Allen Dillard Boyer PhD thesis

361 Pages·2013·12.46 MB·English

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THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS
JAMES JONES AND JOSEPH HELLER:
AN ESSAY IN CONTRASTS
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF ARTS AND DIVINITY
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
BY
ALLEN DILLARD BOYER
CLEVELAND, OHIO
MARCH 1984
ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
"James Jones and Joseph Heller:
An Essay in Contrasts"
This dissertation has two purposes. One is to discuss
the ideas of James Jones and Joseph Heller on the interrelation
of the individual and society. Both of these writers locate
their characters within the context of larger orders and institu-
tions, and deal with the question of how an individual can and
should balance his personal interests against his interests as a
member of a social organization.
The dissertation's second is on technique: Jones'
~ocus
and Heller's fictional focus and creative relationship with
characters and the reader. This contrast is traced through modes
of narration, organization, characterization, and plotting.
Chapter I establishes the basic contrasts: between
Jones' acceptance of military life, in his Army trilogy of From
Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle, and his will
ingness to portray this as comprehensible; and Heller's treatment
of the military as absurd in Catch-22.
Chapter II discusses the substance of Jones' fiction.
It locates Jones, through his anti-aestheticism, sensationalist
focus on the sordid, and treatment of men as social animals,
individuals within a collective, as a contemporary follower of
the Naturalist tradition. The discussion traces Jones' links to
other writers, among them Stendhal, Conrad, Crane, and London.
Chapter III deals with Jones' style. It follows Jones'
tranSition from a consciously eccentric idiom, marked by deliber
ately violent metaphors and idiosyncratic punctuation, toward a
goal of colloquiality.
Chapter IV covers the Absurdist rhetoric of Heller's
Catch-22, discussing the rhetorical devices which create the
novel's tone of confusion and absurdity and the realistic detail
and humor which sustain its narrative.
Chapter V traces through Heller's novels the development
of their author's understanding of the idea of society. In
Catch-22, Heller rejects outright the idea that "society" exists;
in Something Happened he demonstrates again the absurdity of
conforming to what one believes are social bonds. In Good As
Gold his protagonist discovers that to be true to one's own
family and background is also to be true to oneself.
Chapter VI contrasts Heller's means of characterization,
which define characters for the reader through biography and
phYSical descript1on, with Jones' preference for using dramatiza
tion to present a character for the reader's assessment.
Chapter VII deals with plotting, comparing Heller's view
of the novel as a working-out of preconceived ideas with Jones'
treatment of the novel as an exploration of characters' inter
action.
-2-
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• v
................................................
INTRODUCTION 1
Chapter
I. JAMES JONES AND JOSEPH HELLER: AN OUTLINE OF
CONTRASTS •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 5
Ove rture ......•.....•....•.....................•... 5
Fundamental Contrasts •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 10
The Regular and the Citizen Soldier •••••••••••••••• 11
Contrasts in Jones' and Heller's Fiction ••••••••••• 12
II. REALISM AND ROMANCE IN JAMES JONES' FICTION •••••••• 24
Jones as a Naturalist •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 30
Individual and Aggregate: Jones' View of Man as a
Soc1al Animal .....••...........••.....•...•...... 42
Fact, Form, Symbol, and Structure •••••••••••••••••• 58
Predecessors and Their Influence: Stendhal, Crane,
and Conrad •••••.••••••.••••••••••••••••.••.•••••• 79
Jones' Focus on the Sordid ••••••••••••••••••••••••• 101
Jones' Obscurity ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 109
Conclusion ......................................... 113
III. "INELEGANT SENTENCES WITH MEANING": JONES' COLLOQUIAL
STYLE •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 115
The Vernacular Mean •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 117
The Harmonization of Structure •••••••••••.••••••••• 127
De-Dramatization and Disclaiming ••••••••••••••••••• 137
Jones' Move Toward Conventional Grammar and Figures
of Speech .........................•.............. 145
Conclusion ......................................... 154
IV. JOSEPH HELLER'S RHETORIC OF ABSURDITy •••••••••••••• 157
Introduction ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 157
Chaos by Design: The Structure of "Catch-22" •••••• 159
Transition Devices in "Catch-22": Confusing Guides •• 167
Negation, Mystification, Contradiction, and Irony ••• 175
Comic Relief and Validating Detail ••••••••••••••••• 180
The Role of Allegory ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 185
The Author's Presence: The Final Remove •••••••••••• 187
iii
V. "SOCIETY" AS AN ILLUSORY CONCEPT IN HELLER'S FICTION 189
The "Anti-War Novel," the Literature of the Absurd,
and "Catch-22" ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 189
Fervent Homogeneity: The Social Background of
"Catch-22" ••.••.......•..•.....•••••............. 195
Concurring Opinions: Terry Southern and Richard
Condon .•••••••••••••••••••••••.•••.•.••••••.•.... 201
The Absurdity of Society in "Catch-22" ••••••••••••• 209
"Catch-22"'s Attacks on "Society" •••••••••••••••••• 214
The Virtue of Selfishness •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 224
"Something Happened": The Converse Proof ••••••••••• 229
The Family Ties of "Good As Gold" •••••••••••••••••• 242
VI. CHARACTERIZATION IN JONES AND HELLER ••••••••••••••• 254
Description and Biography: Characterization in
Heller'S Fiction •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 254
Tangential Satire in the characterizational
Biographies ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 257
Characterization by Dramatization in Jones' Work.. 264
The Contrast Between Jones and Heller ••••••••••••• 268
Orders and Roles of Characters in Jones' Novels ••• 270
VII. THE CONTRAST IN PLOTTING: PREDETERMINISM IN HELLER,
EXPERIMENTATION IN JONES •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 283
Heller's Fiction: The Author as Czar •••••••••••••• 284
John Gardner's Analysis of "Moral Fiction" •••••••• 287
Predetermined Plotting's Effect on Heller's Fiction 289
The Author As Observer: Plotting in Jones' Fiction. 299
Reinterpretation of Theme and Character ••••••••••• 301
Conclusion .•...................................... 316
CONCLUSION •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••.••••••.•••••.••.• 318
ENDNOTES ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 322
BIBLIOGRAPHY ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 343
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Two people have earned my special thanks. As disserta
tion supervisor, Graham Bradshaw, of the University of St.
