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Allen Dillard Boyer PhD thesis PDF

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6.82> 6;92> .91 6;>2<4 42772=, .9 2>>.A 59 0;9?=.>?> .LLFN 1JLLBQE /OXFQ . ?IFRJR >TCMJSSFE GOQ SIF 1FHQFF OG <I1 BS SIF @NJUFQRJSX OG >S .NEQFVR %+*( 3TLL MFSBEBSB GOQ SIJR JSFM JR BUBJLBCLF JN =FRFBQDI->S.NEQFVR,3TLL?FWS BS, ISSP,##QFRFBQDI!QFPORJSOQX"RS!BNEQFVR"BD"TK# <LFBRF TRF SIJR JEFNSJGJFQ SO DJSF OQ LJNK SO SIJR JSFM, ISSP,##IEL"IBNELF"NFS#%$$&’#’)$( ?IJR JSFM JR PQOSFDSFE CX OQJHJNBL DOPXQJHIS 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-

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Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle, and his will- ingness to portray kamikaze mission, and to make flying one sensible seems at first.
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.