VARIETIES OF MARGINALITY: THE TREATMENT OF THE EUROPEAN IMMIGRANT IN THE MIDDLEWESTERN FRONTIER NOVEL
Abstract
The examination of seventy-seven novels published between 1890 and 1970 which take as their major subject the northern European immigrant to the middlewestern frontier begins with a discussion of the major critical perspectives of the novelists which include impulses for nostalgia, didacticism and fascination for historical detail. Considerations of psychological realism, mythic implications and close attention to structure are of secondary importance for most of the writers. Four major themes emerge which focus on the quality of marginality, i.e., the tension created in the immigrant after he has abandoned a culture of which he is a part in order to enter a culture in which he is in many respects an outsider. The first is found within the immigrant community itself: husbands conflict with wives in their relation to the land, immigrant parents conflict with children born on the frontier, and immigrants of earlier eras conflict with those of later ones. The second theme is cultural dislocation frequently attributed to two factors: the diminished presence of the arts and anti-intellectualism on the frontier. The third is Yankee resentment, portrayed as ranging from a minor inconvenience expected during the "dog years" to a crisis of debilitating proportion. The fourth is nature, treated variously as a mild impediment to the inevitable "march of civilization" or as a force whose power challenges survival. The final chapters examine the melting pot concept as demonstrated in the contrasting view of the assimilationists and the cultural pluralists. The Conclusion attempts to account for the decline in interest among novelists after the 1940's to treat the immigrant experience on the middlewestern frontier.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
American literature
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