The American Hunting Story and the Formation of Environmental Literature
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Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2017 The American Hunting Story and the Formation of Environmental Literature. Jericho Williams Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Williams, Jericho, "The American Hunting Story and the Formation of Environmental Literature." (2017). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 8180. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/8180 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The American Hunting Story and the Formation of Environmental Literature Jericho Williams Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Timothy Sweet, Ph.D., Chair. Kathleen Ryan, Ph.D. Lowell Duckert, Ph.D. Brian Ballentine, Ph.D. Thomas Kinnahan, Ph.D. Department of English Morgantown, West Virginia 2017 Keywords: American literature environmental literature, hunting, animal studies, posthumanism Copyright 2017 Jericho Williams Abstract The American Hunting Story and the Formation of Environmental Literature Jericho Williams This dissertation addresses the almost complete absence of American hunting stories in the subfield of environmental literature within American literature. Since environmental literature’s inception in the early 1990s with The Norton Book of Nature Writing (1990) and American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (2008), environmental literary scholars have failed to take into account the roles of hunters in advancing conservationist measures to protect and preserve wildlife and lands throughout America from the early nineteenth century through the present day. This project seeks to build a bridge between environmental literary scholars and environmentalists far removed from hunting traditions and those whose involvement in hunting furthers both their commitment to improving their local surroundings and their support for conservationist measures. The study begins with a reflection about preservationist icon Henry David Thoreau’s complicated relationship with hunting. Because Thoreau’s Walden (1854) remains so largely influential and because Thoreau expresses disapproval of hunting in that work, readers fail to realize that Thoreau’s later writings reveal a more ambivalent response about the benefits and drawbacks of hunting. In addition to analysis of Thoreau’s writings, this dissertation begins by briefly focusing on the writings of well-known American preservationist John Muir and conservationist Aldo Leopold. Then, it provides more extensive analyses of the works of nineteenth-century American writers Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper; nineteenth-century traveller Francis Parkman; nineteenth-century whale hunters Owen Chase and Thomas Nickerson; nineteenth-century Appalachian subsistence hunters Meshach Browning and Philip Tome; nineteenth-century African-American slaves John Thompson, Frederick Douglass, and Solomon Northup; twentieth-century authors William Faulkner, Fred Gipson, and Wilson Rawls; twenty-first-century writers Lily Raff McCaulou and Georgia Pellegrini. More broadly, I argue that hunting stories comprise part of American environmentalism’s beginnings and that they depict the evolving ways that humans have approached hunting in America since the country’s founding. In a different manner than environmental literature that stresses sublime or pastoral appreciations of the outdoors, hunting stories interrogate human- animal boundaries by forcing readers to consider the complex relationships among humans, companion animals, and prey animals throughout the course of American hunting history. In presenting direct engagements with nonhuman life and in revealing the dangers of overhunting, of ignoring of the lives of animals and of not developing discernible, geographic-specific ethics and legislation, hunting stories ask readers to consider what humans demand from the natural world and what they should be prepared to do if hunting is to continue to remain sustainable. For these reasons, hunting stories should become a larger part of American environmental literature as the canon seeks to elucidate and grapple with human-animal and posthumanist relationships within the natural world. iii Acknowledgements “It took a long line of dedicated maniacs / just to get this birdy off of the ground A crackerjack team of enlightened masters / just to help me see the ground” -David Nelson- First and foremost, thanks to my Heavenly Father above for strength and resilience through early mornings, long and dark nights, and snowy times. Thanks to the unfailing support of dissertation director Tim Sweet, whose patience, close reading and guidance were limitless. Thanks to Katy Ryan for careful reading and thoughtful suggestions, to Brian Ballentine for continually pointing me in new directions that I had not considered, to Lowell Duckert for pushing me to consider many of my deeper assumptions and for future direction, and to Thomas Kinnahan for helping me think about further dimensions of my project. This project also would not have come to fruition without a spirit nourished by the late Derick Burleson of University of Alaska Fairbanks in a pair of Environmental Literature classes during June 2006 and June 2007. I am deeply indebted to Derick for his encouragement to pursue my interests and for his insistence that some of the best research, in addition to writing, emerges from the self. The following people left a strong impression on me throughout graduate school. Rich Carr at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has proven to be an endearing humorist, my closest academic friend, and a living example of the power of literary study to transform people. John Ernest at the University of Delaware is one of the few people I have met who has the capability to make anyone believe that he or she can accomplish great things with time and dedicated study, regardless of their background. Terry Reilly at the University of Alaska Fairbanks provided great conversation, generosity, mentoring, and encouragement. William Naufftus at Winthrop University embodied a joy of learning each and every day. Cessilye Williams at Clark Middle School in Anchorage became the most capable and inspiring leader I have known. I approached my graduate study and dissertation first and foremost as a student of art with little more ambition than to read and discuss works of literature and to grapple with some of the world’s most gifted creators. Nearly a decade later, I still believe that the most heralded scholars among us are no greater than the James Boswells to the Samuel Johnsons of the world. The following artists inspired me the most along the way and kept me energized throughout doctoral study: Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Bowen, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Thomas Pynchon. Finally, thanks to the most important folks, my immediate family members: Dad, Mom, Justin, and Jared plus Bean in South Carolina for their unwavering support and encouragement. iv My greatest amount of thanks goes to Alice, my companion, best friend, editor, and relentless supporter. If I could magically make “etc.” a more honorable construction for just one moment in my life, now would be the time, as those four descriptors serve only as foundational corners of an immense house of love and generosity. You have been there throughout every stage of this process. Back in 2012, we walked a marathon’s worth of miles in the wee hours of a few humid summer nights in College Station talking about books, beliefs, and the unfolding of our lives, surrounded by droves of grasshoppers and frogs. After years of separation and letters travelling from Florida to West Virginia, New York to San Antonio, Michigan to Alaska, San Francisco to San Antonio, and San Francisco to Alaska, with South Carolina sprinkled here and there in between, we have made it. J v Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: Washington Irving and the Literary Formation of Hunting in America 35 Chapter Two: ‘Longing for Motion and Chase’: Human-Canine Relationships in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Leather-stocking Series 75 Chapter Three: The Self and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Frontier and Subsistence Nonfiction 104 Chapter Four: Traversing the Land Together: Companion Animals and Family in Twentieth-Century Coming- of-Age Hunting Stories 140 Chapter Five Trailblazers and Travellers: Women’s Hunting Narratives in the 20th and 21st Centuries 177 Conclusion 208 Works Cited 214 1 Introduction Playing a foundational part within American history and literature, hunting merits greater discussion than it currently receives within environmental literature studies. In particular, the recreational, outdoor sport continues to exist