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Music out of an abyss: A critical study of the fiction of Weldon Kees
Abstract
This dissertation is a comprehensive critical survey of Weldon Kees's fiction. The Introduction to this study situates elements of Kees's fiction within competing literary traditions: Naturalism, Modernism, and Social Realism. Sherwood Anderson's fiction is Kees's chief model for his stories of entrapment: tales that portray Depression-era denizens of the Midwest in constrictive, tension-laden situations. By contrast, an equally sizable portion of Kees's short fiction is satire in the Sinclair Lewis vein. In terms of prose style, Kees mostly imitated Hemingway. Yet James T. Farrell was also an important influence. Farrell's proletarian concerns, social determinism, and use of indirect discourse all loom large in Kees's work as well. Still Kees's master theme--alienation leading to identity dissolution--is distinctly his own. Chapter One surveys Kees's apprentice work as a fiction writer. These dozen stories, published between 1934 and 1937, exhibit considerable thematic diversity. Testing the range of his creative powers, Kees wrote tales of failed romance, satires, stories of entrapment, tales of rescue and escape. A recurring theme is the weak male at the mercy of the dominant female. Chapter Two examines some sixteen stories Kees published between 1937 and 1940. This phase of Kees's work is marked by an increasingly strong bifurcation between satires and stories of entrapment, a bifurcation indicative of Kees's deeply conflicted feelings regarding his family and his native community. During this period Kee's misogynist tendencies are most pronounced. Chapter Three is a reading of Kees's novel, Fall Quarter, (1941) as a story of entrapment. The protagonist, William Clay, is an incipient alcoholic involved in a deluded romance that nearly destroys him: Kees's commentary on the dangers arising from arrested identity formation. Chapter Four examines Kees's later fiction, published between 1940 and 1945. In these last stories, the authorial fear and loathing for mainstream America much manifest in the earlier work softens. Kees's harsh portrayals of women become more empathic and satire and story of entrapment merge into a new form, marked by thoroughgoing irony. All of these developments tends to indicate that Kees had come to some understanding about his own identity--and internal resolution that allowed him to redefine his relationship to his culture, from rage to pity.
Subject Area
American literature
Recommended Citation
Niemi, Robert James, "Music out of an abyss: A critical study of the fiction of Weldon Kees" (1990). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9110197.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9110197