Andrews, was considerably more than thorough and conscientious.
He was willing to wade into literary Naturalism, working on James
Jones while preferring Henry James, and he dauntlessly answered
numerous late-night and early-morning transatlantic phone calls.
Tommie Olds, of Rocky River, Ohio, typed the second, third and
final drafts of this dissertation with astonishing speed and
unvarying accuracy. "Typist" over-modestly describes her roles
as cryptoanalyst, stenographer, editor, proofreader, and critic.
My family supported this work: implicitly throughout,
and specifically at the end. My father furnished cites to
psychology articles and information on the wartime army. Com
paring successive drafts will show how often -- many times -- I
realized my mother was right about a point of style. Dr. James
Kilroy, of Vanderbilt University, gave me encouragement and good
advice.
Thanks are also due to Dr. Frank MacShane and Willie
MorriS, for sharing their information on Jonesj to Alan and
Lizabeth Buchmann, who never minded the typing in their guest
room; to James Maiwurm, Esq., for clearing the use of the word
proceSSing facilities of Squire, Sanders & DempseYj and finally
to the friends -- from Oxford, Nashville, Charlottesville, St.
Andrews, and Cleveland -- who encouraged, suggested, or were just
simply interested.
St. Andrews -- Cleveland
February 1980 -- March 1984
v
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation has two purposes. One is to discuss
the ideas of James Jones and Joseph Heller on the interrelation
of the individual and society. Both Jones and Heller locate
their characters the context of larger orders and institu
~ithin
tions, beginning with the military and expanding to include other
areas of society. Each writer deals with the question of how an
individual can and should balance his personal interests against
his interests as a member of a social organization -- military
unit, family, ethnic group, or nation. At the end of From Here
to Eternity, for example, Prewitt accepts being killed by the
Military Police as the price of belonging to the social aggregate
of the Army. In The Thin Red Line, the major character is an
infantry company; Jones' individual characters compromise their
individual lives to preserve the existence of this human collect
i ve. In Catch-22, by contrast, Heller presents "SOCiety" as a
false idea -- Yossarian, having learned that the only real inter
est is self-interest, takes off running at the novel's end, in
order to save his own life. At the conclusion of Good As Gold,
however, Bruce Gold renounces his personal ambitions to return to
his family and Jewish background, and Heller presents as legiti
mate the idea of belonging to a group.
-1-
The dissertation's second focus is on technique. Jones'
and Heller's respective attitudes toward the interrelation of the
individual and society are reflected in the1r novels' form and
content -- 1n the1r creat1ve relat1onsh1p w1th characters, their
fictional focus, and their relationship with the reader. The
dissertation traces this contrast through their modes of narra
tion, organization, characterization, and plotting.
Chapter I lays out the basic elements of the contrast:
between Jones' acceptance of the military life, with his corres
ponding emphasis on detail and procedure, and willingness to
portray this world as real and comprehensible; and Heller's
refusal to treat the armed services as anything but absurd, which
is expressed in his portrayal of it as bizarre and surreal.
Chapter II discusses the substance of Jones' fiction.
It is organized as an answer to a review of From Here to Eternity
by V. S. Pritchett, which is remarkable for raising every objec
tion ever to be made to Jones' writing. It responds to Pri t
chett's criticism by (1) pointing out the aes the tic (or anti
aesthetic) views that formed the basis of Jones' work; (2) loca
ting Jones, through his anti-aestheticism, sensationalist focus
on the sordid, and treatment of man as a social animal dominated
by physiology, herd instinct, and subject10n to Circumstance, as
a contemporary follower of the Naturalist trad1tion; and (3)
demonstrating Jones' links to other writers, among them Stendhal,
Joseph Conrad, and Stephen Crane.
-2-
Chapter III deals with Jones' style. It shows how,
after beginning with a deliberately idiosyncratic style, Jones
moved toward an ideal of colloquial expression -- eliminating
expository digression, lyrical passages, unorthodox punctuation,
and authorial intervention.
Chapter IV, a counterpart to Chapter III, covers the
Absurdist rhetoric Heller used to write Catch-22. It discusses
the devices responsible for the novel's tone of confusion and
absurdity: superimposition of different plot structures, splint
ering and interspersal of scenes, deliberately anti-coherent
linking methods, and satire, against which is balanced Catch-22's
authenticating detail.
Chapter V traces through Heller's novels the development
of their author's understanding of "society." In Catch-22,
Heller rejects any suggestion that a man should risk his personal
life when such a sacrifice will not obtain him personal benefit;
when the war is de facto won, he argues, patriotism and nation
alism are insufficient reasons for an airman to continue flying
missions. Something Happened ofrers a converse proof or the same
pOint. Bob Slocum, its protagonist, is a thoroughly despicable
character; and he is despicable because he rejects inclinations
and opportunities to live for himself, choosing instead a neuro
tic adherence to what he believes are social conventions. In
Good As Gold, while Bruce Gold ultimately rejects the ambitions
toward societal assimilation that have led him to seek government
-3-