Radical Representations, Eruptive Moments: The Documentary Aesthetic in American Literature, 1890- Present by Jennifer Nicole Carrier Armstrong Bachelor of Arts, English, The University of the South, 1997 Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, The University of the South, 1997 Master of Arts, English, Middlebury College, 2000 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English 2010 This thesis entitled: Radical Representations, Eruptive Moments: The Documentary Aesthetic in American Literature, 1890-Present written by Jennifer Nicole Carrier Armstrong has been approved for the Department of English ______________________________________ Martin Bickman ______________________________________ Patricia Sullivan ______________________________________ Penelope Kelsey ______________________________________ Jennifer Peterson ______________________________________ Steven Lamos 4th August 2010 ______________________________________ Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. iii ABSTRACT Armstrong, Jennifer Nicole, Ph.D., (English Department) Radical Representations, Eruptive Moments: The Documentary Aesthetic in American Literature, 1890-Present Thesis directed by Professor Martin Bickman Scholars have situated the emergence of a literary documentary aesthetic in the politically radical 1930s. My dissertation, “Radical Representations, Eruptive Moments: The Documentary Aesthetic in American Literature, 1890-Present,” revises this genealogy and traces the aesthetic to an earlier time, the 1890s. This aesthetic emerges alongside the development of visual technologies such as flash photography and the cinematograph, technologies that altered reading practices and expectations. Though no concentrated documentary movement exists at the turn of the twentieth century, documentary techniques inform literary production. Specifically, these techniques result in hybrid narratives. Moreover, this documentary turn responds to eruptive moments—cultural, political, technological, and geological. The dominant characteristic of the aesthetic are radical representations that give voice and space to voices-from-the-margins accounts. These representations depend upon an ekphrastic visuality and an aural realism. This study identifies radical representations of race, gender, labor, memory, and place in literature from the late nineteenth century to the present. Each chapter focuses on a style of representation and designates this style as radical, even when the authors themselves have not (yet) been considered radical. Specifically, I examine Stephen Crane’s “new eyes” in “In the Depths of a Coal Mine” and other early writings, Charles W. Chesnutt’s “American eye” in The Marrow of Tradition, and Lee Smith’s documentary frames in her contemporary novels, Oral History and On Agate Hill. I argue that this aesthetic demands a new reading formation that transforms the reader into the reader-witness who must interact with documentary materials, such as letters, newspapers, photographs, and legal documents, in order to make meaning. I contend not that the texts in my study iv function as documentaries but that they stand as cultural documents that reflect a changing relationship among author, text, and reader-witness. The documentary aesthetic influences writers from the major literary movements of realism-naturalism, modernism, and postmodernism. This dissertation asserts that American literature must be understood in relation to the documentary materials that inspire and inhabit it. The documentary aesthetic charts a course for attaining this new and more nuanced understanding. DEDICATION PAGE For Momma, Anna Paulette Carrier, and for my love, Dave Krueger, and to the memory of my grandfather, Albert Kenneth Carrier, 1922-2002 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express sincere gratitude to my advisor, Marty Bickman, who took time to read many drafts and engage in numerous conversations, all of which were illuminating. I also thank my generous, supportive, insightful committee: Pat Sullivan, Penny Kelsey, Jennifer Peterson, and Steve Lamos. For additional guidance, I thank Cheryl Higashida, Karen Jacobs, and Jordan Stein. The Program for Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Colorado funded a week of concentrated work at the 2008 Scholars’ Retreat (a.k.a. Dissertation Boot Camp). The organizers of Scholars’ Retreat, Sonja Foss and William Waters, helped me to conceptualize my project. David Glimp of the CU English Department granted a course release for the Fall 2008 semester, which provided much needed time for writing. I am grateful for The Center for Documentary Studies and the people I have encountered