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George Goodin - The Poetics of Protest: Literary Form and Political Implication in the Victim-of-Society Novel

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Book:
The Poetics of Protest: Literary Form and Political Implication in the Victim-of-Society Novel
Author:
George Goodin
Publisher:
Southern Illinois University Press
Genre:
Books / Art
Year:
1985
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Goodin takes a formalistic approach to political expression in the victim-of-society novel, asking the question, how do the formal features of the novel constrain thematic expression. He notes that the writer must balance the protagonists role as victim against the role as resilient human being capable of dealing with his or her problems. If the protagonist is too strong, both help and reform become unnecessary; if too weak, the situation becomes hopeless, thus limiting the power and appeal of the work as art and as political protest. The appeal is similarly limited if the antagonist is purely evil; the battle lines are clearly defined, but there is nothing human to fight. Conversely an antagonist who is too human may attract reader sympathy, and the political situation loses clarity. Thus the writer must avoid too much or too little hope, too much or too little clarity. Using more than 20 victim-of-society novels, Goodin draws his conclusions by examining each option the writers have with respect to the character and fate of their protagonists. He suggests that even though imperfect, these novels probably have decreased the amount of injustice in the real world.

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title	:	The Poetics of Protest : Literary Form and Political Implication in the Victim-of-society Novel
author	:	Goodin, George.
publisher	:	Southern Illinois University Press
isbn10 \| asin	:	0809311739
print isbn13	:	9780809311736
ebook isbn13	:	9780585079523
language	:	English
subject	Fiction--History and criticism, Political fiction--History and criticism, Politics and literature, Literature and society, Narration (Rhetoric) , Victims in literature.
publication date	:	1985
lcc	:	PN3448.P6G66 1985eb
ddc	:	808.3
subject	:	Fiction--History and criticism, Political fiction--History and criticism, Politics and literature, Literature and society, Narration (Rhetoric) , Victims in literature.

Page i

Page iii

The Poetics of Protest

Literary Form and Political Implication in the Victim-of-Society Novel

George Goodin

Southern Illinois University Press
Carbondale and Edwardsville

Page iv

Copyright 1985 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Edited by Barbara E. Cohen
Production supervised by Kathleen Giencke

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Goodin, George.
The poetics of protest.

Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. FictionHistory and criticism. 2. Politics and
literature. 3. Literature and society. 4. Narration
(Rhetoric) I. Title.
PN3448.P6G66 1985 809.393520694 83-27179
ISBN 0-8093-1173-9

88 87 86 85 4 3 2 1

Page v

For
Mary, Margaret, Sam, Pete, Ruth, Thomas, Tony, and Kate

Page vii

Contents

Preface

1. Introduction: A Problem in Composition

2. The Innocent Victim
Oliver Twist, Ivan Denisovich, The Dollmaker

3. The Virtuous Victim
Les Misrables, Billy Budd, The Power and the Glory, Uncle Tom's Cabin

4. The Flawed Victim
An American Tragedy, L'Assommoir, Native Son, The Red and the Black

5. The Pseudo Victim
Catch-22, Ivan Chonkin, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Tobacco Road

133

6. Permutations and Combinations
Bleak House, Grapes of Wrath, Fontamara, The Fratricides

159

7. Conclusion: Literary Form and Political Implication

191

Notes

199

Index

215

Page ix

Preface

This book deals with the poetics and rhetoric of one kind of social protest novel in order to explore some old problems concerning the capabilities and limitations of literature as a means of political expression. Although old problems are likely to be perennial ones, I hope at least to reformulate the issues, to provide a different angle of attack on them, and to lower the level of abstraction at which they are discussed.

Assessing how well literary works can treat political reality must entail some extraliterary criticism, just as assessing how well political acts treat human reality calls for some extrapolitical criticism. For this reason, I do at times make basically political judgments, and I wish I could offer some label for my political beliefs, so that readers might stand warned of bias. Unfortunately, without giving the subject more space than it deserves, I can offer nothing very satisfactory. My leftist friends tell me that I am conservative, others that I am radical. All agree that I am neither objective nor realistic. That is true. Often, I find what marches under those banners to be shortsighted and hardhearted. Perhaps I have attended too many faculty meetings. At any rate, I hope that my somewhat latitudinarian idealism does not unduly disturb readers who are more knowledgeable, pragmatic, or coherent in their political views. Insofar as I have clarified literary matters, which I am primarily concerned to argue, readers should find it easier to use their own political standards.

I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities and to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale for support received during the course of research for this book and to many friends and colleagues who answered my

Page x

questions and endured my thinking aloud. Royal Gettmann of the University of Illinois, Charles Elkins of Florida International University, Ray Mazurek of Pennsylvania State University, and Robert Griffin of SIU were kind enough to read the manuscript and to make many helpful comments. Alan Cohn, of the Humanities Library of SIU, helped greatly in locating relevant works and in calling many of them to my attention. I want to thank Nancy Gillespie, Scott Perlenfein, and Nancy Bowden for their considerable help and know-how in preparing the manuscript. My wife read and proofread many drafts, for which I am very grateful, despite her once telling me that she particularly liked the quotations.

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Introduction: A Problem in Composition

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