Subjectivity in the American Protest Novel PDF
Preview Subjectivity in the American Protest Novel
Subjectivity in the American Protest Novel Subjectivity in the American Protest Novel Kimberly S. Drake Palgrave macmillan subjectivityintheamericanprotestnovel Copyright©KimberlyS.Drake,2011. Softcoverreprintofthehardcover1stedition2011 Allrightsreserved. SeveralparagraphsofChapter1appearinmyarticle“TheViolencein/ofRepresentation: ProtestStrategiesfromSlaveNarrativetoPunkRock.”ReprintedbypermissionofPacific CoastPhilology,thejournalofthePacificAncientandModernLanguagesAssociation. AversionofChapter5wasoriginallypublishedas“DoingTimein/as‘TheMonster’: IdentityunderIncarcerationinAfrican-AmericanPrisonLiterature”inAfricanAmerican ConfinementLiterature,TaraT.Green,ed.ReprintedbypermissionofMercerUniversity Press,2008. PartsofChapter3wereoriginallypublishedas“WomenontheGo:Blues,Conjure,and OtherAlternativestoDomesticityinAnnPetry’sTheStreetandTheNarrows.”Reprinted fromArizonaQuarterly54.1(1998),bypermissionoftheRegentsoftheUniversityof Arizona. AsectionofChapter2wasoriginallypublishedinmyarticle“RapeandResignation: SilencingtheVictimintheNovelsofMorrisonandWright”inLIT6.1-2(April1995). Reprintedbypermissionofthepublisher,TaylorandFrancisLtd, http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals. Firstpublishedin2011by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN® intheUnitedStates—adivisionofSt.Martin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. WherethisbookisdistributedintheUK,EuropeandtherestoftheWorld, thisisbyPalgraveMacmillan,adivisionofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills, Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabove companiesandhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnited States,theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN978-1-349-29069-7 ISBN978-0-230-11830-0(eBook) DOI10.1057/9780230118300 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Drake,Kimberly,1965– SubjectivityintheAmericanprotestnovel/KimberlyS.Drake. p. cm. 1. Protestliterature,American—Historyandcriticism. 2. Americanfiction— 20thcentury—Historyandcriticism. 3. Americanfiction—AfricanAmerican authors—Historyandcriticism. 4. Subjectivityinliterature. 5. Identity (Psychology)inliterature. 6. AfricanAmericansinliterature. 7. Workingclassin literature. 8. Womeninliterature. I. Title. PS228.P73D732011 813(cid:2).509353—dc22 2010035162 AcataloguerecordofthebookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary DesignbyIntegraSoftwareServices Firstedition:March2011 Dedicatedtothememoryofmymother,LindaDrake Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction:Determinism,DoubleConsciousness, andtheConstructionofSubjectivityinAmerican ProtestNovels 1 2 Rape,Repression,andRemainder:RacialTraumain Wright’sEarlyNovels 49 3 “WomenontheGo”:Stereotype,Domesticity,andStreet CultureinAnnPetry’sFiction 89 4 “YouMakeYourChildrenSick”:DomesticIdeologyand Working-ClassFemaleIdentityinTillieOlsen’sYonnondio andSarahE.Wright’sThisChild’sGonnaLive 131 5 DoingTimein/as“TheMonster”:Subjectivityand AbjectioninNarrativesofIncarceration 175 Notes 199 WorksCited 231 Index 247 Acknowledgments ThisprojectistheculminationofworkIdidduringtheformativeyearsof mylifeasascholar,andIwanttoextendmygratitudetothemembersof variousnurturingcommunitiesacrossthecountry.Iameternallygrateful for the financial support of the Department of English at the University of California. I also appreciate the generosity of the Mellon Foundation, whose fellowship sustained me for my first dissertation year, and of the MednickMemorialFellowship,whichenabledmetoresearchthepapers of Richard Wright and Chester Himes at the libraries of Yale, Tulane, and Brown. Thanks are also due to my colleagues at Scripps College and Virginia Wesleyan College, who believed in my project and sup- ported it in a number of ways: Cheryl Walker, Michael Lamkin, Cecilia Conrad, John Peavoy, Gayle Greene, Michael Hall, Lisa Carstens, Sara Sewell, Sally Shedd, Patrick Goold, and Margaret Reese. Among many othergenerousgestures,CherylWalkerencouragedmetosendthebook toPalgraveMacmillan;Iwillalwaysbethankfulforhersupport.Brigitte ShullandLeeNortonatPalgraveMacmillanhavebeenextremelyhelpful guides through the process, and thanks to Flora Kenson for her patient editing. I also thank editors at LIT, Arizona Quarterly, Pacific Coast Philology, Mercer University Press, and Taylor and Francis for granting mepermissiontoreprintmyarticles. Without a number of mentors, colleagues, and friends, this project would not have reached its final form (nor would I). My disserta- tion and orals reading groups, my housemates in the Fish Palace, and my friends from graduate school and college helped me find the joy in scholarship and a life outside of it; thanks especially to Irene Tucker (my comrade during our strangely parallel phases of professional upheaval), Andrea Solomon, Michael Galchinsky, Daphne Lamothe, Jennifer Nelson, Francesca Royster, Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Anne Oman, Elise Marks, Cynthia Schrager, Bruce Burgett, Shelley Streeby, Judy Berman, Joe Harrington, Alyson Bardsley, Steve Yao, Arthur Riss, Simon Stern, Simone Davis, Steven Rubio, my many soccer and softball x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS teammates, Jamal