there for taking me in new directions in documentary studies. I have been fortunate to have many supporters during the writing of this dissertation. I thank Linda Nicita of the PWR for her consistent interest and encouragement. I thank Carla Bradley for keeping me sane. I thank my dear friends, Erika Schreck, Lori De Bie, Geoffrey Bateman, Hallie Meredith, Melissa McKay, Rachel Hally, Veronica House, Corey Drayton, and Lawrence Inscho, for believing in me, giving me writing suggestions, and making me laugh. I thank all those who have encouraged my scholarship, especially my high school English teacher, Sam Rasnake, and my professors at Sewanee, Glasgow University, and the Bread Loaf School of English. And, of course, I thank Stephen Crane, Charles W. Chesnutt, Lee Smith, Herman Melville, Jake Adam York, and countless other American writers who have sparked my thinking. I could not have brought this project to fruition without the help of my family. My maternal grandmother, Betty Carrier, and my paternal grandparents, J. Mabre vii and Dale Armstrong, have remained invested in my studies throughout my seven years in the program. My cousin, Carole Bell, has also been keenly interested in my project. My amazing siblings, Bryan, Anna, and Cory, have been tireless cheerleaders. My playful Chocolate Labrador, Raina, has been a terrific companion during much of the writing and revising. I express deepest gratitude and love to my two strongest supporters, Momma and Dave, whose kindness, patience, creativity, and wisdom have sustained me. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures x Introduction 1 Toward a Theory of a Literary Documentary Aesthetic 1 Radical Representations 3 Eruptive Moments 4 A Genealogy of Documentary Literature 6 What We Talk about When We Talk about Documentary 10 Framing the Documentary Aesthetic: A Brief Study of Melville’s “Benito Cereno” 17 Chapter One 24 Labors of Vision: Stephen Crane Documentary Flashes 24 Impressions 34 Flash! 39 Phantasmagoria, the Familiar Specter 44 Meet The Monstrators 48 Framing Attractions 52 Labor Eruptions 54 Suggestions of Motion 67 Chapter Two 71 Charles W. Chesnutt’s Documentary Eyes in The Marrow of Tradition 71 The American Eye 74 Double Exposure 81 ix The Documents 85 Ocular Dis-ease 89 A Radical American Eye 91 Chapter Three 94 “Always the Teller’s Tale”: Lee Smith’s Documentary Frames 94 Issues of Representation in Oral History 100 Filming Appalachia 110 Tuscany’s Letters, Molly’s Phenomena, and Simon’s Americana in On Agate Hill 114 A Return to the Frames 121 Conclusion 124 Coda: Getting Involved 131 Works Cited 133 Appendix 1 141 Appendix 2 144 Appendix 3 147 Appendix 4 149 Appendix 5 151 x List of Figures Figure 1.1—“Upstairs in Blind Man’s Alley” Figure 1.2—“Ancient Lodger” Figure 1.3—“Stephen Crane at the Coal Mines” Figure 1.4—“The Main Gangway in a Coal Mine” Figure 1.5—“The Dead Black Walls Slipped Swiftly By” Figure 1.6—“Whoa, Molly” Figure 1.7—“The official organ of Chinatown” Figure 1.8—“Drivers in a Coal Mine Co. Plenty boys driving and on tipple.” Figure 2.1—“Richard Mansfield as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” Figure 2.2—“Composite photograph of child laborers made from cotton mill children” Figure A.1—“A Black-and-tan dive in “Africa”” Figure A.2—“A down-town “morgue”” Figure A.3—“Miners leaving entrance to coal mine near Scranton, PA.” 1 Introduction Toward a Theory of a Literary Documentary Aesthetic “Because a fire was in my head” —William Butler Yeats, “The Song of Wandering Aengus” “The origin of storms is not in clouds, / our lightning strikes when the earth rises, / spillways free authentic power” —Muriel Rukeyser, “The Road” From the earliest literary production, writers have relied upon documents to provide narrative materials or to serve as evidence that validates their stories. In ancient Greece, Herodotus wrote a massive historical work titled The Histories. This work carries the label of the first written documentary in Western literature. In 79 A.D., the Roman Pliny the Younger described in a letter to Tacitus the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (Appendix 1). Pliny’s prose provides striking, beautifully rendered details about the eruption’s physicality (massive clouds, thick dust, a sea that seems to be moving backwards) while also revealing his status as a dedicated student (he keeps reading Livy even after the tremors begin) and depicting his emotional reactions and his concerns for his mother’s safety. Pliny demonstrates awareness of himself as both witness and writer. His letter can be classified as a nonfictional, personal document embellished with literary flourishes. His account of the eruption of Mt.