The Anti-Hero in the American Novel

Transcription

1 The Anti-Hero in the American Novel

2 American Literature Readings in the 21st Century Series Editor: Linda Wagner-Martin American Literature Readings in the 21st Century publishes works by contemporary critics that help shape critical opinion regarding literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century in the United States. Published by Palgrave Macmillan: Freak Shows in Modern American Imagination: Constructing the Damaged Body from Willa Cather to Truman Capote By Thomas Fahy Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics By Steven Salaita Women & Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to Morrison By Kelly Lynch Reames American Political Poetry in the 21st Century By Michael Dowdy Science and Technology in the Age of Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and James: Thinking and Writing Electricity By Sam Halliday F. Scott Fitzgerald s Racial Angles and the Business of Literary Greatness By Michael Nowlin Sex, Race, and Family in Contemporary American Short Stories By Melissa Bostrom Democracy in Contemporary U.S. Women s Poetry By Nicky Marsh James Merrill and W.H. Auden: Homosexuality and Poetic Influence By Piotr K. Gwiazda Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism Edited by Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo By Stephanie S. Halldorson Race and Identity in Hemingway s Fiction By Amy L. Strong Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism By Jennifer Haytock The Anti-Hero in the American Novel: From Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut By David Simmons

3 The Anti-Hero in the American Novel From Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut David Simmons

4 THE ANTI-HERO IN THE AMERICAN NOVEL Copyright David Simmons, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Simmons, David, 1979 The anti-hero in the American novel : from Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut / David Simmons. p. cm. (American literature readings in the twenty-first century) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. American fiction 20th century History and criticism. 2. Antiheroes in literature. I. Title. PS374.A57S dc A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June

5 To the memory of Kenneth A. Yeoman. A Good Friend.

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7 Contents Preface Acknowledgments ix xiii 1 The Rebel with a Cause? The Anti-Heroic Figure in American Fiction of the 1960s 1 2 Individualism and the Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Heroic Figure in American Fiction of the 1960s 43 3 The Outlaw Returns: The Cowboy in American Fiction of the 1960s 81 4 Sinner or Saint? The Anti-Hero as Christ Figure in the American Novel of the 1960s 113 Conclusion 147 Notes 153 Bibliography 183 Index 197

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9 Preface The national tradition of the anti-hero is crucial to the American novel of the 1960s. Events such as the Vietnam War and the subsequent peacenik movement, the civil rights crusade, the wide-scale use of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, and the emergence of the hippies all suggest that the 1960s was a highpoint for rebellion against the state. Indeed, so great was the amount of opposition to the American hegemony during the 1960s that the anti-state movement was termed the counterculture 1 by Theodore Roszak, an American professor and social critic. The concept of the counterculture quickly entered the national vernacular, being written about by a range of theorists and philosophers such as Herbert Marcuse, whose work came to dominate intellectual discussion of the period. Given the tumultuous climate of the 1960s, it is perhaps not surprising that the novel should reflect the rebelliousness of the public. Books such as Catch-22 (1961), One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest (1962), The Graduate (1963), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963), Little Big Man (1964), Midnight Cowboy (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1966), and Slaughterhouse Five (1969) found immense popularity for their depictions of dissident, subversive individuals opposed to the ideological mores of the establishment. Such was the audience for the anti-heroic that many of these characters quickly transcended the confines of the page to become cultural icons, with novels translated into other mediums such as film and theater. The sheer breadth of rebellion that occurred during the 1960s makes it clear that it is impossible for a single work to cover every figure classifiable as anti-heroic in the fiction of the period. 2 Instead, each chapter of this book analyzes a 1960s utilization of the antihero, and explores, with reference to specific textual examples, how writers criticize the value systems of society through the subversion of traditional heroic exemplars. In accordance with this purpose I single out three of what I consider to be the most important heroic exemplars within American culture: the capitalist or entrepreneurial individual, the cowboy, and the Christ figure. I devote a chapter to

