This thesis develops and refines a term used initially by Bill Buford to refer to works of contemporary realism. Dirty realism characterises a strain of realism first appearing in American and Canadian writing during the 1960s and increasing in prominence through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. The study focuses on the scholarship surrounding both the term and the works of particular authors, and applies the theories of Fredric Jameson and Michel de Certeau to develop a basic critical vocabulary for engaging the fiction and poetry of Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Mark Anthony Jarman, as well as other writers treated with less intensity, such as David Adams Richards, Helen Potrebenko, Al Purdy, and Bobbie Anne Mason. In particular, the dissertation attempts to develop a critical terminology through which to discuss dirty realist texts. The most prominent of such terms, the "hypocrisy aesthetic," refers to dirty realism's aesthetic of contradiction, discursive variance, and offsetting of theory against practice. The chapters of the dissertation deal with the emergence of the hypocrisy aesthetic through a study of literary genealogy, history, and theory. The second chapter, "Dirty Realism: Genealogy," traces the development of major currents in twentieth-century American realism, particularly naturalism. Arguing for dirty realism as a variant of naturalism, the chapter traces the transmission of ideas concerning dialectics, determinism, and commodity production from Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris, through James T. Farrell and John Steinbeck and ending with an extensive discussion of Charles Bukowski's Factotum. The third chapter, "Dirty Realism: History," addresses the impact of the Cold War on the development of dirty realism. Referring to major critics on the period, this section of the dissertation follows the development of hypocrisy as a form of discourse eventuated by Cold War contradictions, particularly between that of democratic freedoms proclaimed abroad and the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia on the domestic scene (as—in the USA—in the HUAC hearings chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy).

This study refocuses the current critical discussion of determinism and character identity development in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, a predominantly "urban" novel, by juxtaposing the ways in which the natural world functions deterministically in Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native and Theodore Dreiser's The Bulwark. First, a close reading of The Return of the Native suggests that characters' interactions with the natural world determine their identities by forcing shifts in perception and complicating their abilities to assert an identity apart from their environments. Then, a reading of The Bulwark—a novel in which Dreiser deals with the natural world quite directly—allows an exploration of how these same patterns of perception, understanding, and identity formation take shape in a text by Dreiser. The final chapter of this study synthesizes these readings of The Return of the Native and The Bulwark as a means of entry into an analysis of Sister Carrie's deterministic forces. Ultimately, attention to how the natural world influences characters through its timelessness and infinite size, as well as to how the natural world shapes a character's perspective and sense of self, adds to our understanding of the novel's determinism. / Department of English

This project asserts that male Naturalist authors were not “hypermasculine” acolytes of strident manhood, but instead offer alternative constructions which they portray as less traumatic and more cohesive than prevailing social notions of normative male behavior. I maintain that the rise of the concept of manhood advocated by Theodore Roosevelt in the early decades of the twentieth century contributed to this misconception, for it generated a discourse of “manly” individualism which became equated with socially acceptable performances of masculinity for many Americans. My first chapter illustrates the gradual evolution of an individualistic, violent, and strident concept of manhood, which I label “strenuous masculinity,” through the rhetoric of Theodore Roosevelt. The second chapter explores the ways in which Stephen Crane’s fiction illuminates the trauma and confusion inherent in strenuous concepts of manhood. Many of Crane’s stories, like “Five White Mice,” demonstrate the failure of individualism, while others, like “The Open Boat,” document a more positive construction of what I call “homosocial manhood.” In my third and final chapter, I attempt to prove that Richard Wright’s early texts showcase a range of possible outcomes of black male attempts to stand up to racial oppression. I document that Uncle Tom’s Children and Native Son both depict a continuum of confrontation, with individual violence on one end of the spectrum and non-violent group protest on the other. Furthermore, because individual resistance is consistently equated with the suffering and death of the protagonists, my project implies that strenuous manhood also fails to provide a site for effectual and sustainable opposition to the negating forces of racial oppression. / Theodore Roosevelt and the transformation of American masculinity -- "The youth leaned heavily on his friend" : alternative constructions of masculinity in Stephen Crane's fiction -- Richard Wright's early fiction as a rejection of the racial oppression of strenuous manhood. / Department of English

To be presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Åbo Akademi University on Feb. 3, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [379]-396) and index.

To be presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Åbo Akademi University on Feb. 3, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [379]-396) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-219). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-219). Also available on the Internet.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-12-05Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:30:46Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 souza_ac_me_assis.pdf: 1174886 bytes, checksum: 71ccb3bc9aca9694db8e3c26d9bde717 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / No romance epistolar O marido da adúltera, publicado em 1882 pelo escritor e jornalista Lúcio de Mendonça, encontram-se traços marcantes e inequívocos da estética naturalista desenvolvida, sobretudo, por Émile Zola. Neste trabalho, pretende-se verificar de que modo o idealizador da Academia Brasileira de Letras recebeu as ideias do Naturalismo e as inseriu em sua obra, verificando o processo de adaptação executado pelo autor brasileiro, que soube dialogar com a estética naturalista em voga na época, aplicando muitos de seus princípios, discordando de alguns deles. Cabe observar, igualmente, o fato de que Lúcio de Mendonça optou pelo romance epistolar, gênero pouco utilizado no Brasil do século XIX, mas fundamental para a construção desta obra. Esta pesquisa visa, portanto, analisar de que maneira o autor de O marido da adúltera utilizou-se do naturalismo francês para criar um romance epistolar brasileiro, publicado, originalmente, no periódico O Colombo, em forma de folhetim; característica, aliás, que se conserva no momento da publicação do romance em livro, em 1882 / On the epistolary novel The adulterer’s husband, published in 1882 by the writer and journalist Lúcio de Mendonça, it‟s found distinctive features and unequivocal from the naturalist theory developed, especially, by Émile Zola. In the present paper, it‟s intended to verify what way the creator from the Brazilian Academy of Letters received the ideas of Naturalism and put them into his work, checking the adaptation process performed by the Brazilian author, who knew how to dialog with the naturalist aesthetics in common use that time, enforcing lots of his principles, disagreeing with some of them. It must be noted, equally, the fact that Lúcio de Mendonça chose the epistolary novel, a not very used gender in Brazil in XIX century, but something fundamental to this work to be made. Therefore, this research aims to analyze what way The adulterer’s husband’s author used the French naturalism to create the Brazilian epistolary novel, published, at first, by Colombo journal, as a soap opera; characteristics that, by the way, are preserved at the book‟s publishing moment, in 1882

