Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American Fiction Exclude Women Authors Author(s): Nina Baym Reviewed work(s):

Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Summer, 1981), pp. 123-139 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712312 . Accessed: 19/02/2013 17:54
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MELODRAMAS OF BESET MANHOOD: HOW THEORIES OF AMERICAN FICTION EXCLUDE WOMEN AUTHORS
NINA BA YM ofIllinois University

THIS PAPER IS ABOUT AMERICAN

read we never that theassumption from It proceeds American literature. theperspective butalwaysthrough orfreely, directly American literature of and exclusion fortheinclusion account Theories allowedby theories. My forthewaywe readthem. account and theories in anthologies, texts ofAmeriourreading controlling thetheories that thefact concern is with from thecanon. authors ofwomen canliterature haveledtotheexclusion Let me use my own practiceas a case in point.In 1977therewas and inmajorBritish ofwomen ofessayson images a collection published fieldwas The American to whichI contributed.' literature, American literessayscovering with four sixcritics, among divided chronologically we that thecharge seriously WarII. Taking prior to World ature written thefourof us-workingquite wereto focusonlyon themajorfigures, writwomen onlyfour of each other-selectedaltogether independently which predates a period period, theearliest ers.Threeofthesewerefrom MaryRowand the two diarists the novel: the poet Anne Bradstreet For Dickinson. was Emily The fourth landson and SarahKembleKnight. werecitedat all. The mestheperiod between1865and 1940no women womenas our subject-conveyedwas sage thatwe-who weretaking the in America; clear: therehave been almostno majorwomenwriters have all been men. majornovelists all to reread ouressayswe werenotundertaking Now, whenwe wrote and make our own decisionsas to who the major literature American authors were. Thatis thepoint:we acceptedthegoingcanonof major novelists. anywomen that canondidnotinclude As lateas 1977, authors.
(New York:New YorkUniv.Press,1977). and Literature
1 Marlene Springer, ed., WhatManner of Woman: Essays on English and AmericanLife

LITERARY

CRITICISM

RATHER THAN

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nineteen times between1800and 1810,and thedecade itwas published, A novelbya second ofthenineteenth times century. bythemiddle eighty of the fourwomen,HannahFoster,was called The Coquetteand had century. Uncle Tom's Cabin, by a editionsby mid-nineteenth thirty A history. sellerin American biggest the all-time woman,is probably themostwidely read was probably Mrs.E.D.E.N. Southworth, woman, or histoHow is itpossiblefora critic century. novelist inthenineteenth outof ofAmerican literature toleavethesebooks,andtheseauthors, rian thepicture? ofthemany invisibility I see three forthecritical explanations partial is simplebias. The critic activewomenauthors in America.The first women does notbelievethat as writers, does notliketheidea ofwomen can be writers, and hencedoes not see themeven whentheyare right buthis maywellbe nonsexist before hiseyes.His theory orhisstandards women to recognizing an a prioriresistance is not. Certainly, practice in themindset of a powerfully authors as serious writers has functioned theincondemonstrate One can amusingly critics. number of influential in suchcritics, showhowtheir and practice standard between sistencies But with a woman author. areconfronted minds they slipoutofgearwhen thisis onlya partial explanation. of thekind havenotwritten women infact, is that, A secondpossibility their with workthatwe call "excellent,"forreasonsthatare connected Forexamfrom it.Thisis a serious possibility. separable although gender
Library 2 See LyleWright, Calif.:Huntington AmericanFiction 1774-1850 (San Marino, Press,1969).

Charlotte (also known as CharlotteTemple), was printedthreetimes in

to lookat the whatis acceptedandtries whogoes beyond Yet, thecritic thatwomen quickly discovers in America production of literary totality Commerdaysof settlement. have beenactivesincetheearliest authors literature American dominated they haveprobably andnumerically cially Nathaniel As longago as 1854, century. ofthenineteenth sincethemiddle about the "damn'd mob of complainedto his publisher Hawthorne diverting imagined-were fondly women"whosewritings-he scribbling thepublicfrom hisown. clear. In theyearsbehelpmakethisdominance Names and figures Congress oftheFirstContinental thecalling tween1774and 1799-from original century-a totalof thirty-eight to the close of the eighteenth Nineofthese, inthiscountry.2 appearing werepublished works offiction to any have not yetbeen attributed or anonymously, pseudonymously individuals, are theworkofeighteen twenty-nine author. The remaining wrote Rowson, Susannah ofwhom four One ofthesewomen, arewomen. of the total.Her mostpopularwork, six of them, or morethana fifth

