Focusing on the depiction of the father-son relationship and the generational conflicts in their works, as well as the metaphorical literary father-son relationship between the two authors, this dissertation offers an intertextual reading of the works of Ernest Hemingway and Ernest J. Gaines.
Part One examines Hemingways Nick Adams stories that feature the young heros growing disillusionment with and eventual rejection of his home and family. Parodying conventional stereotypes about Native American ways of life, Hemingway deconstructs prevailing notions of race by aligning Nicks father with the wilderness and the Indians. Gainess earliest short stories focus on a reunion of the historically-divided African American family. Deconstructing traditional views of gender, Gaines emphasizes the concept of the African American extended and surrogate family as ever-changing.
Part Two shifts the focus from the son to the fathers. Hemingways seminal story Fathers and Sons presents a cyclical view of time, according to which the son runs the risk of repeating the fathers mistakes. The fathers sins, especially his suicide, are not resolved until Robert Jordan sacrifices himself for his friends at the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls and thus becomes a father to others. The discussion of Gainess two major novels on the perspective of fathers, In My Father's House and A Gathering of Old Men, demonstrates how the generational gap can be bridged.
Part Three analyzes the metaphorical father-son relationship between Hemingway and Gaines. Using Harold Blooms anxiety-of-influence theory as a model, and Ivan Turgenevs Fathers and Sons as the original text both Hemingway and Gaines studied and misread, this section compares and contrasts the generational conflicts in Hemingways The Sun Also Rises and Gainess Catherine Carmier and A Lesson Before Dying.
The conclusion looks at Hemingways and Gainess works as instances of life-writing and places the two writers in two different traditions, with Hemingway representing a Western form of autobiography that emphasizes the individual and with Gaines representing an African form of autobiography that stresses the interdependence of individual and group experience.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-0831103-223008 |
| Date | 02 September 2003 |
| Creators | Lepschy, Wolfgang |
| Contributors | Nghana Lewis, William Cooper, J. Gerald Kennedy, James Olney, John Lowe |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0831103-223008/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University Libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. |
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