“ SOCIAL TYPES IN SOUTHERN PROBE FICTION -———--—~_._.-...._....._._-.._..——- » A Dissertation -I;:¢r_:;:z_ava;:sd‘;;::~ Submitted to the Faculty of the University of Virqinia in :;;‘.\' L Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of .Doctor of Philosophy. By W. Clifford Harrison, H.A. é i Preface 4 I he treatise on fiction can in the slightest sense he considered a.suhstitute for the fiction itself. One must read the works of novelists and short story writers if one wishes to live mentally among the scenes which those authors have created or to cultivate an 1 acquaintance with characters into whom the writers of narratives have breathed the breath of life. Hence, this dissertation on Southern :fiction is written with no vain thoucht that it will furnish sufficient .A N- knowledge of Southern social types to those who for themselves have v» not read Southern literature. The hope is, rather, that should this work he read by any tho have not strolled alone the plensent ways of ;?outhern prose, it may he in some decree a stimulus to direct their energies towards those paths and may serve es s euiie to their foot- steps. "ut let the reader make his best acquaintances in the novels and stories themselves. In these panes the types treated ere entirely the South's own. After careful consideration the cowboy hes not been discussed. True he is found in Texas, a Southern State; but he is more of the West than of the louth end has heen treated by Western more then hy South- ern authors. Likewise, life in "issouri alone the Mississippi River, aHark TWaints special field, has not been inclufied, for that too smifld be something of a trespass into the pioneer literature of the West. The writer wishes to ccknowlefl~e his inflehtedness to Dr. J. C. .EMetcalf of the University of Virginia for his sugaestion of the enh— gject and for the helpful encouraeement which he has given while the i fdiesertation was being preparefl. iI i fUniversity, Virniniaq giehruary 26, 1921. i i i SOCIAL TYPES IN SOUTHERN PROSE FICTION CONTENTS Ciapter Page I INTRODUCTION II THE PIONEER “7:. III THE INDIAN . l? IV THE LANDED ARISTOCRAT; THE IOCAL COLOR. OF TE.E TIDEWATER ' TH“ LANDED ARISTO'CRA.T; THE LOCAL COLOR OF THE BLU.E“ GRASS ° 51 VI THE LAND.ED AHIE ‘TOCRAT; THE LOCAL COLOR or TPE LOWER ‘JOUTH . b7 VII THE IT'EGV‘O; T1315 IOCAL COLOR or THE TOBACCO AND COREr FIELDS . VIII THE NEGRO; 'UfE LOCAL COLOR OF THE COTTON AND RICE FIELDS. o < THE tread} THE LOCAL COLOR OF THE BAYOUS . *1 THE CHEOLE. ‘ CHACKER E XII MOUNTAIHEER; THE LOCAL COLOR OF THE VIRGINIA— KENTUCKY BORDER 1&4 XIII THE HOUHTAIHEEP, THE LOCAL COLOR OF.THH TENNESSEE CUI‘ 'JBEPL ANDS XIV THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER XV THE IODHRJ SOUTHERI‘TEH XVI CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY SOCIAL TYPES IN SOUTHERN PROSE FICTION Chagter l INTRODUCTION. f Fiction depends for its value upon the reflection of life in an interesting way. Poetry may extol the beauties of Nature or fire the emotions without touching human actions; essays may analyze the ;woxkinge of the human mind without portraying a creature of flesh fend blood; history and biography may relate true events without {creating a living atmosphere; but the very essence of the novel or éshort story is life. Fiction ie not life itself; it is rather the éimaee of 1ife,—-the author’s mind being the mirror from which the :imaee is reflected. “That mirror, moreover, must be neither concave inor convex-it muet be plane and clear, for the discernino reader Ewants no distortions. i Since fiction is the reflection of life, the complete substance lgof this kind of literature is created around characters. Consequently éthoee types of character which are deemed picturesque have served as :models for the pen, and those communities where picturesque characters Elived have been the authors' favoiite backgrounds. 2 American literature has very naturally fallen into eeonrephic égroune; The fiction of a section has logically partaken of provincial itone or color. And with no attempt to disparage the mirroring of any Esection'e attributes, the student of American fiction is likely to éfind that the most interesting local color is the South's. There is ample reason for thie claim of Southern literature. :Where Nature is lavish, the pen-artist will find a setting; where iheerts beat warmest, the romancer will tell his story; where race and Ecircumstance have combined to nourish and preserve ideals, the novelist P, Z g will find characters that will be close to his heart. Professor g Pattee rightly states: "The cause of the Southern tone which i American literature took on during the eighties lies in the single # fact that the South had the literary material. The California gold, 3 rich as it was when first discovered by the East, was quickly E exhausted. There were no deep mines; it was surface gold, pockets and startling