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of classical allusionin all pie, suppose we requireda dense texture classical ofa formal Then,therestriction that we calledexcellent. works ofexcelauthorship ofrestricting to menwouldhavetheeffect education literature excellent wouldnothavewritten to men.Women lent literature genderthem.The reason,though hindered because social conditions per se. wouldnotbe gender connected, has or of excellence, The pointhereis thatthe notionof the artist, The idea of "good" social realities. in a giventimeand reflects efficacy preference. itis also a cultural preference, is notonlya personal literature thatdo notaimin any We can all think of speciesofwomen'sliterature it:e.g., the"Harledefines as society excellence wayto achieveliterary women ofliterary proportion onlya tiny recently, quinRomances."Until by their defined excellencein the terms and literary aspiredto artistry of in theambitions to be a sortofimmediacy Theretended ownculture. by rather thanartistry, themto professionalism womenleading literary The gender-related and opportunity. choiceas wellas by socialpressure ignore cannot critic andtheresponsible operative, werereally restrictions explanatory. are onlypartly But again,theserestrictions them. I believe, that do notarise restrictions gender-related Thereare,finally, butoutof with woman, thewriting contemporary outofcultural realities from cultural naturally These theories mayfollow latercritical theories. to theirown time,but theyimposetheirconcerns realities pertinent period.If one acceptscurthefact,on an earlier anachronistically, after one accepts as a consequence literature, of American renttheories thatis but nevertheless inevitably-aliterature not deliberately perhaps I shallnowdevelop. that male.Thisis thepartial explanation essentially literature begin, theories of American Let us beginwheretheearliest is to be judgedless by its thatAmerican literature withthehypothesis excellence by one ascertains literary Traditionally, thanitscontent. form that havebeen work with standards ofperformance a writer's comparing are and innovation formal where mastery established authors, by earlier criticism American literary Butfrom itshistorical beginnings, paramount. producedin thisnationwould have to be has assumedthatliterature andcompletely ofthenewnation, equaltothechallenge ground-breaking, it back to earlier it couldnotbe judgedby referring Therefore, original. critics beganto talkabout literary achievements. The earliest American thanthe "'best" workbecause they the ''mostAmerican" workrather to American outthebestother thanby comparing knewno way to find and unpatrithem as bothunfair struck Such a criticism British writing. itwouldnotdo off shackles ofEngland; otic.We had thrown thepolitical literaofAmerican Untila tradition in ourliterature. forus to be servile a standcritic lookedfor theearly itsowninherent forms, ture developed

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of excellence.Inevitably, thana standard rather ard of Americanness it whatever of"Americanness," thequality itcameto seemthat perhaps, Beginning authors. American for excellence literary be, constituted might has and theory criticism literary American enterprise, as a nationalistic to thisday. orientation a nationalist retained to subis even morevulnerable Of course,theidea of Americanness speakof"mostAmerican," they theidea ofthebest.When than jectivity or mosttypical, mostrepresentative seldommeanthestatistically critics essence in themostread or themostsold. Theyhave some qualitative ofthisidea of as an explanation work develops their andfrequently mind, authors. ofselected andevaluation than a description rather "American" of the term"America" or "American"in recurrence The predictable that indicates authors a dozenorfewer treating ofliterary criticism works to his conformity on thebasis of their has chosenhis authors thecritic Renaissance, American For examples: American. idea of whatis truly
The Romance in America, Symbolismand American Literature,Form and Fable in American Fiction, The American Adam, The American Novel and its Tradition,The Place of Style in American Literature (a The Poetics of AmericanFiction (anothersubtitle).But an idea subtitle),

The thanan idea,needing is no more demonstration. ofwhatis American ends up usinghis chosen authorsas demoncriticall too frequently to his definition. them ofAmericanness, through arguing strations Design that"for the So Marius Bewley explainsin The Eccentric to histouch.The was no social surface there responsive artist American ina concludsuccessful satire,"butlater, evenbeyond scenewas crude, oftheAmerican Novel," he agrees "The Americanness titled ingchapter as I have set it up here has no roomforthe sothat"this 'tradition' whoseAmerican F. 0. Matthiessen, called realistsand naturalists."3 dethat"the one common fiveauthors, explains Renaissanceenshrines was and Whitman, evenHawthorne of myfivewriters, uniting nominator written The jointly of democracy."4 to the possibilities theirdevotion
LiteraryHistory of the United States proclaims in its "address to the

of thebooksof "willbe a history history literary reader"thatAmerican which is mostrevealing in a literature writers and thenear-great thegreat AndJoelPorte of American as a by-product experience."5 whenstudied of in The Romance in Americathat"students announcesconfidently
basis forestab. . . have provideda solid theoretical Americanliterature

is dominated in thiscountry by of fiction thattheriseand growth lishing

15,291. Univ.Press,1963), Design(NewYork:Columbia TheEccentric 3Marius Bewley,
4F.

States(NewYork:MacmilHistory oftheUnited etal., eds.,Literary 5Robert E. Spiller lan, 1959), xix.

