Blakemore, Steven

Contemporary thinking, bound as it is to a dualistic paradigm,
inherently privileges one side of the duality over the other. Feminists - most
notably in this dissertation, Val Plumwood - argue that we must overcome
these privileged dualities and reconstruct a way of knowing that recognizes
difference while not granting privilege to one side or the other. Dualities result
from the modernist and postmodernist desire to name and control. One of the
reasons that we cannot transcend this desire is because we have lost our
connection to our environment. Examining novels and films set in Detroit,
Michigan, as well as coming to terms with that city's history, will allow us to
find places where clairvoyant messengers can commune with the
environment and offer us an insight into ways of overcoming the radical
"othering" ofduality.
This project begins by examining the literary history of urban fiction in
the United States and pointing to the tradition of duality and some of its
surface problems. Then, the project begins to construct a history of Detroit that
exposes the complex layers of duality that have informed the city's growth
and ultimately led to the 1967 riots. Next, the argument suggests the
importance of fiction and film in understanding modern dualities.
The first fictive example, Maureen, from Joyce Carol Oates's novel
them is an example of a potential clairvoyant. However, bound as she is to a
postmodern existence, Maureen experiences her "other'' but fails to provide a
didactic example of non-dualistic thinking. Ultimately, postmodernism and
postmodern/post riot Detroit only mystify and compound the problems
associated with modern dualities. Likewise, Jeffrey Eugenides transgendered
hero/ine Calliope (Middlesex) experiences her natural "other" and allows us to
call into question the traditional binaries we use to create our understandings
of gender. Both characters retell their experience and re-present their bodies
in an attempt to bridge dualities and overcome their "otherness." Finally, the
dissertation finds a representation of contemporary Detroit, Eminem's 8 Mile,
and argues that violence and shame are at the root of dualities and ultimately
distract us from overcoming both fictional and real examples of the
oppressive "othering" which results from a culture steeped in dualistic
thinking.

Much critical debate has surrounded William Faulkner's treatment of race relations in the South; indeed, it is difficult to believe that a white Southern male could transcend the psychosocial realities that led to racial divisions in the post-Civil War South. However, Faulkner, as the "well-endowed" Aristotelian poet, was able to involve himself in the emotions he sought to imitate, and thus was able to transcend racial issues in the compact fictive space he established. Intent upon mastering the intricacies of the short story, Faulkner, the self-admitted "failed poet," utilizes this genre to construct a subtle yet powerful critique of hypocritical racial divisions common in the postbellum South. The silences and subversive sympathies that abound in such short stories as "Dry September" and "That Evening Sun" are caught up within the confines of this fictive space, provoking the reader to resolve the discrepancies that purposefully exist.

Feminist critics have primarily concentrated on the character of Zenobia, Nathaniel Hawthorne's premier feminist in The Blithedale Romance, to unravel Hawthorne's stance on the emergent sexual politics of the time. This thesis not only examines the importance of Zenobia but also analyzes the significance of Hawthorne's allusions to gender and sexuality constructs in terms of his other characters: Coverdale, Hollingsworth, Priscilla, Westervelt, and Moodie. In addition, I argue that Hawthorne's purpose is to experiment with societal constructs of gender and sexuality among his central characters, a literary experiment that inadvertently subverts his ostensible traditional, patriarchal perspective. In essence, my reading aims to reorientate the conventional presuppositions and gender conventions that have dominated Hawthorne criticism for the past 150 years.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance has been criticized contemporaneously and subsequently by such figures as F. O. Matthiessen, Mark Van Doren, and Rudolph Von Abele for its lack of romanticism or realism, depending upon the critic. This thesis uses a semiotic approach to explore Hawthorne's deconstruction of his first-person narrator, Miles Coverdale, and the resulting confusion among critics regarding authorial control in what some call his "anti-romance." Coverdale, as a detached artist, is responsible for reality's misinterpretation and misrepresentation, somewhat lampooning Transcendentalism. The triadic relationship of object, sign, and interpretant modeled by Charles Sanders Peirce is discussed using Liszka, Sebeok, Eco, and others and is complimented by the Umwelt Theory of Jakob von Uexkull to explain Coverdale's faulty symbolism. Hawthorne's "The Custom House" is also used to indicate his concerns for artistic limitation and the loss of an individual in a static community as he later fictionalizes in Blithedale.

Using "The Fall of the House of Usher" as the principal, framework tale, this study illuminates Edgar Allan Poe's fictions from a perspective that focuses on homoerotic encounters. Since few prior studies have been directed at Poe's homosexual content, this thesis gives special attention to the benchmark criticism by D. H. Lawrence, which has long influenced readers' interpretations of sexual relationships in Poe's stories. This inquiry includes gender studies, especially the work of Leland S. Person, as well as queer theorist commentary on Poe and his contemporaries. It also deliberates on the definition of the queer aesthete provided by Alexander Doty and discusses how Poe's characters actually pre-date some assumptions about early appearances of the homosexual male in literature. Additionally, this thesis considers how writers who have been influenced by Poe tend to write texts that routinely provide fertile ground for the queer theorist.

Since its publication, critics and readers have been unsatisfied with the conclusion of The House of the Seven Gables and have viewed it as either inconsistent or a failure. After an analysis of the language, actions, and patterns of imagery in this work, along with The Scarlet Letter and The Blithedale Romance, it had become clear that there is in fact consistency to the conclusion of this text. These patterns suggest Hawthorne's conception of an ultimate hierarchical organization that favors characters who exhibit specific attributes. This organizational pattern can be disrupted through methods of recreating hierarchical order. Such attempts create a false hierarchy, doomed to failure, and corrupt those characters, keeping them from ultimately realizing their true place in the hierarchy. It is only at the end of The House of the Seven Gables that the false hierarchists are punished or redeemed and the naturally hierarchic are ultimately rewarded.