their assistance: Mrs. Faye Rifkind and Mrs. Christine Cowan, who typed the final draft; Mrs. Sarah East, who patiently proofread; and Mrs. Catherine Edmonston, who handled many details after I had moved from Baton Rouge. I wish also to thank Mrs. Olar Bell and Miss Sandra Mocney, both the Louisiana State University Library, for their help in locating the materials for the checklist, and, most particularly, my friends at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina. There is no doubt in my mind that the released time from the Writing Center at Winthrop, given to me by Dr. C. Michael Smith, and the assistance in the teaching of my classes, provided by Miss Elspeth Stuckey, made possible the completion of my work. To these two people, I offer an especially warm note of thanks. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Finally, I want to acknowledge my friends and family for their unfailing financial and spiritual support during the many years in which I undertook graduate study and worked on this dissertation. My special gratitude goes to my father, Joseph M. Nesanovich, Sr., now deceased; my mother, Mrs. Etta Nesanovich, whose continued belief in me and prayers have sustained me for years; and Gordon Kilgore Slack, a close friend and advisor, who, for over five years, patiently offered me guidance in both personal and academic matters. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENT................................................. ii ABSTRACT ..... .................. v INTRODUCTION..................................................... vii CHAPTER I The Early Novels ....................................... 1 II The Clock W i n d e r .............. 84 III Celestial Navigation ................................... 118 IV Searching for C a l e b ....................................... 153 V Earthly Possessions .................................... 199 CONCLUSION .............................. 231 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS C I T E D ................ 244 APPENDIX: An Anne Tyler Checklist, 1959-1978 246 VITA ............................................................. 272 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT At the age of thirty-eight, the contemporary American writer Anne Tyler has an impressive publishing record. By the end of 1978, she had published seven full-length novels and forty short stories, several of which were later included in prize anthologies. An eighth novel is scheduled to appear in the spring of 1980. All seven of Miss Tyler’s novels and most of her short stories are set in the South, primarily in North Carolina, where the novelist grew up, or in Baltimore, where she has lived with her husband and two daughters since 1967. Moreover, since the publication of her first story in 1959, Miss Tyler has shown a continu­ ing interest in the intricacies of family relationships and the growth and concurrent isolation of the individual within a family setting. Re­ peatedly the novelist focuses on the ability of the individual to adjust to the confinement and isolation of family life and to continue to love in the face of marked conflict with the very people to whom he is related or with whom he has chosen to live. More than merely a vehicle for study­ ing the endurance of human beings in confining, restrictive situations, however, Miss Tyler's fiction also reveals the author's development as a writer: a maturation of both her vision and her skill in the handling of complex and frequently more elusive personalities. The novels move from the early _If Morning Ever Comes, a book which focuses on the dilemma of a single character, Ben Joe Hawkes, to Searching for Caleb, a portrait of five generations of the Peck family. In successive works, the main char­ acters are older, their life experiences broader and more comprehensively portrayed. The young law student of lf_ Morning Ever Comes, ten-year-old Simon and his cousin Joan in The Tin Can Tree, the dumpy teenager of A v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Siipping-Down Life, and the passive college drop-out and heroine of The Clock Winder, Anne Tyler’s fourth novel, yield to more intriguing, mature characters: the reclusive bachelor-artist of Celestial Navigation, the impulsive and intuitive fortune teller, her mechanically-inclined husband, and her restless great uncle in Searching for Caleb, the tolerant and witty housewife of Earthly Possessions. Despite the large body of Anne Tyler's

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