ix. Univ.Press,1941), (New York:Oxford Renaissance 0. Matthiessen, American

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to a tradition ofnon-realistic romance ourauthors' consciousadherence of English mainstream novelistic sharply at variancewiththe broadly as to the critics recent among writing. Whenthere has beendisagreement it has usuallydisputed, nottheexistence of American contours fiction, thequestion of which butrather authors, per se of a romance tradition, at the deserve to be placedwith certainty themes, and stylistic strategies added).6 heart ofthattradition" (emphasis has had to insist thatsome worksin Beforehe is through, the critic andhe is as busyexcludthanothers, America are muchmoreAmerican others.Such a as he is including ingcertain writers as "un-American" suspect,but in proceeding in the politicalarena would be extremely beyond ofchoice.Its final result goesfar criticism ithas beenthemethod good.That ofAmerican works arevery theconclusion that onlya handful is rareinany sincevery goodwork statement is one we couldagreewith, works onlya handful ofAmerican field. Butitis odd indeed to arguethat are really American.7 of number of definitions Despitethe theoretical roomforan infinite agreedon it-althoughtheshifting Americanness, critics have generally canonsuggests thatagreement of fadrather thanfixed maybe a matter America as a nation must be theultimate subobjective qualities.8 First, must be writing aboutaspectsofexperience ject ofthework.The author and character off from other only,setting Americans thatare American must his from other nations. The author be writing peopleandthecountry on them, and to story specifically to displaytheseaspects,to meditate about "the" and conclusions derivefromthemsome generalizations of American To Matthiessen the topic is the possibilities experience. itinAmerican Suchcontent atoneextreme, identity. excludes, Self)finds to people in a stories aboutuniversals, aspectsof experience common fammortality, love,childhood, variety oftimes and places-mutability, theme versusexperience is an admissable ily,betrayal, loss. Innocence for example. character, onlyifinnocence is theessenceoftheAmerican means of America thecall foran overview But at theother extreme, life of some aspectof American thatdetailed, portrayals circumstantial are also, peculiarly, storiesof wealthyNew Yorkers, inappropriate: rather B. Hubbell ingratiatsouthern rustics. Jay Yugoslavian immigrants,
6 Joel Porte,The Romancein America(Middletown, Univ. Press, Conn.: Wesleyan ix. 1969), " Literature? "Whatis American C. Spengemann's is William topic 7 A goodessayonthis CentR,22 (1978),119-38. N. C.: Duke 8 See JayB. Hubbell, Who Are the Major American Authors? (Durham, Univ.Press,1972).

democracy; Sacvan Bercovitch(in The Puritan Originsof the American

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ingly admits as much when he writes, "in both my teaching and my of American in literature as a reflection research I had a special interest life and thought.This circumstancemay explain in part why I found it of the expatriatesand why I was slow in difficult to appreciatethe merits doingjustice to some of the New Critics. I was repelled by the sordid subject matterfound in some of the novels writtenby Dreiser, Dos Passos, Faulkner, and some others."9 Richard Poirier writesthat "the Americantradition... books which in my view constitutea distinctive that otherwisedominate resistwithintheirpages forces of environment thiskindfrom"the fiction of Mrs. Wharthe world" and he distinguishes 10 the United States The LiteraryHistoryof ton, Dreiser, or Howells." is to survive as the explains that "historically,[Edith Wharton] likely of a dyingaristocracy" (1211). And so on. These exclusions memorialist abound in all the works whichformthe stable core of Americanliterary criticism at this time. exponentof thisexclusive the mostinfluential Along withMatthiessen, applicability and his work has particular Americannessis Lionel Trilling, because it concentrates on thenovel form.Here is a famouspassage from his 1940 essay, "Reality in America," in which Trillingis criticizing Vernon Parrington'sselection of authorsin Main Currentsin American Thought: is of itsexistence noreven a confluence; theform A culture is nota flow, ifnota dialectic. Andinanyculture at leastdebate-it is nothing struggle-or a largepartof thedialectic artists who contain to be certain there are likely intheir and powerlying contradictions; they their meaning within themselves, To it maybe said,thevery essenceoftheculture. within themselves, contain ofAmeriintoa theory fitted be conveniently throw outPoe becausehe cannot . .. as and eccentric can culture hisgloomto be merely ... to find personal to American lifeto be less response was . . . tojudgeMelville's Hawthorne's as an escapist to speakofHenry James ofBryant orofGreeley, noblethan that it is to in aesthetic Rather to be mistaken ... thisis notmerely judgment. and essenand from of viewof a limited thepoint examine without attention which are in somerespects ofreality thedocuments conception tially arrogant was andis, andofcoursetoget to what America themost testimony suggestive no answer from them.1" Trilling'simmediatepurpose is to exclude Greeley and Bryantfromthe listof majorauthorsand to includePoe, Melville,Hawthorne,and James. We probably share Trilling'saestheticjudgment. But note that he does
9 Ibid., 335-36. 10Richard Poirier,A WorldElsewhere: The Place of Style in AmericanLiterature(New 11Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination (New York: Anchor, 1950), 7-9.

