Fictions of representation: narrative and the politics of self-making in the interwar American novel

UnrestrictedFictions of Representation examines the ways literary, political, and social processes of representation operated in constructing a specific national history of being, subjectivity, and citizenship in the interwar era United States. I draw a parallel between a shifting national story of representation during this time period and the proliferation of novels where the story of a central figure pursuing the American dream is related through the eyes of another character – a character who seemingly stands for the protagonist and represents his or her tale to readers. Exploring the complex narrative strategies employed by novels such F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nella Larsen’s Passing, and Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, I link literary technique and political representation to highlight the tension between having the right to be autonomous and free, yet at the same time having one’s interests represented by another. Connecting narrative structure and interwar era concerns over representation and American character and identity, I uncover a growing distrust toward and crisis in confidence in both representative democracy and representations of “Americanness.” More specifically, I theorize that the increased appearance of novels such as Gatsby, Passing, and My Ántonia in the years between the wars reflects national apprehension about changes in the shape and scope of political representation in the U.S., and is in direct proportion to a concomitant increase in anxieties over what it meant to be “American” as the nation grappled with acute dislocation fostered by immigration, industrialization, woman’s suffrage, race and labor strife, political radicalism, and global war.; Through a critical remapping of work by Fitzgerald, Larsen, Cather, Robert Penn Warren, William Faulkner, and Budd Schulberg, I consider the troubled ethical implications of a democracy that supposedly cares for those who are ruled, yet frequently denies its citizens full equality and meaningful voice. Although the writers in my study were not, for the most part, radical in their politics, I suggest that their texts, when placed in context with each other and with their era, elucidate how the act of relying on one person to represent someone else, whether in literature or in politics, can create a comfort with the act of appropriation that leads to cultural dominance