Operatic and cinematic performance in “The House of Mirth” and “Tender is the Night”

Crystal Lynn Cox, Purdue University

Abstract

For nearly a century, readers of Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald have observed the similarities between their novels and certain performance styles that are significant to these author's lives: opera and cinema, respectively. While the two novels, The House of Mirth and Tender is the Night, contain nuances of these performance styles as well as specific examples of them in their texts, there is more to this than biographical history of the authors. The authors are not merely representing these media types but rather attempt to significantly reproduce them in literary form. Certain features of each novel are clear representations of the literary form; examples of these are in the characters' performances before audience members, in their interactions with settings and objects, and in their abilities to express emotions either explicitly or subtly. The performance natures of the characters in these performance-style novels serve to show that Wharton and Fitzgerald are doing more than relying upon their personal and biographical connections; they are making opera and film through literature. I analyze each of these performance features in terms of each novelist's particular aim, describing how the individual aspects of performance contribute to the creation of opera and filmic literature, respectively. My analysis of this performance reenactment offers broader implications about the results for the performers themselves, and for the creators of these literary types.

Degree

M.A.

Advisors

Punday, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American literature

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