This thesis develops and refines a term used initially by Bill Buford to refer to works of contemporary realism. Dirty realism characterises a strain of realism first appearing in American and Canadian writing during the 1960s and increasing in prominence through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. The study focuses on the scholarship surrounding both the term and the works of particular authors, and applies the theories of Fredric Jameson and Michel de Certeau to develop a basic critical vocabulary for engaging the fiction and poetry of Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Mark Anthony Jarman, as well as other writers treated with less intensity, such as David Adams Richards, Helen Potrebenko, Al Purdy, and Bobbie Anne Mason. In particular, the dissertation attempts to develop a critical terminology through which to discuss dirty realist texts. The most prominent of such terms, the "hypocrisy aesthetic," refers to dirty realism's aesthetic of contradiction, discursive variance, and offsetting of theory against practice. The chapters of the dissertation deal with the emergence of the hypocrisy aesthetic through a study of literary genealogy, history, and theory. The second chapter, "Dirty Realism: Genealogy," traces the development of major currents in twentieth-century American realism, particularly naturalism. Arguing for dirty realism as a variant of naturalism, the chapter traces the transmission of ideas concerning dialectics, determinism, and commodity production from Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris, through James T. Farrell and John Steinbeck and ending with an extensive discussion of Charles Bukowski's Factotum. The third chapter, "Dirty Realism: History," addresses the impact of the Cold War on the development of dirty realism. Referring to major critics on the period, this section of the dissertation follows the development of hypocrisy as a form of discourse eventuated by Cold War contradictions, particularly between that of democratic freedoms proclaimed abroad and the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia on the domestic scene (as—in the USA—in the HUAC hearings chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy). / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

“Human/Nature: American Literary Naturalism and the Anthropocene” examines works of fiction from the genre of American literary naturalism that sought to represent the emergence of the environmental crisis known today as the Anthropocene. Reading works by Jack London, Frank Norris, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Charles W. Chesnutt, I show how the genre’s well-known tropes of determinism, atavism, and super-individual scales of narration were used to create narratives across vast scales of space and time, spanning the entire planet as well as multi-epochal stretches of geologic time. This reading expands existing definitions of American literary naturalism through a combination of literary analysis, engagement with contemporary theory, and discussion of the historical context of proto-Anthropocenic theories of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Whereas most earlier understandings of naturalism have focused on human nature as it is determined by environmental conditions, I follow the inverse: the impact of collective human action on the physical environment. Previous definitions of naturalism have only told part of the story of determinism, making it impossible to recognize until now the genre’s unusual capacity to aesthetically capture humanity’s pervasive impact on the planet. Each of the dissertation’s four chapters focuses on a single author, a single aesthetic strategy, and a single problematic in Anthropocene discourse. My first chapter argues that Jack London’s late work (1906–1916) balanced his attempts to understand the human as a species with a growing interest in sustainable agriculture, resulting in a planetary theorization of environmental destruction through careless cultivation. But London’s human-centered environmental thinking ultimately served his well-known white supremacism, substantiating recent critiques that the Anthropocene’s universalism merely reproduces historical structures of wealth and power. Rather than the human per se, Frank Norris put his focus on finance capitalism in his classic 1901 novel The Octopus, embodying the hybrid human/natural force that he saw expanding over the face of the planet in the figure of the Wheat, a cultivated yet inhuman force that is as much machine as it is nature. I show how Norris turned Joseph LeConte’s proto-Anthropocenic theory of the Psychozoic era (1877) into a Capitalocene aesthetics, a contradictory sublimity in which individuals are both crushed by and feel themselves responsible for the new geologic force transforming the planet. While London and Norris focus on the destructive capacities of human agency, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1915 novel Herland takes a utopian approach, depicting a society of women with total control of their environment that anticipates conceptions of a “good Anthropocene.” Gilman built on the theories of sociologist and paleobotanist Lester Ward as well as her own experience in the domestic reform movement to imagine a garden world where the human inhabitants become totally integrated into the non-human background. Yet Gilman’s explicitly eugenic system flattens all heterogeneity of culture, wealth, and power into a homogenous collective. My final chapter builds on the critique of the Anthropocene’s universalism that runs through the preceding chapters by asking whether and how the Anthropocene can be approached with more nuance and less recourse to universals. I find an answer in the stories of Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman (1899) and the theory of the Plantationocene, which sees the sameness of the Anthropocene not as “natural” but as produced by overlapping forms of racial, economic, and biological oppression. Registering this production of homogeneity and its counterforces at once, Chesnutt models what I call Anthropocene heteroglossia, juxtaposing multiple dialects and narrative forms in stories set on a former plantation, depicting heterogeneous social ecologies as they conflict and coexist in markedly anthropogenic environments.