THOMAS vlOLFE, I.m: ~LE MŒlF, JJm Im1.m§. THOMAS WOLFE, THE EXILE MC1l'IF, AND THE JEVS .,, by (Mrs.) Barbara R. Kay, B.A. A thesis submitted to the Faoulty ot Graduate Studies and Reasaroh in partial tulfUl­ ment of the requirements far the degree of Master of Arts. Departmant or English, l-1cGill University, Montreal, P.Q. April, 1966. ® Barbara. H.. Kay 1966 1ABLE g: CONl'ENl'S PREFACE • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 111 Chapter I. THE CHIID AND DREAMER • • • • • • • • • • • 1 II. "WELCOME TO OUR cmn ••• • • • • • • • • • 2$ III. THE WORID OF ESTHER JACK •• • • • • • • • • • 67 IV. THE LAST FAREWELL • • , • • • • • C) • • • • • 98 CONCLUSION • • • • • e • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 127 ( BIBLIOGRAPHY • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 129 11 PREFACE Most readers ot Thomas Volte tend to be extreme in the1r judgemerrlis of him. They become either devotees or violent dissenters after reading only one novel. Hence it has been ditficuJ.tof4ll"·-thosB relatively faw critics who have tackled a depth criticism of him to analyze his work objectively. For the man and his art are ot a piecet one is sympa'l;hetie to Eugene-George 's seismic emotionsl oonfrontations vith ille, or one oonsiders suah intimate confessions a formless effluvienae of neurotic anguish. This study attempts to define and articulate the essentially ordered rhythms of meaning governing 'toTolfe' a quest for paychie fulfillment. It aeoks to explain his significant relationships and deciaions in terInS of the 'exile motit '. Wolfe 's perennial and heroic ( struggle to overcome the forces of background and temperament, whiCh made him a stranger and exile, in arder to establish a normal lite tor himself. Praotically untouched by Wolte's oritios has been the enormous impact that oertain New York Jews had on his lite and work. In thé1r insistence upon dealing vith the ultimately irrelevant question of Woltels anti-Sem1tism, those tew writers who deal exolusively vith thia area have failed to grasp the importance of Wolte's Jewish oontaots. The mistake of theae oritics, and of many others dealing with Holfe's work in general, ia their failure to recognize the patterns of spiritual growth represented in the novelee This study will, l hope, help to palliate that tendenoy to underestimate '~olte 's progression to emotional i11 iv. maturity in his ambitions to understand himself and Amerioa •. l am grateful to Professor Alea Luoas of MoGUl University1s English Department for his guidance in thia effort, freely and j udi­ oiously given during his sabbatioal yeer. l am grateful, too, for the moral enoouragement l reoeived through his great enthusiasm and sympathy for Thomas lololfe 1s work. And it was the ohild and dreamer that governed his beliet. He belonged, perhape, to an older and s1mpl~r raoe or ment he belonged with the Mythmakers. (From ~ HomewSrd, Angel) CHAPl'ER ]; It oomas as no great surprise to readers of Thomas Wolfe to learn that his favourite authars, those with whom he liked to associate his Olm writing, are the great Fabulists of western literature: the Mythmakers. He read and relished the works or Homer, Cervantes, Tolsta,y, Sw1f't, Melville, Goethe, Dôstoavsky, Voltaire, Coleridge, Hardy, Joyoe--and the Bible. That these authors represent eight d1f'ferent oultures and span more than 3,000 years of oivilizat10n is sn indioation or Wolte's oatholicity of llteraoy interest. Hovever, it is in their similarities, not their diïferenaea» that we may see the signitioanoe for Wolfe's oun novels. Man Been beyond the limitations of normaloy, transoending the prosa1sm of lite here and nov, making his vay against the àark ourrent of flowing, inexorable Time; man exalted, ooni'ronting the stark, and often tragio, polemios of existenoe; man alone, auraed and threatened by the horrar of solitudes these are the tales of the Mythmakars. They see, in the lite or one man, the story of the f'ami~, the raoe, and the worlda "Eaoh of us is a11 the sums he bav not ooUDtedc subtraot us into nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin aga1n in Crete four thoueand years ago the love that ended yesterday 1n Texas."l 1 Thomas Holte, 122! Homeward, tngel (Nev York, 1952), p. 1. Al1 subsequent referenoes sba11 be to t 1e edition and will be im ict.ted ae LHA. l 2. There are few themes in Wolfe's novels, and those tend to he quite simple in essence. They have universal applioation, just as his charaoters, while a1most palpably real as individuale, have a legendary, timaless quality about them. They have Homeric epithete attachad to their naDleS to remind us of their fundamentally stark and synoptio persona lit1es. Gant in ~ Homeward, Angel ie the "Far-Wanderer," Ben 1e ttthe quiet one," and Eliza