10 x PREFACE exploring anti-heroic subversions of these figures. Each chapter starts by examining the demythologization of the respective heroic figure, analyzing the reduction of its traditional heroic qualities into the form of the anti-heroic. Then the chapters go on to explore what these anti-heroic reconfigurations substitute for the previously traditional heroic qualities of the exemplar, examining the extent to which these anti-heroic heroes are analogous to the concept of the unheroic hero. 3 By investigating the 1960s anti-hero through the framework of these heroic archetypes I hope to suggest that the contemporary novel reflects a desire to reappropriate American narratives, be they historical, cultural, social, or aesthetic. As Robert S. Ellwood notes in The 60s Spiritual Awakening (1994), [an] important theme was the recovery of the lost and the past, as though the total experience for which the age yearned could only be complete when one had experienced all of the past as well as all of the present. 4 This notion of a total experience informs my analysis, as I explore the manner in which writers focus upon significant incongruities between the heroic ideal and the reality of American life. The process of foregrounding this disparity is crucial to the larger countercultural movement, as David Farber writes in The 1960s: From Memory to History (1994): Their investigations of the ideological bulwarks of American society led them to argue that more than individual opportunity needed to be unblocked to create a more just and fair system. They challenged the integrity and virtue of basic institutions and values that had taken on the cover of American tradition, like the nuclear family, anticommunism, the economic bottom line, and material progress. 5 In many cases, the desire to challenge and revaluate aspects of society explains the use of the anti-heroic. Writers employ the figure as a means to analyze White, Anglo- Saxon, Protestant ideology, often in conjunction with techniques such as demythologization, satire, and parody. While these latter techniques are important I make the assertion that criticism has focused almost exclusively upon a specific set of taxonomies relating to formal experimentation, which has resulted in an undervaluation of the anti-heroic figure. Instead of continuing in this critical tradition, I seek to reinstate a character-based analysis that emphasizes the humanist impetus behind the use of the anti-hero in the 1960s novel. In taking this unorthodox approach I hope that this book may imbue the 1960s anti-heroic figure with more academic import than

11 PREFACE xi it has previously been credited with. Consequently I wish to suggest that a humanist utilization of the anti-heroic can be seen as one of the more important literary techniques employed by a decade s worth of writers in effectively documenting and conveying the ideological condition of a postwar generation. Notes 1. Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition, rev. ed. (1968; repr., London: Faber, 1969). 2. This volume focuses upon some of the more popular and well-known examples of the anti-heroic figure produced during the 1960s. Due to its structuring around subversions of national archetypes it regrettably excludes many of the interesting anti-heroes contained in the work of Jewish writers such as Saul Bellow, Phillip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Bruce Jay Friedman, specific comprehensive analysis of which can be found in a range of texts. See Ruth Wisse s The Schlemiel as Modern Hero (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971) and Sanford Pinsker s The Schlemiel as Metaphor: Studies in the Yiddish and American Jewish Novel (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971). 3. Ihab Hassan, Rumors of Change (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995), Robert S. Ellwood, The 60s Spiritual Awakening (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994), David Farber, The Sixties: From Memory to History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 3 4.

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13 Acknowledgments The list of individuals that have helped me with useful suggestions, constructive criticism, and moral support while writing this book is extensive, and I offer them all my great appreciation and thanks. However, in particular I must single out Professor Philip Tew for his unfaltering guidance and encouragement, in addition to Dr. John Saunders, and Dr. Gavin Budge for their helpful revisions and corrections. I must also express thanks to my family and Gladys Whitehouse for their assistance, fellow academics Wasfi Ibrahim and Claire Allen for their useful contributions and ongoing friendship, and finally my partner Nicola Allen for her love and support, without which I never would have achieved what I have been able to. I thank you. Cover Image: Catch-22 (1970), reproduced courtesy of Paramount Pictures.