Rayyis, Travis Wall, and the rest of the “Big One” Cal crew,andespeciallyAramAntaramian(whosupportedmeinmanywon- derfulwaysthroughthecrucialyearsofthisproject)andtheAntaramian family. My dear friends Cindy Franklin, Tina Brooks, and Kate Garrett helped me through the mirror phase and showed me how to write a decent sentence, among many other invaluable contributions to my life andwork.TheEnglishDepartmentfacultyatBerkeleysetanintellectual precedent that cannot be matched at any other university in the world; theycollectivelynourishedmymindandraisedmypoliticalconsciousness during my extended intellectual adolescence (lasting almost one third of mylife).Iespeciallyappreciatethetimeandenergyspentonmeandmy workbyBarbaraChristian,SueSchweik,CarolynPorter,ElizabethAbel, and Sharon Marcus, outstanding professors whose insight, intelligence, andinspirationalteachingamazedandsustainedme.Myheartfeltthanks gotoMitchBreitwieser,myadvisorand“academicdad”forthirteenyears. Hisgeniusandsenseofhumorinspiredmetobecomeanacademic,and heisthemodeloftheteacher-scholarIhaveworkedhardtobecome. I want to thank my family for believing in me and supporting me at everytwistandturnofthislongprocess,andfordefiningstrength,intelli- gence,goodhumor,anddetermination:DickDrake,LindaDrake,Stacey Drake, Dave Wilkes, Susan Drake-Wilkes, Grace Drake-Wilkes, Sunny Drake, and all members of the McCament, Frye, and Stacy families, as well as Rob Rivera, Drew Padilla, and Charles McKittrick, my brothers inchaos.Mydeepestloveandappreciationgotomyfather,DickDrake, who sent me to Berkeley, my mother, Linda Drake, who taught me to lovereading,andherparents,MaryandRobertMcCament,theintellec- tuals,writers,andworldtravelerswhoseexampleIhavealwayshopedto imitate. C h a p t e r 1 Introduction: Determinism, Double Consciousness, and the Construction of Subjectivity in American Protest Novels Theplacetheyhadthoughtsonwassomeofthosevast andunpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation, being devoid of all civil inhabitants where there are only savage and brutish men which range up and down, little otherwise than wild beasts of thesame. (Bradford168,myemphasis) Iwasdifferentfromtheothers;orlike,mayhap,inheartandlifeand longing,butshutoutfromtheirworldbyavast veil...WhydidGod makemeanoutcastandastrangerinmineownhouse?Theshadesof theprison-houseclosedroundaboutusall. (DuBoisSouls44,45,myemphasis) My inheritance was particular, specifically limited and limiting: my birthright was vast, connecting me to all that lives, and to everyone, forever. But one cannot claim the birthright without accepting the inheritance. (Baldwinxii,myemphasis) 2 SUBJECTIVITY IN THE AMERICAN PROTEST NOVEL I relished the thought that the steady stream of white customers who wentinandoutofourdrugstoredidnotknowwhatourdiningroom waslike,didnotevenknowifwehadone.Itwaslikehavingaconcealed weapontouseagainstyourenemy. (Petry“NewMirror”62) The historic and cultural “inheritance” of African Americans has cus- tomarily excluded them from their “birthright,” an American identity that in the minds of the earliest settlers was intimately connected to the vast spaces of “unpeopled” land they claimed as their own. Social power has everything to do with the control of space, as Houston Baker notes, describingdominantsocietyas“thosewhomaintainplace”andtradition, and the socially powerless as “placeless,” “nomadic, transitional” (Baker 202). James Baldwin recognizes implicitly that the American birthright hasbeenclaimedfortheexclusiveuseof“people,”meaningwhites,while thoseinthecategoryof“ranging”non-peoplearedeniedmembershipin thetranscendenthumancommunityconstitutedthroughandsymbolized by free space, defined instead by their compulsory racialness. Recogniz- ing that their culture and history are vital, neither Du Bois nor Baldwin demandstobe“raceless”1or“melted”intheAmerican“pot,”butbothlay claimtothatAmericanspace(DuBois’“world”and“house”)andhuman community(Baldwin’s“allthatlives,andeveryone”).Ultimately,though, neithercanclearlyarticulatehowonemightmovefreelybetweeninheri- tanceandbirthright.Theoppositionisconstructedbetweenasupposedly limiting racial identity and an unlimited “human” identity,2 so that to be “raced” in the United States is in practice to be viewed categorically, through the lens of stereotype, which dehumanizes the individual being viewed. Du Bois’ well-known description of double consciousness was an attempt to articulate for the first time the impact of inhabiting both identities: not simply “American” and “Negro,” but American observing subjectandNegroobjectofobservation.AsHortenseSpillershasargued, forDuBoisit“wasnotenoughtobeseen;onewascalledupontodecide what it meant” (Spillers “All the Things” 397). Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folkisacomprehensiveeffortto“decidewhatitmeant”tobearacialized subject,buthisdescriptionofdoubleconsciousnessalsosuggeststhatasa survivalstrategy,individualAfricanAmericanshadtodecidewhat“being seen” meant to them at any given moment. His book both reflects upon thispsychologicalproblemandcommentsonitspotentialaswhatSpillers callsa“routetoself-reflexivity.” In her autobiographical short story “The New Mirror,” Ann Petry refigures the spatial configuration of double consciousness as well as its
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