Univ.Press,1966), 5. York:Oxford

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aesthegrounds; indeed, he dismisses notbase hisjudgment on aesthetic has tic judgment withthe word "merely." He arguesthatParrington Cultheculture. pickedthewrong artists becausehe doesn'tunderstand tureis his realconcern. notionof culturemore valid than ParBut what makes Trilling's he resorts to suchvalue-laden rington's? Trilling really has no argument; prearrogant conception ofreality" rhetoric as "a limited andessentially hisversion ofculture over objectively establish ciselybecausehe cannot conclusions to thereare two significant Parrington's. For the moment, ofour drawfrom First, thedisagreement is overthenature this quotation. overthevalueofliterature-it culture. Second,there is no disagreement testimony which provide "suggestive is valuedas a setof "documents" to whatAmerica was and is." is subjective, circular, One might likethiswhich think that an approach and in some sense nonliterary or even antiliterary wouldnothave had But clearly was simply on a longstanding mucheffect. Trilling carrying of searching essence,and hisessaysgavethesearch tradition forcultural essence a decidedand influential toward thenotion of cultural direction and succeededin getting ridof Bryant as some sortof tension. Trilling outis stilldominant. Theyall turn Greeley, and his choiceof authors and notby accident-to be white, middle-class, male,of Anglo-Saxon in thiscountry or at leastfrom an ancestry whichhad settled derivation ofthe themiddle which beganaround before thebigwavesofimmigration thedecisionmadeby these In everycase, however, nineteenth century. to one side of mento becomeprofessional authors pushedthem slightly them to Thisslight alienation belonged. permitted thegroup towhich they Thesetwo "mainstream." to theso-called belong, and yetnotto belong, middle-class inthedominant situation-their membership aspectsoftheir from it-defined whiteAnglo-Saxon and their modestalienation group, the"conthemselves" to "contain within their them boundaries, enabling the"veryessenceof the tradictions" view,constitute that,in Trilling's assesses I willcall theliterature which Trilling culture." theyproduced, oftheconsensus." so highly, a "consensuscriticism butitmight notseemnecessarexcludes Thisidea plainly many groups were womenauthors ilyto excludewomen.In fact,nineteenth-century and in Someorigin. middle-class, anglo-Saxon overwhelmingly white, stated citedbelow) morethanwhatis overtly by Trilling (andothers thing for reasons is addedtoexclude What critics havedoneis toassume, them. to be expounded, represented invariably shortly thatthewomenwriters theconsensus, rather their gender ofit;to assumethat thanthecriticism themfrom made thempartof the consensusin a way thatprevented inthecriticism. works is Thepresence ofthesewomen andtheir partaking in literary andobstaand history as an impediment acknowledged theory

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cle, thatwhichthe essential American literature had to criticize as its chief task. So, in his livelyand influential book of 1960,Love and Death in the American Novel, Leslie Fiedlerdescribes as creators womenauthors of which"our bestfictionists" bad best-seller" the"flagrantly against -all and their for"theirintegrity male-have had to struggle livelihoods." 12 to an edition of CharlesBrockden And,in a 1978reader'sintroduction Brown'sWieland, J. Krauseand S. W. Reid write Sydney as follows:
and belleslettres Whatit meant forBrownpersonally, in America historito write is a story havedecided untoitself. he should cally,that professionally Americans had no greatappetite simply forseriousliterature in the early decades of the Republic-certainly of the sort withwhichthey nothing of beset womanhood, "tales of melodramas devoured ... the ubiquitous truth," like SusannaRowson'sCharlotte Templeand HannahFoster'sThe 13 Coquette.

Thereyousee whathas happened to thewomanwriter. She has entered literary history as theenemy. The phrase"tales oftruth" is putinquotes by thecritics, as though to cast doubton theverynotion thata "melodramaof besetwomanhood" could be either trueor important. At the sametime, ironically, they areproposing for ourserious consideration, as a candidate forintellectually engaging a highly literature, melodramatic novel withan improbable plot,inconsistent characterizations, and excesses of style thathave posed tremendous problems forall students of CharlesBrockden Brown.But, by thisstrategy it becomespossibleto beginmajorAmerican fiction historically withmale rather thanfemale authors. The certainty herethatstories aboutwomencould notcontain theessenceof American culture meansthatthematter of American exis inherently perience male.Andthismakesithighly unlikely that American womenwouldwrite fiction suchexperience. I would encompassing suggest that thetheoretical modelofa story which maybecomethevehicle ofcultural essenceis: "a melodrama ofbesetmanhood."Thismelodramais presented in a fiction which, as we'll latersee, can be takenas representative oftheauthor's literary experience, hisstruggle for integrity and livelihood against flagrantly bad best-sellers written by women.Personally besetina waythat epitomizes thetensions ofourculture, themale author produces hismelodramatic testimony to ourculture's essence-so thetheory goes.
12 Books, Novel (New York:Criterion Love and Death in theAmerican Leslie Fiedler, 93. 1960), 13 Charles J.KrauseandS. W. Reid(Kent,Ohio: ed. Sydney Wieland, Brown, Brockden xii. KentStateUniv.Press,1978),

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Remember that the search for culturalessence demands a relatively uncircumstantial kind of fiction, one whichconcentrates on nationaluniversals (if I may be pardoned the paradox). This search has identified a sort of nonrealistic narrative, a romance, a storyfreeto catch an essential, idealized Americancharacter, to intensify his essence and convey his experience in a way that ignoresdetails of an actual social milieu. This nonrealistic or antisocial aspect of American fiction is noted-as a fault-by Trillingin a 1947 essay, "Manners, Morals, and the Novel." Curiously,Trilling here attacksthe same groupof writers he had rescued fromParrington in "Reality in America." But, never doubtingthat his selectionrepresents "the" Americanauthors,he goes ahead withthetask thatreallyinterests him-criticizingtheculturethrough its representative authors. He writes: The novelin America diverges from itsclassic[i.e., British] intention which ... is theinvestigation oftheproblem ofreality beginning inthesocialfield. The factis that American writers ofgenius havenotturned their minds to society. Poe and Melvillewerequiteapartfrom it; thereality theysought was only tangential to society.Hawthorne was acutewhenhe insisted thathe did not write novelsbutromances-he thusexpressed his awareness of thelack of social texture in his work.... In America in thenineteenth century, Henry was aloneinknowing James to scale themoral that andaesthetic inthe heights novelone had to use theladderof socialobservation.'4 Withina few years after publication of Trilling's essay, a group of Americanists took its rather disapproving description of American novelists and found in this nonrealismor romanticismthe essentially Americanqualitytheyhad been seeking.The idea of essentialAmericanness thendeveloped in such influential works of criticism as Virgin Land by Henry Nash Smith (1950), Symbolismand American Literatureby CharlesFeidelson(1953),TheAmerican Adam byR. W. B. Lewis (1955),The AmericanNovel and its Tradition by RichardChase (1957), and Form and Fable in American Fiction by Daniel G. Hoffman(1961). These works, and otherslike them,were of sufficiently highcriticalquality,and sufficientlylike each other,to compel assent to the pictureof Americanliterature that they presented. They used sophisticatedNew Critical closereadingtechniquesto identify a mythof America which had nothing to do with the classical fictionist'stask of chronicling probable people in recognizable social situations. The myth narratesa confrontation of the Americanindividual, the pure Americanselfdivorcedfrom withthepromspecificsocial circumstances, ise offered by the idea of America. This promiseis the deeply romantic one thatin this new land, untrammeled by historyand social accident, a
14