nuggets. Suddenly it was discovered that the South was a field infinitely richer, and the tide turned. Nowhere else were to be found such a variety of picturesque types of humanity: negroes, crackers, creoles. mountaineers, moonshiners, and all those incongruous elements that had resulted from the great social upheaval of 1861-1865. Behind it in an increasinsly romantic perspective lay the old regime destroyed by the war; nearer was the war itself, most heroic of struggles; and still nearer was the tragedy of reconstruc- tion with its carpetfbagger, its freed slaves, and its Ku-Klux terror. Never before in America, even in California, had there been such richness of literary material. That a group of Southern-born writers should have arisen to deal with it was inevitable. Who else EQELQ have dealt with it, especially in the new era that demanded reality and absolute genuineness?"l' The extent of Southern fiction is known and appreciated by comparatively few. The mass of it is startling. The quality of much of it is admirable. Scarcely a Southern state has failed to produce writers to put its life into the paces of fiction. Virginia, Kentucky, deornia, and Louisiana have been especially well represented.i Out of the characters which are so abundant in Southern fiction the following types are most prOminent: the pioneer, the Indian, the landed aristocrat, the neero, the cracker, the Creole, the mountaineer, and the Confederate soldier. Time and circumstance have produced character evolution, so that from several of these types there has —-— ————— u-n- -q— _ .—.— ~- 1. Pattee's American Literatuie since 1870. panes 295-296! I 3 come a resultant type, the modern Southerner. Though he may lack i the halo which a romantic nast alone can rive, the Southerner of E to-day is distinctive enough to occupy a very secure place in ~1American literature. There is a distinct, though gradual, trend to be noticed in Southern prose fiction. There is a movement from romantician to realism, from triviality of details to essentiality and import, from provincialism to Americanism. But the Southern ideal is never lost, and it is this undimmed ideal, revealed in the love, the courtesy, the chivalry, the sacrifice, and the honor of Southern life, that ffills Southern fiction with its grace and charm. Chaoter II _T H E P I O H E E B When a.new country is discovered, explored, and colonized, it is to be supposed that those persons who leave behind them the luxuries of civilization and face the uncertainties of a settler‘s glife are persons of fearless mien and stout heart. Furthermore it fie to be supposed that settlers in the forests of a new country zencounter many dangers and experience many adventures. So wilderness iscenee, thrilling adventures, and courageous hearts challenge the Enriter of fiction,——and the writer is quick to use them. Thus the 4 Epioneer of North America, isolated in the boundless forests from the Elite and friends he had fermerly known, relying upon his individual gendurance, bravery, and skill to maintain his new home, deserves to §be well treated by American authors. The world to-dey knows the EAmerican pioneer as he appears in fiction chiefly through the famil- iier figure of Je es Fenimore Cooper's Natty Bumppo. Put, just as Ethe dangers to he faced by the pioneers in the North were no nreater Vithan those faced by the pioneers in the South, and as the tasks in gone section were as arduous as those in another, other writers ghesides Cooper recorded stories of adventure in their sections and fdrew fairly good——thouqh not very well known-—likenesses of the men Ehho blazed the way of civilization into the new areas. ’ "Willianinilmore Sinms...did for the South and Southwest what iCooper did for the "orth——that is, caught the evanescent atmosphere fof an unfrequented country, recorded the rough, simple customs of iisolated people, and impressed upon a canvas, redolent with savage Euncouthness, the spirit of heroic sentiment. } "Yet in the contrast of Cooper and Simms, it is remarkable that {,the latter fails to rise to the height of the former, though his J7 2 V y 5 .. twork, taken in detail, exhibits him equally as inventive, as obser- vant, and as conscious of historical development. Simms had larce f faults; the rapidity with which he worked made him careless, forced ihim into contradictory statement and conflicting description. he .was more violent than Cooper, more prone to make use of the melo- dramatic. But, on the other hand, his liphts and shades were more evenly distrihuied, and his middle-class ‘pioneer', so to speak, gmore typical and unusual."1' i While in our fiction there is no single outstanding figure to 3represent the Southern pioneer as Leatherstocking represents that type in the North, many characters in many stories reveal the vir— Etues and vices of the Southern settler, hunter, Indian fighter and q [ ghackwoodsman.