Representations of Catholicism in American Literature

REPRESENTATIONS OF CATHOLICISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1820-1920 Except where reference is made to the work of others, the work described in this dissertation is my own or was done in collaboration with my advisory committee. This dissertation does not include proprietary or classified information. _________________________ Mary Ann Rygiel Certificate of Approval: ________________________ ________________________ Bert Hitchcock, Chair Chris Keirstead Professor Emeritus Associate Professor English English ________________________ ________________________ Margaret Kouidis George T. Flowers Associate Professor Dean English Graduate School REPRESENTATIONS OF CATHOLICISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1820-1920 Mary Ann Rygiel Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama May 9, 2009 REPRESENTATIONS OF CATHOLICISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1820-1920 Mary Ann Rygiel Permission is granted to Auburn University to make copies of this dissertation at its discretion, upon request of individuals or institutions and at their expense. The author reserves all publication rights. _________________________ Signature of Author _________________________ Date of Graduation iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT REPRESENTATIONS OF CATHOLICISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1820-1920 Mary Ann Rygiel Doctor of Philosophy, May 9, 2009 (M.A., Auburn University, 1977) (M.A.T., Cornell University, 1971) (B.A., Loyola University Chicago, 1970) 398 Typed Pages Directed by Bert Hitchcock This dissertation examines the representation of Catholics and Catholicism in literature by non-Catholic authors in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century American prose fiction and travel narratives. Moving roughly chronologically, it identifies notable images of Catholicism, describes their presentation, and, finally, offers evidence of and accounts for a meaningful change in the presentation. The introduction reviews the contributions to this field made by Susan Griffin, David Reynolds, and Jenny Franchot. It adapts and builds on historical analysis by Jay Dolan of the relationship of Catholics to America. iv It concludes by proposing grounds for concluding that the trend in the presentation of Catholicism in American literature from 1820 to 1920 by non-Catholic writers is toward more positive depiction: notably in the change in literary emphasis from romance to realism and in the change in the key elements of “narrative theology” to “narrative aesthetics.” It contextualizes these changes within the enhanced cultural position of the American author and within a concern with modernism. It considers what American writers’ portrayals of Catholics say about American belief in separation of church and state, compromise, and optimism. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank Dr. Bert Hitchcock, Chair, and Dr. Chris Keirstead and Dr. Margaret Kouidis, committee members, for their help in many ways with the research and writing of this dissertation. Thanks are also due to my husband Dennis, my sons Stephen and Robert, my sister Rose Bosau, and my brother Fr. Peter Heidenrich, for their support and love. vi Style manual or journal used: MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, Second edition Computer software used: Microsoft Word 2007 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION:RELIGION AS AN “INVISIBLE DOMAIN” IN AMERICAN STUDIES ……………………………………………………….1 CHAPTER II CATHOLICISM AND MORALITY IN TWO ANTEBELLUM ROMANCES ……………………………………………………………………34 James Fenimore Cooper …………………………………………………………37 Catharine Maria Sedgwick ………………………………………………………56 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………72 CHAPTER III DOCTRINAL DISPUTES: ANTEBELLUM NOVELS, ONCE MORE …………………………………………………………………………...77 Orestes Brownson ……………………………………………………………….81 Augusta Jane Evans Wilson ……………………………………………………..88 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..101 CHAPTER IV ‘RELICS OF PAPISTRY LEFT BEHIND US”: HAWTHORNE, JAMES, HOWELLS AND CATHOLIC AESTHETICS ……………………………….105 Nathaniel Hawthorne …………………………………………………………..108 The Scarlet Letter ………………………………………………………108 The Marble Faun ………………………………………………………121 Henry James…………………………………………………………………….131 Roderick Hudson ………………………………………………………131 viii The Portrait of a Lady …………………………………………………146 The Golden Bowl ………………………………………………………151 William Dean Howells………………………………………………………….156 Indian Summer………………………………………………………….156 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..161 CHAPTER V “A COMPLETE VARIETY OF PROTESTANT CONGREGATIONS” IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT: MARK TWAIN ON CATHOLICISM AND DEMOCRACY ………………………………………………………………...165 The Innocents Abroad ………………………………………………………….170 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court ………………………………..180 Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc …………………………………………190 CHAPTER VI FRIEND OF CREOLES, FRIEND OF HISPANICS; NATIONAL CATHOLIC CHURCHES IN HARPER AND NORRIS ……………………..213 Frances E. W. Harper ………………………………………………………….215 Frank Norris ……………………………………………………………………228 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..237 CHAPTER VII “SO MANY CELLS WITH SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF HONEY”: CATHOLIC DEVOTIONAL LIFE IN HAROLD FREDERIC, PAULINE HOPKINS, AND HENRY ADAMS ………………………………239 Harold Frederic ………………………………………………………………...240 Pauline Hopkins ………………………………………………………………..251 Henry Adams …………………………………………………………………..260 CHAPTER VIII “MOTHER-WOMEN, OTHER WOMEN, CREOLE MEN, ix CELIBATE PRIESTS; CATHOLIC GENDER MODELS IN CHOPIN AND FITZGERALD …………………………………………………………..272 Kate Chopin ………………………………………………………………........273 F. Scott Fitzgerald ……………………………………………………………...294 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..310 CHAPTER IX THE CHANGING PRESENTATIONS OF CATHOLICISM AFTER THE CIVIL WAR; FROM FEAR AND FASCINATION TO ACCOMMODATION AND COMMON CAUSE …………………………….313 ENDNOTES …………………………………………………………………………...342 WORKS CITED ……………………………………………………………………….372 x Chapter I Introduction: Religion as an “Invisible Domain” in American Studies This study examines the representation of Catholics and Catholicism by non- Catholic authors in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century American prose, primarily fiction but also two travel books and one travel essay. My concerns are, for the one-hundred year period from the 1820s to the 1920s, to identify images of Catholicism and describe their presentation, and to investigate whether any meaningful changes took place in such presentation. In discussing representations of Catholics in fiction, I will be discussing both clergy and lay characters. Catholicism here includes Catholic doctrine on the nature and number of Sacraments and on the Virgin Mary, Catholic emphasis on the Papacy and on intercession of Saints, and Catholic church ritual, as well as many contrasts between Catholic and Protestant practice that are consequences of differences in doctrine, including differences in personal and public devotional practices, church architecture and decoration, and church music. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Catholicism was a minority religion in the United States and despite dramatic increases has remained a minority Christian religion relative to the total Protestant Christian population. Historian Mark Noll notes that Catholics, constituting 1% of the American population in 1776, numbered a mere 25,000, with 23 priests (Old Religion 121). Waves of Irish immigration from the 1820s onward and from the southern and eastern Mediterranean in the 1890s, as well as conversions by 1 Americans during the nineteenth century, changed the percentage dramatically. By 1906, Catholics totaled twelve million, making them 14% of the American population, with 15,000 priests and 12,000 churches (Noll, Old Religion 121). “The number of American Catholics quadrupled between 1860 and 1900, and, despite a slowdown in Catholic immigration by World War I, kept growing to almost 20 million in the 1920s. Inexorably, the Catholic share of the population was also rising rapidly, approaching 20 percent by 1930” (Morris 113). Despite minority status, but because of their growing numbers, Catholics and Catholicism are a significant presence in nineteenth-century American literature, especially fiction by non-Catholics. Often the attention they received was negative, hence the use of the term “anti-Catholicism” not only in my key scholarly sources, but as a Library of Congress official library classification. Drawing on work by Ray Allen Billington, Jenny Franchot indicates the scope of anti-Catholicism in antebellum America. She says, “From 1800 to 1860, a partial count of anti-Catholic publications shows some 25 newspapers, 13 magazines, 210 books, 40 fictional pieces, 41 histories, and scores of giftbooks, almanacs, and pamphlets dedicated to the anti-Catholic cause” (106). The fact that “the Inquisition and its ingenious tortures had become a form of popular entertainment” (Franchot, Roads to Rome 166) by the time of the appearance of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” is just one small indicator of the interest of segments of the American public in material about Catholics. Again drawing on work by Billington, Franchot notes the case of “the New York showman who in 1842 exhibited a building of the Inquisition replete with common instruments of torture” (Roads to 2 Rome 166). One might almost think of such an exhibit as an ancestor of the Halloween Haunted House which forms a part of popular culture now. Franchot’s impressive statistics and the sweeping scope of her own ambitious groundbreaking work suggest the need for limiting any study of this material. Franchot along

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