The Liberal Imagination, 206.

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Behind thispromperson willbe able to achievecomplete self-definition. society, that they existin ise is theassurance that individuals comebefore societiesin whichthey senseprior some meaningful to, and apartfrom, as something artifihappen to find themselves. The myth also holdsthat, exerts an unmitigatedly decial and secondary to human nature, society it at anylength wouldbe a structive pressure on individuality. To depict waste of artistic time;and thereis only one way to relateit to the individual-as an adversary. a wayto tella believaOne maybelieveall thisandyetlookinvainfor from society oroffer thepromise ble story that couldfree theprotagonist liveapart from ofsuchfreedom, becausenowhere on earth do individuals oflargetracts Butin America, theoriginal reality of socialgroups. given morepossiblein reality or at wilderness, theidea seemsless a fantasy, Thus it is thattheessential least morebelievablein literary treatment. wilderness and the qualityof Americacomes to residein its unsettled totheindividual as themedium that sucha wilderness offers opportunities and his own on whichhe may inscribe, his own destiny unhindered, nature. spreadacrossthe As thenineteenth century woreon, and settlements and society becamemore wilderness, thestruggle oftheindividual against morecentral to themyth; let's say,Thoreaucouldleave in Chapwhere, notmadehisbreak bytheend terI ofWalden, Huckleberry Finnhas still of Chapter XLII (theconclusion) of thebook thatbearshis name.Yet, a struggle as early as theearliest Leatherstocking onefinds against society ofAmerica tale (ThePioneers,1823).In a sense,thissupposedpromise bythetwentieth century has alwaysbeenknown tobe delusory. Certainly unenhopelessquestfor themyth has beentransmuted intoan avowedly for itsownsake cumbered offlight space (On theRoad), or theevocation
(Rabbit, Run and Henderson the Rain King), or as patheticacknowledg-

thenarrator Nick ment ofloss-e.g., thecloseofTheGreatGatsby where oncefor Dutch summons flowered Carraway up "theold islandherethat
sailors' eyes-a fresh,green breast of the new world . . . the last and

manis "facetofacefor thelasttime dreams"where greatest ofall human forwonder." to his capacity in history commensurate withsomething initsvarious fashionfamiliar with this ofAmerica We areall very myth thismyth tous as vision that haspresented ingsandowing totheselective besidesithas been ofus are unaware ofhowmuch thewholestory, many we needto oureyeson thismyth, Americans. created byliterary Keeping ask whether about it puts it outsidewomen'sreach. In one anything is sense, and on one level,the answeris no. The subjectof thismyth alikesharea for human andifmenandwomen to stand supposed nature, to itsvalues,itspromises, human thenall can respond common nature,

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I find womenstudents reand its frustrations. And in factas a teacher is concerned. It is true, of sponsive to themyth insofar as itsprotagonist intothe course,thatin order to represent somekindofbelievable flight wilderness, one must selecta protagonist with a certain believable mobility, andmobility has until recently beena maleprerogative inoursociety. mobileto the extent deNevertheless, relatively fewmenare actually is really notmuch morevicarimanded and hencethestory bythestory, for men.The problem is thus notto be for women than ous, inthisregard, locatedin theprotagonist or his gender per se; theproblem is withthe other participants in his story-the entrammelling society and thepromisinglandscape.For bothof theseare depicted in unmistakably feminine which and thisgivesa sexualcharacter to theprotagonist's terms, story does, indeed, limit itsapplicability to women.Andthissexualdefinition has melodramatic, misogynist implications. In these stories, the encroaching, constricting, destroying societyis represented with particular urgency in thefigure ofone or morewomen. Thereare severalpossible reasonswhythismight be so. It seemsto be a socialconvenfact oflife that we all-women andmenalike-experience tionsand responsibilities and obligations first in thepersonsof women, since womenare entrusted by societywiththe task of rearing young children. Not until he reachesmid-adolescence does themaleconnect up but at aboutthis withothermaleswhose primary taskis socialization; of time-ifhe is heterosexual-his loversand spousesbecometheagents a permanent women are socialization and domestication. Thus,although as such. And alnotthe sourceof social power,theyare experienced in socializing theyoung, theyoung do though notall women are engaged whoarenot.So from thepoint ofviewoftheyoung notencounter women anddomesticators. theonly kind ofwomen whoexistareentrappers man, For heterosexual man,thesesocializing womenare also thelocus of has socialandconventional attraction. becauseeverybody powerful First, instincts; second, because his deepest emotionalattachments are to Thisattraction and depth to theprotagonist's women. givesurgency rejection ofsociety. ontothewoman thoseattractions To do it,he must project thathe feels,and cast her in the melodramatic role of temptress, anin lifeseemsto be to enobstacle-a character whosemission tagonist, of self-discovery himfrom life'simportant snarehimand deflect purposes with communion wouldhave said: from and self-assertion. (A Puritan his own sexual tion,"The myth requires celibacy."It is partly against urges that themalemust struggle, and so he perceives thesocializing and domesticating woman as a doubly powerful threat; for thisreason, Chase American novelist until goes on to state,neither Coopernor"any other
Divinity.)As RichardChase writesin The AmericanNovel and its Tradi-

