Property and Selfhood in Herman Melville's Pierre

2006 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-199
Author(s):  
Jeffory A. Clymer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Herman Melville ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
Urban Market ◽  
The Family ◽  
Ideological Fantasy ◽  
Landed Gentry ◽  
Market Relations

In Pierre; or, the Ambiguities (1852) Herman Melville analyzes the intricacies of subjectivity and economics by way of two concrete and quite different forms of antebellum American property relations-the residual estates of the landed gentry in upstate New York and the emergent urban market economy of New York City. A condition of unassailability,of timelessness and imperviousness, infuses the family estate in Pierre, while incessant exchange characterizes the novel's urban finale. Taken together, these opposed economic arrangements represent Melville's meditation on how the very concept of alienability, the definitive aspect of modern property relations, impacted forms of non-slave identity in the antebellum United States. The condition of inalienability that structures the patrimonial estates presents the initially attractive possibility of removal from the turbulent world of property relations, exchange, and commodification,but it turns out to be an ideological fantasy supported primarily by violence and death. Melville, always one to brood about selfhood, and faced in Pierre with his realization of the rottenness at the core of his fantasy of a subjectivity not riven by alienability,responds with the novel's urban section. This second portion of the novel presents market relations as a horror wreaked principally on the self. Pierre, ultimately, represents Melville's monument to the desirability, and his dismay at the impossibility, of imagining identity outside the syntax of a market economy's version of property relations.

We the Animals and Honoring an Intimate Story of Brutal Love

2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110086
Author(s):  
Nisha Gupta ◽  
Eric Greene
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Family Dynamics ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
The Family

In this edited interview, psychologists Nisha Gupta and Eric Greene interview filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar about We the Animals (2018), his film adaptation of the novel by Justin Torres. We the Animals is a coming-of-age story of an adolescent boy named Jonah who grows up with rambunctious brothers in a working class mixed-race family in upstate New York, and who must contend with both his volatile father and his emerging queer sexuality. Jonah’s mother and father have a volatile relationship that makes and unmakes the family many times over, often leaving the boys fending for themselves. As his brothers harden and grow into versions of their father, Jonah, who is the youngest, becomes increasingly aware of his desperate need to escape. Driven to the edge, Jonah embraces an imagined world all of his own. In this conversation, Jeremiah describes what it was like to honor novelist Justin’s intimate story by bringing it to screen, depict the nuanced realities of love interlaced with violence within family dynamics, and craft an immersive story that poses more questions than it answers.

A HOUSEWIFE IS CONVICTED OF MURDERING HER FIVE CHILDREN

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 95 (6) ◽  
pp. A32-A32
Author(s):  
J. F. L.
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Infant Death ◽  
Genetic Basis ◽  
Sudden Infant Death ◽  
Sudden Infant ◽  
Medical Evidence ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
Research Article ◽  
The Family

For nearly a quarter century, the fact that Waneta Hoyt, a housewife in rural New York, had lost five babies to sudden deaths was taken as medical evidence that sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) had a genetic basis. A leading SIDS expert, Dr Alfred Steinschneider, had studied Mrs. Hoyt's last two children, and in a pioneering research article in 1972 (Pediatrics, Vol 50, Number 4, page 646) he cited them as evidence that SIDS ran in families. His study offered hope that children at risk could be identified and saved. But some doctors found the odds of five siblings dying of SIDS impossible. For years one skeptic, Dr Linda Norton, a forensic pathologist from Dallas, mentioned the case to every district attorney she met. Finally, one of them, Robert Simpson, listened. In 1994, Mrs. Hoyt was confronted by state troopers, and she confessed to smothering the infants with a pillow to still their crying. On Friday a jury in Tioga County, in upstate New York, accepted Mrs. Hoyt's belated explanation of her babies' deaths and convicted the 48-year-old woman of five murders. Sudden infant death is real, but the import of multiple deaths can be badly misinterpreted. These deaths were certainly familial, "but not because of genetics," Dr Norton said. "It's because there was a murderer in the family."

A "Study of Church in America": Catholicism as Exotic Other in The Damnation of Theron Ware

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Aaron Urbanczyk
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Old World ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
Theron Ware ◽  
Damnation Of Theron Ware ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Erotic

AbstractThe Damnation of Theron Ware is the tale of a young Methodist minister's tragic downfall set in rural upstate New York. The inexperienced Reverend Ware finds himself in an environment which triggers his moral, spiritual, and intellectual degeneration. The novel represents Theron's temptations as a complex and organically connected web, at the center of which is Catholicism. "Unreformed" old world Roman Catholicism subsumes under its metaphorical auspices every specific register of transgressive alterity in Theron's imagination (e.g., ethnicity, aesthetics, the intellectual life, the erotic). Theron's romantic imagination radically misperceives Catholicism; it becomes the abyss of difference against which Theron gives way to "enlightened" agnosticism, pride, lust, avarice, covetousness, and self-loathing. The innocent young Methodist parson eventually loses his faith and becomes a stalker, a gossip, a thief, and a would-be adulterer. This transformation takes place through his experience with the Catholic "other" represented by Celia Madden, Father Vincent Forbes, and Dr. Ledsmar. Theron Ware misinterprets everyone associated with Catholicism, recasting the Catholic as the master trope under which all his desires for exotic transgression find an object. The Catholic becomes a dangerous mirror of Theron's perverse desires which "illumines" the way to his "Damnation."

