TESIS DOCTORAL 2015 ANNE TYLER’S COMPASS A STUDY OF GENDER AND HUMOR IN THE NOVELS OF ANNE TYLER Mª Elena Casado Carro Licenciada en Filología Inglesa UNED Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas Facultad de Filología Doctoral advisor: Dra. Isabel Castelao Gómez TESIS DOCTORAL 2015 ANNE TYLER’S COMPASS A STUDY OF GENDER AND HUMOR IN THE NOVELS OF ANNE TYLER Mª Elena Casado Carro Licenciada en Filología Inglesa UNED Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas Facultad de Filología Doctoral advisor: Dra. Isabel Castelao Gómez DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍAS EXTRANJERAS Y SUS LINGÜÍSTICAS Facultad de Filología ANNE TYLER’S COMPASS A STUDY OF GENDER AND HUMOR IN THE NOVELS OF ANNE TYLER Mª Elena Casado Carro Licenciada en Filología Inglesa Doctoral advisor: Dra. Isabel Castelao Gómez M ª E l e n a Casado Carro | 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Before starting this dissertation I did not have a family of my own but as I was reading Tyler’s novels some of the things she was narrating also happened to me: I met a boy, I got married, we had a baby, and we moved houses. That is why I feel so identified with what Tyler depicts in her stories. Although reading and analyzing her work has been as if I were exploring my own self, it has been a long process to which I have devoted a lot of time, time that I could not spend with my family. For this reason, I would like to thank my husband for his patience and his effort all these years. My son, although he does not understand it yet, is also a little person I would like to mention, since he is discovering the world with books in very much the same way I did. I would also like to thank my parents and my brother, who have helped me even when the project was only an idea. All of them have dedicated time to listen to my concerns and have been a great support, without which I would not have been able to continue with the dissertation. Special thanks to my doctoral advisor, Professor Isabel Castelao, for her ideas and her help in refining, shaping and developing the dissertation. In addition, I would like to thank all the professors in the UNED who have tutored my work since I first started the doctorate degree. 2 M ª E l e n a Casado Carro | 3 INDEX Chapter 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2. Theoretical and critical background: Analyzing Tyler’s compass on gender and literary style ............................................................................................................. 15 2.1. Biographical and literary contextualization ......................................................... 17 2.2. Anne Tyler as a Southern writer. ......................................................................... 41 2.3. Anne Tyler and feminism .................................................................................... 49 Chapter 3. The amateur marriage in Anne Tyler’s novels ............................................... 87 Chapter 4. Tears and joys are in the family ..................................................................... 138 Chapter 5. Humor and the eccentric ................................................................................ 185 Chapter 6. Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 241 Chapter 7. Bibliography .................................................................................................... 251 Annex I: List of novels by Anne Tyler .............................................................................. 269 Anne Tyler’s Compass M ª E l e n a Casado Carro | 4 ABBREVIATIONS USED diss. dissertation et al. and others i.e. that is n.pag. no pagination qtd. quoted rev. review, reviewed by sic thus in the source OUP Oxford University Press U University UMI University Microfilms International UP University Press LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Types of managing women and their qualities Anne Tyler’s Compass M ª E l e n a Casado Carro | 5 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION I mean you're given all these lessons for the unimportant things--piano- playing, typing. You're given years and years of lessons in how to balance equations, which Lord knows you will never have to do in normal life. But how about parenthood? Or marriage, either, come to think of it. Before you can drive a car you need a state-approved course of instruction, but driving a car is nothing, nothing, compared to living day in and day out with a husband and raising up a new human being. Anne Tyler ~ Breathing Lessons Anne Tyler’s Compass M ª E l e n a Casado Carro | 6 When I first came across one of Tyler’s books I was amazed at her capacity for creating characters that we can identify in each one of the members of our own families or friends. I thought: “I know somebody like him!” or “I know her!” What is more, their thoughts, their concerns and moments of joy are very similar to what we can experience in real life so I