Coyle, William

During the Victorian period in England the literary fairy tale became popular. These tales are different from traditional fairy tales because they deal with the social problems of the times. Written to entertain and stir the imagination of both adults and children, they nevertheless, had a strong moral and didactic purpose. The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin reflects the didacticism of his later works, Stones of Venice and Unto This Last. William Makepeace Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring teaches manners as the Victorians saw them. The Magic Fishbone by Charles Dickens deals with the poverty of the working class. The protagonists in each tale must follow the strict Victorian Evangelical Code of hard work and self-denial before they are worthy to be rewarded.

Walt Whitman relied heavily upon an ornithological reference book for most of the bird imagery in Leaves of Grass. Despite claims that Whitman was closely in tune with nature, he obviously made use of The Birds of Long Island by J. P. Giraud, published in 1844, in numerous passages over a period of about 20 years. Courtland Y. White first noticed Whitman's dependence upon this text in 1944. This study goes beyond White's findings, surveys the importance of accuracy in Whitman's details about birds, and examines the poet's relationship with the naturalist John Burroughs, whose influence is seen in at least one major poem.

The early heroines of Hamlin Garland are the voices of his discontent. Their actions underscore Garland's advocacy of change, both sociological and artistic. Jane Ripley ("Mrs. Ripley's Trip") and Agnes Dingman ("A Branch Road") highlight his involvement with the plight of Border farm wives. The core of his doctrines emphasizes their need to establish an identity in a dehumanizing world. In A Spoil of Office, Ida Wilber is Garland's proponent of individualism. She is a heroine who applauds the woman's shifting profile in society. Rose Dutcher (Rose of Dutcher's Coolly) epitomizes the author's crusade for eradication of the double standard. She is the allegorical "new woman" who wears female equality and personal freedom proudly. Bessie Blake and Mary Brien (Her Mountain Lover) symbolize the need of local-colorists to become literary iconoclasts and shun wordsmiths of the past. They manifest Garland's zeal for a national utterance.

As a child, John Steinbeck developed what would be a lifelong interest in the stories of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. As an adult during the 1930s, he recreated the Arthurian brotherhood cycle--its formation, flowering, and dissolution--in three of his novels: Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle, and The Grapes of Wrath. Each brotherhood novel is characterized by the following Arthurian elements: a leader is chosen by the people and dies during the dissolution of the brotherhood; a cause is worked for; quests are undertaken; and a social code of behavior is followed. Steinbeck used the Arthurian brotherhood cycle to show how the problems of the 1930s in America could be solved, although he knew that ultimately the brotherhood solution would not work.

Sinclair's Dead Hand Series contains many wonderful insights and is often very amusing and educational reading. His point of view as a utopian socialist is going increasingly out of vogue as we conclude the twentieth century. Yet this point of view is valid and important if we are to continue to act as reformers, believing social improvement is possible. Because the series covers so many components of society--religion, education, journalism, and literature--it provides many ideas and reminds us of the power which one idealist can wield. As nihilism continues to be the predominant philosophy in the late twentieth century, we may be wise to look back to a time when the muckraker was predominant in journalism. The Dead Hand Series might be useful reading today for young people who believe there is little hope for solutions to modern problems. Sinclair deserves to be remembered for his tireless and selfless efforts to maintain the values of the country he loved.

Ellen Glasgow's feminism is revealed in her fiction, especially through her characterization of women. In four representative novels, Glasgow's female characters underscore the problems of women--from the womanly woman of the Victorian era to the new woman of the twentieth century. In Virginia, Virginia Pendleton is the product of an education that teaches her to be a dutiful wife and mother yet neglects her personal growth. In The Sheltered Life, Eva Birdsong is a victim of the myth of Southern Womanhood and its unrealistic expectations. Glasgow also attempts to show that character is fate, and women can turn to their inner resources to solve their problems. Thus Dorinda Oakley of Barren Ground enters the man's world of farming, and Ada Fincastle of Vein of Iron relies on her inherited fortitude to triumph over personal disappointments and the forces of social change. In these novels, Glasgow exposes the conservative educational, religious, and social influences that impinge on the development of women as total human beings. Ellen Glasgow's contribution to the feminist movement lies in her commitment to what she called women's "liberation of personality."

Despite well documented evidence that Jane Austen's relations with her father were harmonious and affectionate, only one of the twenty-one fathers and surrogate fathers depicted in her six major novels approaches the ideal of the patriarchal family--a wise and humane father. The preponderance of fallible fathers is a unifying metaphor for a disintegrating family structure, the inevitable legacy of a failed patrimony. The phallocentric heritage has rendered the lineal society anachronistic by fostering paternal irresponsibility due to unfettered privilege, by permitting the poorly prepared, succeeding generation of inheritors to govern, and by reducing the status of women to submission and dependency.

Evelyn Waugh began his literary career soon after the end of World War II when the life style he had known all his life, that of the upper class and the aristocratic, was soon to be over. He was distressed at the loss of his world to the modern age. His early works are bitter satires attacking the changes he saw in the people he knew and the world he loved. His first protagonists were flat shallow characters who were totally unaware of the havoc of their world. As Waugh matured, his characters changed and became more realistic and better able to cope with the problems in their lives. The protagonists of the later novels are fully developed and manage their lives very well even though the world is still in a chaotic state. As Waugh matured, he was better able to contend with the problems he faced, and this maturity is reflected in the protagonists of his novels.

Marriage is the desired goal and ultimate destiny of Austen's heroines. Austen presents a pivotal couple in each novel, consisting of deeply moral, intelligent individuals who are capable of genuine selfless affection. The man and woman experience growth and maturation before the relationship culminates in matrimony. The featured couple of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy, embody all the essential characteristics of an extraordinary pair. Initial dislikes mask attraction, while self-awareness heightens as one learns more of the other. This evolvement is unparalleled in Pride and Prejudice. Representations of couples in this novel range from the very low (Lydia and Wickham) to the mundane (Charlotte and Mr. Collins) to the quite acceptable (Jane and Bingley). Each pair falls short of Elizabeth and Darcy in profoundness of feeling. Within the confines of society and the ranks of humanity in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy are a "perfect match."

The making and the unmaking of the artist manque is the central theme of five successive novels of John Hawkes from The Blood Oranges (1972) to Virginie: Her Two Lives (1981). The main characters in each of these five works are "artists" in one form or another. Each of them is a fragment of Hawkes himself, a detached figment of his imagination; they and their aesthetic-erotic obsessions had to be imagined by their creator. In a special sense, these characters are innocent because they are unaware of the extent and reasons their inspirations are tainted at the source, their psyches; and they, unlike Hawkes, cannot detach themselves from their own fantasies and their desires to realize them, whatever the risk. No wonder then the suffering and destruction they inflict on themselves and others.