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theage ofJames and EdithWharton" couldimagine "a fully developed thisstatement, Chase is talking womanof sexualage." 15 Yet in making about his mythratherthan Cooper's. (One should add that,for a homosexual male,thedemands of society thathe linkhimself forlifeto a womanmakefora particularly misogynist version of thisaspectof the American for notbya rejected myth, theherois propelled but attraction, and homosexual versions of the by truerevulsion.) Both heterosexual and validatethe notionof myth cooperatewiththe hero's perceptions womanas threat. Such a portrayal ofwomen is likely to be uncongenial, ifnotbasically incomprehensible, to a woman.It is not likelythatwomenwill write booksin which women playthispart;and itis byno meansthecase that most novels sucha scheme. Even major male menreproduce byAmerican authors in the canon have otherways of depicting prominent women; ofHenry and William James Dean Howellspose a continual challenge to themasculinist bias of American critical theory. Andin one work-The ScarletLetter-a "fullydevelopedwomanof sexual age" who is the novel'sprotagonist has beenadmitted intothecanon,butonlyby virtue ofstrenuous critical revisions ofthetext that remove HesterPrynne from thecenter ofthenovelandmakehersubordinate to Arthur Dimmesdale.
So Leslie Fiedler,inLove and Death in theAmericanNovel, writesthis of The Scarlet Letter: It is certainly true, in terms oftheplot,that Chillingworth drives theminister toward confession andpenance, him wouldhavelured to evasion whileHester andflight. Butthis for allofHawthorne's that theeternal means, equivocations, feminine does notdrawus on toward thatthewoman grace,rather promises . . . [Hester] and damnation. is thefemale onlymadness ofPuritan temptress mythology, butalso,though sullied, thesecular madonna ofsentimental Protestantism (236). e.g., Cooper's Pathfinderand The Pioneers, Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fitzgerald's The Beautifuland The Damned. The novels

In the rhetorical "us" Fiedlerpresumes thatall readersare men,that the novel is an act of communication amongand about males. His characterization of Hesteras one or another or imagemakesit myth impossible for thenovelto be inanywayaboutHesteras a human being. Fiedlermakesit thenovelso highly a gender Giving specific reference, tothe inaccessible to women andlimits itsreference to menincomparison issues thatHawthorne was treating in thestory. Not theleast of these issueswas, precisely, thehuman of a woman'stale. reference Fiedler Amusingly, then,sincehe has produced thiswarpedreading, The Scarlet goes on to condemn the novel forits sexual immaturity.
15

55, 64.

Richard Chase, The American Novel and its Tradition(New York: Anchor, 1957),

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Letter is integrated intoFiedler's oftheinadequacies of general exposure the American of Hester male-inadequacies which,as his treatment shows, he holds womenresponsible for.The melodrama here is not Hawthorne's, but Fiedler's-the American of beset critic'smelodrama manhood. Of course,womenauthors as majorwriters are notably and inevitably absentfrom Fiedler'schronicle. In factmany booksbywomen-including suchmajor authors as Edith Wharton, EllenGlasgow, and WillaCather-project a version oftheparticular myth we are speaking ofbutcast themaincharacter as a woman. When a woman takes the centralrole, it followsnaturally thatthe socializerand domesticator willbe a man. This is the situation in The ScarletLetter.Hesteris beset by the male reigning and by oligarchyDimmesdale, whopassively tempts herandis responsible forfathering her child.Thereafter, Hester(as the myth elects celibacy,as do requires) many heroines in versions ofthismyth Thea in Cather's The by women:
Song of the Lark, Dorinda in Glasgow's Barren Ground, Anna Leath in

Wharton's The Reef. But whatis written in the criticism about these celibatewomen?Theyare said to be untrue to theimperatives of their Insteadof gender,whichrequiremarriage, childbearing, domesticity. beingread as a woman'sversion of the myth, such novelsare read as stories ofthefrustration offemale nature. frustration Stories offemale are notperceived as commenting on, or containing, theessenceof our culture, and so we don'tfind in thecanon. them in the melodrama of beset and impediment So the role of entrapper forwomen.Also, theroleofthebeckoning wilderis reserved manhood ness,theattractive landscape, is givena deeplyfeminine quality. Landscape is deeplyimbuedwithfemalequalities, as societyis; but where is menacing society and destructive, landscapeis compliant and supportive. It has the attributes simultaneously of a virginal brideand a nonthreatening mother; itsfemale qualities are articulated with respect to a maleangleofvision: what can nature do for me,asksthehero, what can it giveme? Ofcourse,nature has beenfeminine and maternal from time immemorial,and Henry Nash Smith's Virgin Land picksup a timeless archetype in its title.The basic nature of the imageleads one to forget aboutits forimbuing potential in which anystory itis used with sexualmeanings, and the genderimplications of a femalelandscapehave onlyrecently begunto be studied. Recently, Annette Kolodnyhas studied the traditionalcanonfrom thisapproach.16She theorizes thatthehero,fleeing a that society has beenimagined as feminine, then imposes on nature some
16 AnnetteKolodny, The Lay of the Land (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1975).

