Edith Wharton and the Politics of Race

ISBN-13: 9780521830898 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 240 str.

Jennie A. Kassanoff

Opis

Edith Wharton feared that the 'ill-bred', foreign and poor would overwhelm a native American elite. Drawing on a range of turn-of-the-century social documents, unpublished archival material and all of Wharton's novels, Jennie A. Kassanoff argues that a more accurate picture of her appreciation of American culture and democracy develops through less engagement with these controversial views. She pursues her theme by documenting Wharton's spirited participation in turn-of-the-century discourses ranging from euthanasia and tourism to pragmatism and Native Americans.

Recenzje

'… a provocative work of cultural and literary scholarship.' The Times Literary Supplement

Spis treści

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Invaders and Aborigines: playing Indian in the Land of Letters; 2. 'The real Lily Bart': staging race in The House of Mirth; 3. 'A close corporation': the body and the machine in The Fruit of the Tree; 4. The Age of Experience: pragmatism, the Titanic and The Reef; 5. Charity begins at home: Summer and the erotic tourist; 6. Coda: The Age of Innocence and the Cesnola controversy; Notes; Bibliography; Index.