Fiji Cannibals
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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from tbe microfilm mister. UMI films tbe text directly from tbe original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter free, while others may be from any type of computer primer. TV quality of this leprodectloa is h p iiiw t apoa 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 tbe author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and them are pages, these will be noted. Also, if copyright material Karf tn R» m iwite wtttl inAi<mtm Oversize materials (eg , maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at tbe upper left-hand comer and contmmng from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced fimn at the bade of the book. Photographs included in tbe original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" 9z* 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 Btfi & HoMti mformnion Company 300 North Zaab Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521*0600 CANNIBAL FICTIONS IN U.S. POPULAR CULTURE AND LITERATURE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jeffrey Duane Berglund, A.M. The Ohio State University 1996 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Debra A. Moddelmog, Adviser Professor Susan S. Williams Adviser O Professor George Hartley Department of English Graduate Program UMI Humbert 9639191 Copyright 1996 by Berglund, Jeffrey Duane All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9639191 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition h protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zecb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Jeffrey D. Berglund 1996 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the presence of cannibalism and the figure of the cannibal in U.S. popular literature and culture and argues that such cannibal fictions estrange familiar, homey national narratives, most particularly that of e pluribus unum, by highlighting divisive historical and contemporary representational practices which preclude the many from becoming one. The outcome of cannibalization is an estranging, de-familiarizing experience (J become you), but the discourse of cannibalism also highlights the strange uncanniness (unheimlich) of home iheimlich). Chapter one surveys American cannibal types and the theoretical implications of this topic through a reading of Herman Melville's first novel, Typee (1846) . In chapters two and three I examine P.T. Barnum's display of four humans purported to be Fiji cannibals during the early 1870s, the showman's conflicted position on race, his characterization of himself as an ur-American, tapped into the national psyche, as well as his museum-making practices. Imbricated in the intertwined projects of civilizing, capitalism and imperialism, this display, was one type of machine through which an American Imaginary was constructed in Reconstruction-era America. Chapter four analyzes the relationship between the scene of writing, the English book and an illiteracy signaled by the excessive orality of cannibalism in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes (1912) . The English book accounts for the split between textuality/civilization and orality/barbarity and this split gives rise to several crises of identity for the eponymous hero. Tarzan1s difficulty in merging his written and oral identities inevitably allies him with the cannibal tribe and, furthermore, allows Burroughs to creatively express his own anxieties of authorship. The focus of chapter five, the film adaptation of Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987), marks the incursion of the cannibal into the domestic arena when the accidentally killed body of an abusive, racist man is disposed in the cafe’s barbecue. This secreting through cannibalization consolidates and condenses a number of secrets which disappear through the processes of production. Jon Avnet's film eliminates the romantic love which exists between the two central characters, Idgie and Ruth, and similarly jettisons to the periphery African American characters who are a viable presence in the original novel. The highly charged subject of cannibalism reveals these secretings and offers a hidden critique of reigning ideologies of normative whiteness and putative iv heterosexuality. Thus, the presence of cannibalism in the domestic sphere operates to make the home an uncanny place, a frontier in its own right. v For, of course, Monica and my parents vi Men once oppressed our forefathers to the extent that they viewed other men as material out of which to build a nation; we in turn have oppressed others to such a degree that they, fumblingly as yet, try to construct meaningful lives out of us! Cannibalism still lives! Mr. Max in Native Son vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is with deep gratitude that I thank Debra Moddelmog for all that she has given me throughout these last five years. I credit her with getting me to think about the multiple ways race, gender and sexual difference are negotiated in our culture’s fictions. She has allowed me to work in my own peculiar and private vein. Thanks for her precise, encouraging and sustaining advice. And thanks for her serious, yet caring approach, one that crucially sees the social roots of our academic work. I can only hope my writing gives evidence of her guiding intellect. My thanks to Susan Williams for agreeing to work with such an unknown quantity. I thank her for her patience and trust that I would produce something substantive, and for her professional and astute, yet gently critical advice. She is an invaluable example to me of what a professor of literature can aspire to be. My thanks also to George Hartley for sticking by my project and for raising critically insightful and provocative questions that probed my theoretical approach. I thank him, too, for understanding how intertwined the personal and professional are and for believing that I could finish. Thanks to Professor Thomas Woodson who first exposed me to Typee and to Professor Lynda Zwinger who first got me thinking about the theoretical implications of transgression. A special thanks to members of various reading groups I've been a part of these last couple of years. I can only hope I have been or can be as helpful to them as they have been to m e . Thanks to friends, not mentioned above, who have been supportive of me professionally and personally over the last couple of years: Paul Hanstedt, Ellen Satrom, Rob Stacy, Melinda Turnley, Maureen Burgess, Jamie Lampidis, Mick Howe, Georgina Kleege, Connie Richards. Special thanks to Steve Abernethy for helping me get to P.T. Barnum's Fiji Cannibals at the Harvard University Library and to Tiffany Ana Lopez for giving me Lionel Dahmer’s memoir. Thanks to my students who have pushed the limits of my understanding of U.S. fiction, and who have given insight into American monstrosities. Thanks for their willingness to read, discuss and write about some of the texts discussed herein, and for reminding me of the inherent connection between teaching and scholarship. I must also recognize the help I received from interlibrary loan and the tremendous technical support given to me by Lori Mathis and the Computers in Composition and Literature Program in the Department of English. Finally, thanks to those who have been crucial to my emotional, physical and social life. Thanks to my brothers Jon and Paul and other family members who give me unconditional and loving support. I thank my grandparents for passing onto me— at least I hope--their wisdom and intelligence. I can only begin to express how deep my thanks run for my parents who instilled in me a love for reading and for learning about the world we live in. They taught me first that the world could be a good place, one where fictive cannibals were unnecessary. It is by their loving, nurturing, inquisitive, intellectual example that I try to live. And to Monica, about whom Cole Porter's cannibal ballad never more aptly applied: "I’ve got you under my skin/ got you deep in the heart of me/ so deep in my heart/ you're really a part of m e ." With me body and spirit, her generousness, intellect and personality breathed life into these pages and inspire me to move on each day. x VITA September 4, 1966............. Born, Bismarck, North Dakota 198 9 ........................... B .A,, English, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska 199 0 ...........................A.M., English, Washington University, St.Louis, Missouri 1990-present.................. Graduate Teaching Associate and Research Associate, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English TABLE OF CONTENTS Paae Abstract.................................................... iii Dedication .................................................. vi Acknowledgments .......................................... viii Vita......................................................... xi List of Figures........................................... xiii Chapters: 1. Popular Cannibal Type(e)s: An Introduction