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of influence subjectto thecorrecting no longer ideas of womenwhich, are The fantasies becomemoreand morefantastic. experience, real-life thealland totalgratification: power,mastery, with concerned infantile, one acceptsall theFreudbride. Whether theall-passive mother, nurturing denythewayin one cannot ofherargument, implications ian or Jungian andnurture, as sweetheart turn to nature myth ofAmerican heroes which among herandincluding through ofalldesires thesatisfaction anticipating captures passagethat andpower.A familiar formastery thesethedesires evocationof the "fresh theseideas is one alreadyquoted:Carraway's that is thevirginity greenness breast"ofthenewworld.The fresh green solace and maternal itself to the sailors,butthebreastpromises offers The Great Gatsbycontainsour two imagesof women:while delight. landscape,he dreamof a maternal Carrawayevokes the impossible to woman,the socialiteDaisy, forher failure blames a nonmaternal of course,is Tom BuchaGatsby'sdesires.The trueadversary, satisfy Daisy's skirts. as itwere,behind nan,buthe is hidden, as antagonists to castthemselves are notlikely I have saidthat women as themselves to cast I suggest, they areevenless likely, ina man'sstory; the fictional and own experience their fit between land.The lackof virgin thanin the in thesecondinstance roleassignedto themis even greater will it notbe in mothers brides or as If women themselves portray first. on construction a female puts landscape.Ifa woman ofthemythic terms archetypal the time, given to time mustfrom nature-as she certainly to write ofitas more active, female resonance oftheimage-she is likely or violation. On the otherhand,she might or to stressits destruction out to be nature to herown psycheby making adjustthe heroicmyth male-as, forexample,WillaCatherseemsto do in 0 Pioneers!But a American does notfittheessential landscapeor a malenature violated occurin these and hence images as critics defined literary have pattern it, an obscurity thatcriticism cannotsee. Thus,one has an almostclassic createsa story exampleof the "doublebind." Whenthewomanwriter forwhatit is it is not recognized to theexpectedmyth, thatconforms as it is enterin themyth sexualspecialization because of a superfluous also tainedin thecritics'minds. (Needlessto say, manymalenovelists bias the masculinist and do notfind thisversion of themyth, entertain It is possiblethatsome of withwhichtheyimbueit to be superfluous. thosewho writein an era in whichliterary especially these novelists, readis a powerful haveformed their ideasfrom their criticism influence, she is underto themyth, But ifshe does notconform ingin criticism.) minor or trivial literature. stoodto be writing The descripmuchmorebriefly. can be treated Two remaining points which whenthecritic and oftheact ofwriting emerges tionoftheartist

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uses the basic American storyas his starting point contains many attributes of the basic storyitself.This descriptionraises the exclusion of women to a more abstract,theoretical-and perhaps more perniciouslevel. Fundamentally,the idea is that the artistwriting a storyof this essential American kind is engagingin a task very much like the one performed by his mythic hero. In effect, the artistwriting his narrative is imitating the mythic encounterof hero and possibility in the safe confines of his study;or, reversing the temporalorder,one mightsee thatmythic encounterof hero and possibility as a projectionof the artist'ssituation. Althoughthis idea is greatlyin vogue at the moment,it has a history. Here, forexample,is RichardChase representing the activity of writing in of discoveryand exploration, metaphors as thoughthe writer were a hero in the landscape: "The American novel has usually seemed contentto explore . . . the remarkableand in some ways unexampledterritories of lifein theNew Worldand to reflect itsanomalies and dilemmas.It has ... wanted . . . to discovera new place and a new state of mind."17 Richard Poiriertakes the idea further: Themost booksarean image interesting American ofthecreation ofAmerica itself.... Theycarry themetaphoric burden ofa great dream offreedom-of theexpansion ofnational consciousness into thevastspacesofa continent and theabsorption ofthosespacesinto ourselves.... TheclassicAmerican writers try through style to free temporarily thehero(andthereader) from to systems, freethem from thepressures oftime, biology, economics, and from thesocial which forces are ultimately theundoing ofAmerican of heroesand quiteoften their creators.... The strangeness ofAmerican fiction has ... to do ... with the environment [the novelist]tries to create for his hero, usually his 18 surrogate. The implicit unionof creatorand protagonist is made specificand overt at the end of Poirier's passage here. The ideas of Poirierand Chase, and others like them, are summed up in an anthologycalled Theories of American Literature,edited by Donald M. Kartiganerand Malcolm A. Griffith.19 The editorswrite,"It is as ifwitheach new work our writers feel theymustinventagain the completeworld of a literary form." (Yet, thetruesubject is notwhatthewriters feel,butwhatthe criticsthink they feel.) "Such a condition of nearly absolute freedomto create has apan utteropenness peared to our authorsboth as possibilityand liability, forthe imagination, limitlessopportunity or an enormousvasuggesting For some it has meantan opporcancy in whichtheycreate from nothing.
17

(New York:Macmillan, 1962).

