Grotesque Subjects: Dostoevsky and Modern Southern Fiction, 1930-1960

dc.contributor.advisorLamos, Colleenen_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberMorris, Wesley A.en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberThompson, Ewaen_US
dc.creatorSaxton, Benjaminen_US
dc.date.accessioned2012-09-05T23:57:38Zen_US
dc.date.accessioned2012-09-05T23:57:42Zen_US
dc.date.available2012-09-05T23:57:38Zen_US
dc.date.available2012-09-05T23:57:42Zen_US
dc.date.created2012-05en_US
dc.date.issued2012-09-05en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2012en_US
dc.date.updated2012-09-05T23:57:42Zen_US
dc.description.abstractAs a reassessment of the southern grotesque, this dissertation places Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, and William Faulkner in context and conversation with the fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky. While many southern artists and intellectuals have testified to his importance as a creative model and personal inspiration, Dostoevsky’s relationship to southern writers has rarely been the focus of sustained analysis. Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s deeply positive understanding of grotesque realism, I see the grotesque as an empowering aesthetic strategy that, for O’Connor, McCullers, and Faulkner, captured their characters’ unfinished struggles to achieve renewal despite alienation and pain. My project suggests that the preponderance of a specific type of character in their fiction—a physically or mentally deformed outsider—accounts for both the distinctiveness of the southern grotesque and its affinity with Dostoevsky’s artistic approach. His grotesque characters, consequently, can fruitfully illuminate the misfits, mystics, and madmen who stand at the heart—and the margins—of modern southern fiction. By locating one source of the southern grotesque in Dostoevsky’s fiction, I assume that the southern literary imagination is not directed incestuously inward toward its southern past but also outward beyond the nation or even the hemisphere. This study thus offers one of the first evaluations of Dostoevsky’s impact on southern writers as a group.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationSaxton, Benjamin. "Grotesque Subjects: Dostoevsky and Modern Southern Fiction, 1930-1960." (2012) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/64618">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/64618</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.slug123456789/ETD-2012-05-61en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/64618en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectSouthern literatureen_US
dc.subjectGrotesqueen_US
dc.subjectDostoevskyen_US
dc.subjectRussianen_US
dc.subjectBakhtinen_US
dc.titleGrotesque Subjects: Dostoevsky and Modern Southern Fiction, 1930-1960en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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