had a “that-happened-to-me” feeling. For this reason, I was immediately hooked on her style and her stories, all of which have helped me understand my own family and friends better. That is why I completely agree with Alejandro Gándara’s words when he describes the author as somebody who is not interested in the extraordinary or the unique but she confines herself instead to find treasures in those scenes that are right in front of us (elmundo.es, n.pag.). It is not easy to classify Anne Tyler, given that she is a prolific writer who is not very well-known by the public, especially outside of the United States. Although her novels have been translated into different languages, among them Spanish, she does not appear much in the Spanish press apart from a handful reviews and interviews. Her books, however, can be found in the Spanish bookstores in English and in Spanish. For instance, her last published book, A Spool of Blue Thread, was present in Spanish general bookstores after being published in February 2015 together with other modern and not so recent titles such as The Amateur Marriage, The Beginner’s Goodbye, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant or The Accidental Tourist. If Tyler’s novels are sold in general bookstores in Spain it means that there is a public for her. However, the lack of critical materials about her work is surprising taking into account her production and the awards she has received. In the only dissertation published up to date in Spain entitled Perfil Mítico del Héroe en la narrativa de Anne Tyler (1994), Rafael López Berho already criticized the scarcity of scholarly works together with the difficulty of finding her novels translated in Spanish. Anne Tyler’s Compass M ª E l e n a Casado Carro | 7 According to him, in 1994 there were only 6 novels translated into Spanish and none of her short stories had been translated (11). Among the first translated novels he mentions The Accidental Tourist, whose acclaimed movie he considers as the reason for the publication of several of her novels in our country (11). Actually, López Berho criticized the publishing of her novels as something that did not follow any chronological order or any literary criteria, suggesting that it was only a marketing strategy (11). Nowadays the situation has improved since 1994 due to the publication of most of her novels in Spanish. Nevertheless, I still have not found the Spanish version for the following titles: The Tin Can Tree, The Clock Winder, Celestial Navigation, and Earthly Possessions.1 Moreover, none of her short stories has been translated into Spanish yet, something that could be explained by the absence of a compilation in English. Thus, this dissertation aims at contributing to the development of scholarly works in our country which continue the path opened by López Berho in his dissertation. At the same time, with this dissertation we modernize and update the existent resources about the writer since most of the specialized academic research dates back from the 1990s. In fact, I believe that Anne Tyler could be more popular if the production of scholarly works were more ample and modern. David Trueba in his essay entitled “Miniatura” describes how Anne Tyler, the same as Alice Munro and Annie Proulx, has been gaining followers thanks to innocent characters which could be summarized by their daily gestures (elpais.com, n.pag.). What is more, she is grouped with Munro, Updike and other contemporary American authors whose work has been analyzed by 1 It is not surprising that The Tin Can Tree has not been translated into Spanish given that the author has even considered its elimination. Nevertheless, Celestial Navigation is one of the best novels that the author has written, especially valued by critics for its literary technique and its characterization. Anne Tyler’s Compass M ª E l e n a Casado Carro | 8 numerous scholars and whose novels are fully advertised in Spanish bookstores and literary magazines. I have chosen the title “Anne Tyler’s Compass: A Study of Gender and Humor in Anne Tyler’s Novels” as a way to imitate one of the titles of her most recent novels, Noah’s Compass. The title brings to the forefront a sailing idea which connects it to her earlier book Celestial Navigation. Both books as well as the rest of her fiction invite the reader to follow a new direction in literature. In addition, they illustrate how Anne Tyler is a postmodern author who follows her own pace, something that sets her apart from traditional feminist ideas. Her narrative compass is marked by her characters’ experiences and, as she has stated, her stories do not reflect her own life because she wants to have “more than one” (qtd. in Petry, Critical Essays 46). What is more, in her article “Because I Want More Than One Life” she suggests that she feels limited by her role as mother and wife and that is why she has chosen to let her characters wander on their own instead of imposing them barriers.