Chase, American Novel, 5. Poirier,A WorldElsewhere, 3, 5, 9. 19Donald M. Kartiganerand Malcolm A. Griffith, eds., Theoriesof AmericanLiterature
18

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to playAdam,to assumetheroleof an original tunity namer of experience" (4-5). One can see inthis passagethetransference oftheAmerican from the Adamicheroin the story, myth to the Adamiccreator of the andthereinterpretation story, oftheAmerican as a metaphor for myth the American artist's situation. Thismyth ofartistic creation, assimilating theact ofwriting novelsto the Adamicmyth, all thegender-based imposeson artistic creation restrictions thatwe have already in thatmyth. examined The keyto idenan "Adamicwriter" tifying is theformal appearance, or, moreprecisely the informal of his novel. The unconventionality is interappearance, preted as a direct representation oftheopen-ended experience ofexploringand taming thewilderness, as wellas a rejection of "society"as itis incorporated in conventional literary forms.There is no place fora woman author inthisscheme. Herrolesinthedrama ofcreation arethose allotted to herina malemelodrama: either sheis to be silent, likenature; or she is thecreator ofconventional thespokesperson ofsociety. works, What shemight do as an innovator inherownright is nottobe perceived. In recent years,some refinements of critical theory coming from the Yale andJohns Hopkins and Columbia schoolshaveaddeda newvariant to the idea of creation I quote from as a male province. a 1979book entitled Homeas FoundbyEricSundquist. The author takestheideathat inwriting a noveltheartist is really writing a narrative abouthimself and thisaddition: proposes
a narrative aboutoneself an extremity ofOedipalusurWriting mayrepresent . . American a bizarre pationor identification, authors act of selffathering. have been particularly obsessedwith fathering a tradition of their own,with becoming their "own sires." . . . The struggle . . . is central to thecrisisof representation, andhenceofstyle, that allowsAmerican authors tofind intheir ownfantasies andto makeofthosefantasies a compelling and thoseofa nation instructive literature.20

These remarks deriveclearlyfrom the workof such critics as Harold ofrecent willnote.The point Bloom,as anyreader critical for our theory is thefacile translation oftheverb"to author" purpose intotheverb"to withthe profound unacfather," gender-restrictions of thattranslation to thisformulation, as theauthor knowledged. insofar writes According about a character who is his surrogate-which, he always apparently, does-he is trying to becomehis ownfather. We can scarcely a good deal about,and are prodenythatmenthink with affected and their fathers. The theme offathers foundly by,relations
20 Eric Sundquist, Home as Found (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1979), xviii-xix.

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in worldliterature. sons is perennial Somewhatmore spaciously, we recognize that intergenerational conflict, usually perceived from thepoint ofviewoftheyoung, is a recurrent literary theme, especially inegalitarian cultures. Certainly, thisidea involves thequestion ofauthority, and "auis a notion thority" related to thatof "the author."And thereis some inmost cultures gender-specific significance involved sinceauthority that inadult we know tends tobe invested males.Butthetheory hasbuilt from to a theseuseful andtrue observations to a restriction ofliterary creation sortoftherapeutic is act that can onlybe performed bymen.Ifliterature theattempt tofather oneself bytheauthor, then every act ofwriting bya womanis bothperverse and absurd.And,ofcourse,it is boundto fail. Since this particular theoryof the act of writing is drawnfrom it psychological assumptions that are notspecific to American literature, In that is no needto confine itto American authors. maybe argued there fact, HaroldBloom'sAnxiety ofInfluence, defining literature as a struggle between fathers and sons, or the struggle of sons to escape from their is aboutBritish fathers, literature. Andso is EdwardSaid's bookBeginBritish nings,whichchronicles the history of the nineteenth-century novelas exemplification His discussion omits ofwhathe calls"filiation." JaneAusten, GeorgeEliot,all threeBrontesisters, Mrs. Gaskell,Mrs. Humphrey Ward-not a signofa woman author is found inhistreatment ofVictorian is a revisionist fiction fiction. The result approach to British that recasts itintheaccepted oftheAmerican image myth. Ironically, just at thetime that critics moreand moreimportant feminist are discovering thecritical thatallowsthe women, theorists have seized upona theory women less andless presence. Thisobservation points upjusthowsignifin theact ofcreatingliterature. icantly thecritic is engaged Ironically, then, one concludes that inpushing thetheory ofAmerican fiction to thisextreme, critics itbycreating a tool have "deconstructed" with no particular In pursuit oftheuniquely AmeriAmerican reference. havearrived at a place where into can, they Americanness has vanished thedepths ofwhatis allegedto be theuniversal malepsyche. The theory of American fiction has boileddownto thephrasein mytitle:a melodrama ofbesetmanhood. What a reduction this is oftheenormous variety of fiction in thiscountry, written by bothwomenand men!And,ironicouldbe further as cally,nothing removed from Trilling's idea oftheartist embodiment ofa culture. As in theworking itsweakest outofall theories, linkhas found it outand broken thechain.

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