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Toni Morrison, in Playing in the Dark, observes the pervasive silence that surrounds race in nineteenth-century canonical literature. Observing the ways in which the “Africanist” African-American presence pervades this literature, Morrison has called for an investigation of the ways in which whiteness operates in American canonical literature. This thesis takes up that challenge. In the first section, from Chapters One through Three, I explore how whiteness operates through the representation of the African-American figure in the works of three eminent nineteenth-century American writers, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain. The texts studied in this regard are: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Leaves of Grass, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This section is not concerned with whether these texts constitute racist literature but with the ways in which the study of race, particularly whiteness, reveals the contradictions and insecurities that attend (white American) identity. As such, Morrison’s own fiction, written in response to white historical representations of African-Americans also deserves attention. The second section of this thesis focuses on Morrison’s attempt to produce an authentically “black” literature. Here I look at two of Morrison’s least studied but arguably most contentious novels particularly because of what they reveal of Morrison’s complex position on race. In Chapter Four I focus on Tar Baby and argue that this novel reveals Morrison’s somewhat essentialist position on blackness and racial, cultural, and gendered identity, particularly as this pertains to responsibilities she places on the black woman as culture-bearer. In Chapter Five I argue that Paradise, while taking a particularly challenging position on blackness, reveals Morrison’s evolving position on race, particularly her concern with the destructive nature of internalized racism. This thesis concludes that while racial identities have very real material consequences, whiteness and blackness are ideological and social constructs which, because of their constructedness, are fallible and perpetually under revision.

Advisor: Mary E. Wood. xii, 181 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm. Print copy also available for check out and consultation in the University of Oregon's library under the call number: PS374.S714 H37 2004. / The nineteenth-century American sentimental novel has only in the last twenty years received consideration from the academy as a legitimate literary tradition. During that time feminist scholars have argued that sentimental novels performed important cultural work and represent an important literary tradition. This dissertation contributes to the scholarship by placing the sentimental novel within a larger context of intellectual history as a tradition that draws upon theoretical sources and is a source itself for later cultural developments. In examining a variety of sentimental novels, I establish the moral sense philosophy as the theoretical basis of the sentimental novel's pathetic appeals and its theories of sociability and justice. The dissertation also addresses the aesthetic features of the sentimental novel and demonstrates again the tradition's connection to moral sense philosophy but within the context of the American elocution revolution. I look at natural language theory to render more legible the moments of emotional spectacle that are the signature of sentimental aesthetics. The second half of the dissertation demonstrates a connection between the sentimental novel and silent film. Both mediums rely on a common aesthetic storehouse for signifying emotions. The last two chapters of the dissertation compare silent film performance with emotional displays in the sentimental novel and in elocution and acting manuals. I also demonstrate that the films of D. W. Griffith, especially The Birth of a Nation, draw upon on the larger conventions of the sentimental novel.