I. Speaking Out about Race: “The United States of Lyncherdom” Clemens Really Wrote

Prospects ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 115-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Terry Oggel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
Dwelling House ◽  
The Family ◽  
Saranac Lake

On June 21, 1901, Samuel and Olivia Clemens and their daughter Jean ensconced themselves for the summer at Kane Camp, a “little bijou of a dwelling-house,” Clemens called it, on the south end of Ampersand Bay on Lower Saranac Lake in upstate New York. The family nicknamed the cottage The Lair. “Everyone knows what a lair is,” Clemens said; “lairs do generally contain dangerous animals, but I bring tame ones to this one.” As we shall see, danger did lurk in The Lair that summer, in the thought and writing of Clemens himself.

scholarly journals 113 in 1928? Validation of Delina Filkins as the First “Second-Century Teenager”

2020 ◽  
pp. 241-255
Author(s):  
Robert Douglas Young
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Hudson River ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Hudson River Valley ◽  
Mohawk Valley ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Family ◽  
Local Farmer

AbstractDelina Filkins was born May 4, 1815 in Stark, Herkimer County, New York, a small village of less than 2000 persons in the Hudson River Valley, Upstate New York. Her father, William Ecker, and mother, Susanna Herwick, were descended from Dutch and German settlers that came to the Mohawk Valley, New York, in the 1700s. Living her entire life in the same area within a ten-mile radius, her life spanned over 113 years. With the exception of her great age and her generally good health, Delina’s life was rather ordinary: she lived most of it on the family farm, helping with family tasks such as spinning yarn and making clothes. Delina married John Filkins, a local farmer, at age 18 and they had six (possibly seven) children together, two of whom outlived her. Delina was noted for her age in very late life, with local coverage from about 1916, then reaching national attention in the 1920s. With the understanding that Delina’s age was generally considered to be reliable by the press at the time, her case is a candidate for the earliest validated person to reach age 113+. This chapter takes a closer look at the case and the documents available and concludes that the amount and consistency of the available documentation suggest that Delina Filkins did indeed reach age 113 in 1928.

Filled with Spirit and Power: Protestant Clergy in Politics. By Laura R. Olson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 174p. $57.50 cloth, $18.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 1005-1006
Author(s):  
Paul J. Weber
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
Family Values ◽  
State University ◽  
Protestant Clergy ◽  
African American Pastors ◽  
The Family ◽  
Limited Scope

Laura Olson is one of a small but energetic and influential group of Christian political scientists determined to bring the debate politically legitimate called it either racist or sexist. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, African American pastors held the most consistently conservative views on family values, although they also saw the connections among crime, violence, and the deterioration of the family. Within the authorÕs intentionally limited scope, this is an excellent study, but one should be cautious about generalizing.

SISTEM SOSIAL ALA NIKLASH LUHMAN DALAM NOVEL SEPERTIGA MALAM DI MANHATTAN KARYA ARUMI E

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Anton Wahyudi
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
System Approach ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Original Culture ◽  
The Family ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Social System Approach ◽  
Fictional Story

The novel Sepertiga Malam di Manhattan by Arumi E is very interesting to study. This novel is a novel about the struggle of a family to get happiness. This novel is the Arumi E's 27th newest novel. The struggle in this novel is to make the family happy, expecting for the baby. Before writing the novel, Arumi E did a research in the places written in the novel to achieve a very interesting fictional story and most of this story was taken from the traveling results so it was so interesting. The objective of this research is to describe (1) the Autopoetic System in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E. (2) The differentiation system in the Novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E.The research method used is in the form of a descriptive qualitative method that uses a social system approach. The method used by the researcher is the dialectical method. The data source used in this research is the novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E, published by Gramedia publisher in 2018. The data collection in this study uses the steps of reading the novel. To collect data, the researcher use any instrument.There are two results of the study: (1) The autopoetic system in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E. is concerning to some characters who have their own beliefs or rules in their lives who do not want to follow the rules of others, they are more confident in their own way to success and purpose of life. (2) The system of differentiation in the novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E. is covering the handling of changes in the environment, the characters are able to adapt to the new environment, which has a different culture from the original culture. This shows evidence of the system autopoetic and differentiation in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E.

Buried Narratives: Exhuming the Mother's Story in Oliver Twist

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-266
Author(s):  
Michelle L. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Maternal Inheritance ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Law ◽  
First Time ◽  
Critical Consideration

Initially, Oliver Twist (1839) might seem representative of the archetypal male social plot, following an orphan and finding him a place by discovering the father and settling the boy within his inheritance. But Agnes Fleming haunts this narrative, undoing its neat, linear transmission. This reconsideration of maternal inheritance and plot in the novel occurs against the backdrop of legal and social change. I extend the critical consideration of the novel's relationship to the New Poor Law by thinking about its reflection on the bastardy clauses. And here, of course, is where the mother enters. Under the bastardy clauses, the responsibility for economic maintenance of bastard children was, for the first time, legally assigned to the mother, relieving the father of any and all obligation. Oliver Twist manages to critique the bastardy clauses for their release of the father, while simultaneously embracing the placement of the mother at the head of the family line. Both Oliver and the novel thus suggest that it is the mother's story that matters, her name through which we find our own. And by containing both plots – that of the father and the mother – Oliver Twist reveals the violence implicit in traditional modes of inheritance in the novel and under the law.

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