Constructing American Community
Negotiating Privacy
in Aristocratic Spheres: Commodities, Sentiments, and the Politics of Dinner in
The Age of Innocence
Melissa Asher Daniels, Northwestern Univ.
The aristocratic house of the late nineteenth century is not only a domestic space, but a political one as well. Governed by a well demarcated separation between “public” and “private” space, as well as the social rules of Victorian etiquette, the aristocratic house is an “imagined community” where individuals must suppress any and all self-serving desires that may threaten the cultural identity of the group. Desire, in the aristocratic house, is marked by zeal towards objects that serve as metonyms for intangibles; or what I call the “commodification of sentiment.” In Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, this zeal is rooted in the “appropriating gaze”—an objectifying frame that inhibits subjectivity. In the final dinner scene of the novel, Newland Archer finds himself caught in the frame of the dining table and in the gaze of Old New York. Newland discovers that his compatriots have objectified him in order to prevent him from blurring the boundaries between public and private space, defiling the social rules of propriety, crossing class lines, and merging “high” and “low” culture. Newland’s epiphany at the dinner table is ultimately his recognition that he has been strategically manipulated and distributed like an economic good. In the end, Newland Archer comes to an awareness of the multivalent codes of conduct that govern the aristocratic house in Old New York and in the dining room in particular. He comes to understand that human sentiment itself is a rare good to be safely guarded in a culture that values the appearances of “innocence” and wealth above all else.
The Music of Willa
Cather
Monica Lott,
In many of Willa Cather’s novels and short stories, music plays an integral part in the story. Music appears in many forms throughout the stories; from a hymn of longing and praise in O Pioneers!, to the lonely plaintive wail of a violin in My Antonia, to grand opera in The Song of the Lark and “A Wagner Matinee,” Cather uses music as a way for the characters to reach for a higher plane and achieve something greater than the dreary tedium of their day-to-day lives. This paper examines themes that occur in various works in the way that Cather utilizes music to represent the pain and longing of her characters. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at the ways Cather draws on music as a substitute for the emotions of her characters, in that the use of musical works familiar to her readers provides a channel by which her message transcends into music and is absorbed by the reader, thus emotions are carried into the reader more accurately than words could ever convey.
Abraham Lincoln as
‘Satirist-Satirized’
Todd Thompson,
In this talk I will depict Abraham Lincoln as a skillful political satirist and the ultimate “satirist-satirized.” In political speeches and in personal anecdotes, Lincoln shrewdly used satire—directed simultaneously at himself and his opponents—to mold a particular (homey and “aw-shucks” fallible) public image while undercutting the pretensions of those he attacked. This allowed him to control his own image while assailing those of his political enemies.
Lincoln
himself pointed to the political advantages of his famous anecdotes when he
said, “I have found that common people (repeating with emphasis common people),
take them as you find them, are more easily influenced by a broad and humorous
illustration than in any other way.”[1]
This formulation calls attention to the difference between a politician’s and a
literary author’s motivations for and methods of satire. While literary satirists
employ satire only in hopes of engendering a “change in consciousness” that may
lead to political action or activism, the goal for
[1] Zall, P.M., ed. Abe
and about Abraham Lincoln.