Deconstructing the Ziggurat: Reading Dissidence in the Right Stuff, Friday Night Lights, and the New New Thing

University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies Legacy Theses 2011 Deconstructing the Ziggurat: Reading Dissidence in The Right Stuff, Friday Night Lights, and The New New Thing Haavardsrud, Paul Haavardsrud, P. (2011). Deconstructing the Ziggurat: Reading Dissidence in The Right Stuff, Friday Night Lights, and The New New Thing (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/20205 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/48524 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Deconstructing the Ziggurat: Reading Dissidence in The Right Stuff, Friday Night Lights, and The New New Thing by Paul Haavardsrud A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH CALGARY, ALBERTA APRIL, 2011 Paul Haavardsrud 2011 The author of this thesis has granted the University of Calgary a non-exclusive license to reproduce and distribute copies of this thesis to users of the University of Calgary Archives. Copyright remains with the author. Theses and dissertations available in the University of Calgary Institutional Repository are solely for the purpose of private study and research. They may not be copied or reproduced, except as permitted by copyright laws, without written authority of the copyright owner. Any commercial use or re-publication is strictly prohibited. The original Partial Copyright License attesting to these terms and signed by the author of this thesis may be found in the original print version of the thesis, held by the University of Calgary Archives. Please contact the University of Calgary Archives for further information: E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: (403) 220-7271 Website: http://archives.ucalgary.ca Abstract The script of the “American dream” promises that success is a function of an individual’s inherent will to achieve a goal. A widespread acceptance of this ethos of self-determination helps to underpin the conservative value system prevalent in America. This thesis offers a cultural materialist consideration of how the dominant social order is perpetuated in recent works of literary nonfiction. Specifically, “Deconstructing the Ziggurat: Reading Dissidence in The Right Stuff, Friday Night Lights, and The New New Thing” is concerned with denaturalizing the construct of individualism, with the hope of illuminating a small fissure in the authority of capitalism, the logic of which is often accepted as unassailable by those on the political, economic and social right. ii Acknowledgements Joan Didion once wrote “there is always a point in the writing of a piece when I sit in a room literally papered with false starts and cannot put one word after another and imagine that I have suffered a small stroke, leaving me apparently undamaged but actually aphasic.” That Didion, fully aware of the dark nights to come, still finds a way to write is encouraging. (To get through “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” she did lean on a less-than-ideal cocktail of gin-and-hot-water, sleep deprivation, and Dexedrine, but, as old sailors say, any port in a storm). My gratitude goes out to those that made my own trip through this thesis possible. As ever, my family is the straw that stirs the drink. My parents, Don and Carol Haavardsrud, and my brother, Craig, have offered a lifetime of unconditional support. Everyone should be so lucky. This project also provided the rare privilege to work with a supervisor, Dr. Susan Bennett, whose guidance, thoughtfulness, and patience deserves a special thank you. Her talent for offering the perfect word exactly when it is most needed is nothing short of breathtaking (or should I say astonishing? The mot juste? Drat! You know who would know...). On some level, David Jenkins, Bryan Auge, and Chris Koentges would enjoy being grouped together and being acknowledged. I would be remiss if I passed on this opportunity to do both. Finally, I would like to thank Allison Mader, whom I adore (clear eyes, full hearts). iii For my parents iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract …………………………………………………………………………... ii Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………. iii Dedication ………………………………………………………………………... iv Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………… v Epigraph ………………………………………………………………………….. vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………. 1 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ……………………………………. 17 “The Article as Art” ……………………………………………………….. 17 The New Journalism: The Underground Press ……………………………. 19 The New Journalism: With an Anthology ………………………………… 20 The Mythopoeic Reality …………………………………………………… 23 Fact & Fiction ……………………………………………………………... 26 The Literature of Fact ……………………………………………………... 28 Fables of Fact ……………………………………………………………… 31 CHAPTER THREE: THE RIGHT STUFF ……………………………………… 35 “The Right Stuff” ………………………………………………………….. 39 Chuck Yeager ……………………………………………………………… 43 Lab Rats …………………………………………………………………… 49 CHAPTER FOUR: FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS …………………………………. 54 Boobie Miles ………………………………………………………………. 65 v CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEW NEW THING ……………………………………. 75 Jim Clark …………………………………………………………………... 78 Subverting the Metaphors …………………………………………………. 86 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION ………………………………………………... 98 ENDNOTES ……………………………………………………………………… 107 WORKS CITED …………………………………………………………………. 108 vi Culture is ordinary, in every society and in every mind. Raymond Williams, “Culture is Ordinary” vii 1 Introduction In 1908 a Princeton University English professor, Henry Van Dyke, spent a year at the University of Paris as the Hyde lecturer, a chair established to strengthen relations between the United States and France. In a series of lectures titled The Spirit of America, Van Dyke attempted to capture the essence of his country for a French audience. Grappling with the question of what made America great, Van Dyke settled on a single powerful force that resided in the soul of his nation, “the spirit of self-reliance” (40). From the earliest colonists onwards, Americans, he believed, could be defined by this shared characteristic: This was the dominant and formative factor of their early history. It was the inward power which animated and sustained them in their first struggles and efforts. It was deepened by religious conviction and intensified by practical experience. It took shape in political institutions, declarations, constitutions. It rejected foreign guidance and control, and fought against all external domination. It assumed the right of self-determination, and took for granted the power of self-development. … It has persisted through all the changes and growth of two centuries, and it remains to-day the most vital and irreducible quality in the soul of America, — the spirit of self-reliance. (40) More than a century later, Van Dyke’s description of American self-determination remains familiar, a narrative that continues to underwrite “the American dream.” According to the national promise, personal prosperity is a function of an individual’s inherent resolve to achieve a goal, irrespective of external conditions. Indeed, Van Dyke explains to his French listeners, “It is not true that every native-born newsboy in America 2 thinks that he can become President. But he knows that he may if he can; and perhaps it is this knowledge, or perhaps it is something in his blood, that often encourages him to try how far he can go on the way” (65). A knowledge of the ambitions of American newsboys is among a number of sweeping, if unsubstantiated, claims lodged by Van Dyke. In establishing his credibility to speak definitively about America’s national character, Van Dyke disregards his academic credentials, opting instead for a more personal disclosure. In his testimonial, Van Dyke paints himself as a figure deeply ensconced in the conservative power structure of early twentieth-century America. At the time of his lectures in the winter of 1908, he notes that his family had maintained a residence in the U.S. for more than 250 years, his ancestors arriving from Holland in 1652. As a professor at Princeton, his work offered him occasion to travel to nearly every state in the Union, bringing him into contact with all manners of citizens including “a personal acquaintance with all of the Presidents except one since Lincoln” (xiii). While Van Dyke is a minor historical figure at best, his turn-of-the-century articulation of the American spirit is representative of a conservative ethos that still persists today. A hundred years on, how does this narrative continue to endure virtually unchanged? This thesis will investigate how these same ivy-covered notions of American self-determination are perpetuated in contemporary culture. More specifically, the following chapters will inquire into how nonfiction texts participate in reproducing the existing conservative social order. As Linda Hutcheon has argued, the concern of post- modern criticism is to “de-naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as ‘natural’ (they might even 3 include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal humanism) are in fact ‘cultural’; made by us not given to us” (2). In this spirit,

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