bas "the tr:Lbsl look. n The Faust theme in partioular had an intensely personal appeal for Wolte. He himselt Bpent long, tortured years, barning vith a mythia fever to engulf all the world 's knowledge. Ha olaims he tried to read every volume in the Widener Library at Harvard, a vildly impossible soheme, but typical of Wolfe'a early ambitions. He groaned over his enoHlOUS xœntal oatalogues of things undone, places unaeen, ~loxœn unloved, and food untasted. He wept for the laok of communication in his relationships. Once he wrote to his mietreee, Aline Bernstein, "Faust'e own problem touches xœ more than Hamlet's ••• the problem of modern lire ••• to knov everything, to be a God--and he is caught in the terrible net of human inoapaoity.n2 His sympathy for the Faustian legend led Wolfe to inolude it in his vork, but it is not intelleotual omnisoience that taunts the protagoniste Rather Wolfe attempts to ohronicle the efforts of a modern Faust to plumb the impossible depths of ~ underatanding, and bring artistio expression to his discoverias. In all his struggles he is nlone. There ia this, the isolation of the seaking individusl; the 2 " Quoted in Riohard s. Kennedy, The W1nd 0\1 .2! Memory (Na\l York, 1962), p. 207. restless and pere~al father searoh; and the now famlliar 'you-oan't­ go-home-again t motit. These few themes dominate and direot the growth or the haro of the four great navela, Eugene Gant-George Webber. While Faust, Telemaohus and Orestes are oonsoions modela for Wolfe 's protagonièt, he also assumes important aspeots of ma~ other haro arohetypes net speo1fioally alluded to. He 18 Prometheus, bringing understanding and oomfort to man, but tortured and har8ssed by the gods as a punishment for his daring. He is Aohilles, ssaker of glory, and avare of its prioe--death, yet powrlesB to deny himself' this sole path to ful.flllment. He ia Satan, the fallen angel of Paradise ~, too rebellious and proud to live a "normal" lite--a savage and intrigu1ng ioonoolast. He is Cain, the outoast son, wearing the mark or exile all ( his IDe. He is the Byronio hero: hanàsome, dark, moody, and gullty­ oU1'aed far aoma unutterable sin. And of oourse he is the Wandering Jew, doomed to roam the earth and never find peaoe, rest, ar home. What all thase anti-Christa have in oommon is the destiny of solitude. They are eules, sooial and spiritual par1ahs. They live on the periphery of sooiety, partly through their own ~1sh or thoir own aotions, but also beoauae they hava been ostraoized and oondemned by a "society" that oonnot oamprehend or tolerate their s1ngularity. That, essentially, is how Wolfe saw himself in his early works. Tormented by loneliness, frustration and guilt, he reacted te the outside world almost paranoioally at t1mes, as a result or a oonstant feeling of rejeotion in his formative years. On the other hand, Wolfe vas incredibly astute in his insights into his own sufferings. With typical ". 4. candour, he always ina1sted on his immaturity and the need for emotional and social growth. And his four major novels are the record of his struggle. Look Homeward, Angel and the first part of lli ~ ~ ill1!.2,Q!f. chronicle the childhood, youth and young manhood of atgene Gant and George (Ymnk) Vlebber. The frame of reference for ~ Homeward, Angel is, however, a more literal and more interesting account of Wolfe' s development. Fèmily relationships have Il huge significance in ~ Homewnrd, Angel, accounting for the major movements in the plot and shape of the novel, while the environment of ~ ~.2 the ~ has been pared dOVin to accommodate the symbo1ic force of the story, which i8 iteelf far more fragmented and episodic than ~ Homeward, Ang~l. From the outset, ~ Homeward, Angel proposes a broad, sweeping theme: Uaked and a10ne we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mo·ther's face; from the pritlOn of her flesh have Via come into the UIlspeakable and incommunica.ble prison of this earth. Which of us has knOVnl hie brother? Which of us hae looked into hie father'e heart? Which of ua hae not remained forever prison-pent? Vlliich of ue is not forever a stranger and alone? (LHA, preface) Vie are al1 strangers to ourselves and our neighboure, and we are 811 searching for the wlly out of our individua1 prisons. Fear, v/cllkness and compromise forro Il bridge to temporary comfort for some, but others remain forever encysted in self, strongers to the wor1d and themselves. This novel is a otudy in tensions be"tween the otrangers and those who have found the way out of 10ne1inos8. The story of the tensions begins vath r~iza and Gant, long before the birth of Eugene. T Elua and Gant represent the primal, opposing facts of existence. Gant is the stranger, the wandereI'. Elua 10 oommunal, of the tribe, of the earth.