American Freedom Story: A Journey from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Secret Life of Bees By Copyright 2009 Judith Marie Lofflin Ph.D, University of Kansas 2009 Submitted to the graduate degree program in English and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________ Chairperson Michael D. Butler _______________________________ James B. Carothers _______________________________ Chester Sullivan _______________________________ Michael Valk _______________________________ Kathleen A. McCluskey-Fawcett Date defended: _April 10, 2009____________ The Dissertation Committee for Judith Marie Lofflin certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: American Freedom Story: A Journey from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Secret Life of Bees Committee: _________________________________ Chairperson Michael D. Butler ___________________________________ James B. Carothers ___________________________________ Chester L. Sullivan ___________________________________ Michael Valk ___________________________________ Kathleen A. McCluskey-Fawcett Date approved:_April 24, 2009___________________ ii Abstract This dissertation identifies an American freedom story in a set of novels from 1885 to 2002 beginning with the foundation text Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Five American writers—Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston, Bharati Mukherjee, and Sue Monk Kidd-- use similar elements and approaches to consider the freedom quest. This story frame leads a misfit hero to leave family and hometown to form a community and experience personal freedom without cultural, religious, gender, racial, or ethnic limitations. The community, as well as the experience of freedom, exists only fleetingly. As the notion of freedom itself changes in America from the Civil War to the present, the hero and the quest in these novels must change as well. The use of the freedom story genre facilitates viewing these works and their diverse authors across historical time, critical approaches, and social contexts. iii Dedication I dedicate this work to my parents, Marion Herbert Lofflin and Ruth Opal Lofflin who provided me with all the manna necessary for my life’s journey: the ability to love, the capacity for joy, and the power of spirit. They nurtured me with the means to know wonder and to see miracles—the fuel for all quests. iv Acknowledgements I must thank my chairperson, Professor Michael Butler, with special appreciation for his years of loyalty and patience. To all of my committee members, I acknowledge the graciousness and kindness shown me that will be cherished. I recognize Lydia Ash Leatrice Smith for the special assistance they have given with grace and kindness over the years. I give a special thanks to Dr. David Miller who helped me find the path to continue this journey and to walk bravely into the future. I thank my family and friends for their love and support. For my parents who taught me the courage and determination to begin and complete this work, this is a promise kept. As I worked on this project I kept the guidance of my father, Marion Lofflin. to “reach for the stars,” in my thoughts. In keeping with the hopes of my mother, Ruth Lofflin, who in her final years encouraged me on this project and whose spirit carries me through each day, I joyously completed the labor. My gratitude is immense for the support of my brother John Lofflin, the first writer I admired and still my model for teaching, writing, and living. Thank you for reading, talking, and guiding me in this work. To Dr. Kathy Lofflin, your experience and knowledge made all the difference; your love and welcoming spirit sustained me as well. I hold fast to the many times have I rested my spirit and my struggles at your welcoming table. Heather and Philip Lofflin: your love makes all the difference in my life. I often thought of you, and of Harper and Zac, when I wanted to complete this work and accomplish this dream. When you reach some difficult job or struggle, I want you to know that your strength comes from family, love, and the heritage of this family—a strength in spirit and a belief in miracles. We pass down the love of learning and the appreciation for beauty as your family legacy. It will always serve you well. Each day I gain strength and support from my fellow teachers at Wyandotte High School; I could not have survived without your friendship and unique humor. I want to thank two special friends who have been bookends to the completion of this work. Arthurine Criswell, your friendship and caring have sustained me through each difficulty or joy. I have admired the courage and strength you have developed throughout your life; it has often given me the inspiration to step up a notch and find my own strength. David Toepfer, every time I found a roadblock, you gave me the path around it; when I doubted the work or myself you knew what to say and how to move me through the challenge. Your wise solutions made the ultimate difference in successfully completing the dissertation. From you I have learned to trust myself—what a gift. It strikes me that all of the people I have thanked, and those I keep in my heart only, have blessed my life with so much more than can be said here. On my own journey, I have been provided with the most exceptional people, the most beautiful experiences, and the most powerful understanding of the true meaning of this quest. v American Freedom Story: A Journey from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Secret Life of Bees Table of Contents Chapter 1: The American Freedom Story: An Introduction Chapter 2: Huck and Jim: Building Community Chapter 3: Thea Kronberg: Willa Cather’s American Freedom Story Chapter 4: Their Eyes Were Watching God: Zora Neale Hurston Explores Gender and Race in the American Freedom Story Chapter 5:The Journey to Find Self and Community Through Story: Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts Chapter 6: The Value of Freedom Questioned: Leave It To Me Chapter 7: Huck and Jim Transfigured: Mirror Images in The Secret Life of Bees vi Chapter 1 The American Freedom Story: An Introduction I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom of beauty and love (DuBois 4). The definition of freedom above is a portion of W.E.B. DuBois “Credo” at the beginning of Darkwater: Voices from the Veil. This particular image of freedom, a combination of experiencing ordinary acts of daily life without restrictions, living in community with others, and traveling free from racial limitation, draws an optimistic and wide ranging portrait of social and personal freedom. One voice among many, DuBois contributed a practical statement to the pervasive American conversation about the meaning of freedom. Individual Americans define freedom subjectively. Freedom represents a powerful notion in American life and literature, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the foundation text for this study, has continuously been recognized as the quintessential representation of freedom in American literature. It has become an essential piece of our American conversation about the meaning and elusiveness of freedom along with political and cultural explorations of the concept. This study has at its core a search for the qualities and value given freedom by a culturally diverse set of six novelists writing across a century. Each succeeding novel weaves its story with threads of this initial freedom story, changing to suit the hero or the quest. 1 The three early novels, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark (1915), and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), have garnered abundant critical interest over a substantial amount of time; this critical interest and conversation has changed dramatically since the novels’ initial publications. The three later novels have had less critical history: Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976), Bharati Mukherjee’s Leave It To Me(1997), and Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees (2002). These novels, early and late, share important story elements and characterization. Each takes part in the American conversation about the nature and value of freedom. The critical reception has changed dramatically for the early works as freedom movements in the United States have shaped ideas about race, gender, and freedom. The expansion of the canon to include minority and women writers and the emergence of literary schools focusing on those writer’s works have been factors in the changing literary assessment of the novels in this study. As the foundation text for the study, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, creates a template for a uniquely American story. This novel’s place in American literature, spanning over a century as the essential text of American freedom, has, in the last several decades, been criticized for its treatment of racial content. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has traditionally been described in similar terms to Malcolm Bradbury’s estimation in The Modern American Novel. First, its position as the foundation of American literature is asserted, noting that “according to Ernest Hemingway,” it is “the book with which American fiction started.” Bradbury defines it as “a fundamental myth of self-creating American freedom, a vernacular vision of 2 spontaneous open morality won on a river raft despite the enslaving pressures of life beyond” (Bradbury 6). This praise of the novel corresponds to a variety of literary responses throughout the century; schools and communities, however, have been struggling with this novel of the “myth of self-creating American freedom” since the years of the Civil Rights Movement.