Master's Theses

Department

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the use of the expatriate hero as an expression of the spirit of expatriatism through a critical analysis of six selected stories published in The Dial during the twenties. The content of the thesis includes a preface and two chapters. The first chapter, “The Expatriate and the Advance Guard”, is divided into two sub-sections. The first of these, under the sub-title “Tumbleweeds and Misfits”, is a discussion of the causes and characteristics of expatriatism in the twenties. The second section, “Something New Under the Sun”, focuses upon the advance guard magazine with special emphasis on The Dial as an important vehicle for the publication of expatriate writing. The second and most vital chapter, “Echoes of Expatriatism”, presents an analysis of the expatriate hero in six stories selected form 1920s Dial fiction. The stories analyzed are Kenneth Burke’s “Mrs. Maecenas”, Sherwood Anderson’s “The Door of the Trap”, Clarkson Crane’s “The Fall of Soissons”, Conrad Aiken’s “The Last Visit”, Elizabeth Coatsworth’s “The End of the World”, and Glenway Wescott’s “In a Thicket”. A conclusion appears at the end of this chapter which sums up the findings of the analyses. The critical analyses of the six selected stories for The Dial show the emergence of the expatriate hero as a dramatic expression of certain expatriate attitudes including the expatriate’s sense of being cut off form the past, his emphasis upon personal vision, his emphasis upon personal vision, his alienation and detachment from his world, his sense of boredom, his desire to formulate new codes to replace those in which he could no longer believe, and his need to devise rituals to enable him to live in a world he neither understand nor believes in.

Advisor

Clifford Edwards

Date of Award

Spring 1969

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Rights

© The Author(s)

Comments

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