LEADER 04149nam 2200733 a 450 001 9910969369503321 005 20240416154755.0 010 $a9780674070707 010 $a0674070704 010 $a9780674068032 010 $a0674068033 024 7 $a10.4159/harvard.9780674068032 035 $a(CKB)2670000000330042 035 $a(StDuBDS)AH25018201 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000803462 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11518424 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000803462 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10811162 035 $a(PQKB)10018523 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3301194 035 $a(DE-B1597)178056 035 $a(OCoLC)1002232231 035 $a(OCoLC)1004876365 035 $a(OCoLC)1011461965 035 $a(OCoLC)819330033 035 $a(OCoLC)979832738 035 $a(OCoLC)984627087 035 $a(OCoLC)987944886 035 $a(OCoLC)992518047 035 $a(OCoLC)999354172 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780674068032 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3301194 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10642579 035 $a(Perlego)1148224 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000330042 100 $a20120724d2013 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aAlone in America $ethe stories that matter /$fRobert A. Ferguson 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aCambridge, Mass. $cHarvard University Press$d2013 215 $a1 online resource (x, 283 pages) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 08$a9780674066762 311 08$a0674066766 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $aDoes nobody here know Rip Van Winkle? -- Nathaniel Hawthorne dissects betrayal -- Louisa May Alcott meets Mark Twain over the young face of change -- Henry James and Zora Neale Hurston answer to defeat -- Edith Wharton's anatomy of personal breakdown -- Midpoint: the lords of life revisited -- The immigrant novel: fear and identity in America -- William Faulkner and Toni Morrison plot racial difference -- Saul Bellow observes old age -- Don DeLillo and Marilynne Robinson mourn loss -- Walt Whitman finds the courage to be. 330 $aRobert A. Ferguson investigates the nature of loneliness in American fiction, from its mythological beginnings in Rip Van Winkle to the postmodern terrors of 9/11. At issue is the dark side of a trumpeted American individualism. The theme is a vital one because a greater percentage of people live alone today than at any other time in U.S. history. The many isolated characters in American fiction, Ferguson says, appeal to us through inward claims of identity when pitted against the social priorities of a consensual culture. They indicate how we might talk to ourselves when the same pressures come our way. In fiction, more visibly than in life, defining moments turn on the clarity of an inner conversation. Alone in America tests the inner conversations that work and sometimes fail. It examines the typical elements and moments that force us toward a solitary state-failure, betrayal, change, defeat, breakdown, fear, difference, age, and loss-in their ascending power over us. It underlines the evolving answers that famous figures in literature have given in response. Figures like Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Toni Morrison's Sethe and Paul D., or Louisa May Alcott's Jo March and Marilynne Robinson's John Ames, carve out their own possibilities against ruthless situations that hold them in place. Instead of trusting to often superficial social remedies, or taking thin sustenance from the philosophy of self-reliance, Ferguson says we can learn from our fiction how to live alone. 606 $aAmerican fiction$xHistory and criticism 606 $aLoneliness in literature 615 0$aAmerican fiction$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aLoneliness in literature. 676 $a813.009/353 700 $aFerguson$b Robert A.$f1942-$01463078 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910969369503321 996 $aAlone in America$94351534 997 $aUNINA