Subjugated Citizenship: The Politics and Psychology of Domesticity in The Street by Ann Petry, The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnow, and The Changelings by Jo Sinclair Público
Simoneau, Elizabeth (2011)
Abstract
Abstract
Subjugated Citizenship:
The Politics and Psychology of Domesticity in
The Street by Ann Petry, The Dollmaker by Harriet
Arnow,
and The Changelings by Jo Sinclair
By Elizabeth Simoneau
This dissertation examines three novels: The Street by Ann
Petry, The Dollmaker by
Hariette Arnow , and The Changelings by Jo Sinclair
and explores the following
questions: Do these novels offer any insights into the politics of
American
citizenship? Do they illuminate or challenge conventional knowledge
regarding the
political context of the 1940s and 1950s? Can contemporary
political analyses-
particularly those concerned with autonomy, individualism, and
liberalism be useful
in interpreting midcentury literary texts? This analysis uses
contemporary feminist
political theory and its criticism of liberalism to examine the
discursive context
within which these novels were produced. While it can be argued
that these novels
anticipate a feminist criticism of liberalism and its reliance on
conventional gender
expectations, they do not present a cohesive criticism of liberal
political philosophy.
Instead, they engage and oppose the dominant discourses of
citizenship that were in
circulation during this time period, which positioned motherhood
and the domestic
sphere as the site upon which the stability of democracy and the
production of ideal
citizens depended. The novels resist these discourses in several
ways. First, they
undermine the strict division between the public sphere and the
private sphere that
was said to be crucial for securing democracy. However, the novels
do not refute
the importance of the domestic sphere and its role in socializing
individuals and
perpetuating social values. Rather, they demonstrate how the ideal
domestic space,
characterized by an insular nuclear family, is unattainable by some
families and
individuals and not conducive to fostering democratic values for
others-whether
due to structural inequality or psychological anxiety. Second, they
address specific
social expectations regarding behavior and relationships-especially
with respect to
sexuality and motherhood-and indicate the ways in which these
expectations are,
again, unattainable or contradictory to the goal of upholding
democracy. Finally, the
analysis concludes by arguing that as they reveal the
contradictions that inhere in
the dominant discourses of American citizenship, the novels
illustrate the economic
and psychological conditions that render citizenship and its
promises difficult, if not
impossible, to attain for women, the poor and working class, and
families of color.
Subjugated Citizenship:
The Politics and Psychology of Domesticity in
The Street by Ann Petry, The Dollmaker by Harriet
Arnow,
and The Changelings by Jo Sinclair
By
Elizabeth Simoneau
B.A., Syracuse University, 1997
M.A., The Ohio State University, 2002
Adviser: Frances Smith Foster, Ph.D.
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the
James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in
Women's Studies
2011
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
1
Chapter One:
22
"Always the mother's fault": Recalling Structural Inequality in
Anticipation of
Antiracist Liberalism in Ann Petry's The Street
(1946).
Chapter Two:
72
"Many children from many places and in they end they all adjust":
American
Citizenship and the Contradictions of Conformity in Harriette
Arnow's The
Dollmaker (1954).
Chapter Three:
124
"Let us look to our hearts for identity": From Anxiety and
Assimilation to
Psychological Protest in Jo Sinclair's The Changelings
(1955).
Epilogue
170
Works Cited
182
About this Dissertation
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