{"id":34,"date":"2019-05-16T12:47:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T16:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/?post_type=chapter&p=34"},"modified":"2019-05-16T13:44:20","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T17:44:20","slug":"chapter-2-extending-the-american-range-marilynne-robinsons-housekeeping","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/chapter\/chapter-2-extending-the-american-range-marilynne-robinsons-housekeeping\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 2: Martha Ravitts, \"Extending the American Range: Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping\"","rendered":"Chapter 2: Martha Ravitts, “Extending the American Range: Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping”"},"content":{"raw":"In \u201cExtending the American Range: Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping<\/em>,\u201d Martha Ravitts examines the novel\u2019s relation to the canon of classic American literature, defining the ways in which Robinson draws upon and augments many of the central themes in classic American fiction. Like others, Ravitts notes the many echoes of and allusions to earlier American writers in Housekeeping<\/em>. However, she emphasizes the chief difference between Robinson\u2019s novel and the work of her predecessors. While there are numerous American novels that trace the efforts of a young male protagonist to define himself by escaping the constraints of society, Robinson is among the few contemporary women writers to adapt so successfully this familiar narrative structure to the story of a young woman\u2019s quest for identity. \u201cIn forging a bildungsroman <\/em>about a female protagonist,\u201d Ravitts writes, \u201cRobinson brings a new perspective to bear on the dominant American myth about the developing individual freed from social constraints\u201d (644). In the classic American novel of development, the hero typically must forge his identity by turning away from the feminizing influences of society and entering into a wilderness that tests his courage and his ingenuity. Often the hero is accompanied by a companion who becomes both an ally and a surrogate father on this quest for identity. One thinks of Natty Bumpo and Chingachook in The Last of the Mohicans<\/em>, Ishmael and Queequag in Moby Dick<\/em>, Huck and Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em>, or Ike McCaslin and the aptly named Sam Fathers in \u201cThe Bear.\u201d In Housekeeping<\/em>, as Ravitts notes, Robinson shifts the focus of this classic American myth from the male to the female protagonist and from the father-son to the mother-daughter relationship:\r\n

Ruth\u2019s quest focuses long overdue attention on the individual\u2019s resolution of feelings about the bond to the mother as the primary, requisite step in the ascension to selfhood. For the maturing female hero, it is the mother\u2014missing, absent, but always present to the child\u2019s imagination\u2014who is the key to reality, in Whitman\u2019s term, \u2018the clef of the universes\u2019 (649).\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\r\nMartha Ravitts is one of many readers who regard Housekeeping<\/em> from a feminist perspective. In an essay published in the South Atlantic Review<\/em> in 1991, for instance, Maureen Ryan has described the novel\u2019s narrator Ruth as a \u201cnew American Eve,\u201d noting that at the end of Housekeeping <\/em>Ruth and Sylvie follow the examples of their literary predecessors--Huck and Jim, Ismael and Queequag\u2014by turning their back on society, or \u2018sivilization,\u201d to quote Twain\u2019s young hero\u2014but unlike their male counterparts, Ruth and Sylvie do not abandon one another. Instead, as Ryan observes, \u201cTheir flight from the . . .\u00a0 world of normalcy is an affirmation of female solidarity\u201d (85).\u00a0 In yet another essay on the novel from 1990, Dana A. Heller claims that \u201cthrough a reworking of the \u2018lighting out\u2019 motif that invokes elements of feminist literary and psychoanalytic theory, Robinson\u2019s novel explores new images of female selfhood and new modes of female social involvement\u201d (94). [1]<\/a> And, as the list of further readings included at the end of this collection of essays indicates, there are many other critics who have read Robinson\u2019s novels through the lenses of feminist and psychoanalytic theory. But not all such writers agree that Housekeeping <\/em>is a feminist novel. In an essay published in Genders <\/em>in 1990, for instance, Sian Mile has argued that in her portrayal of Ruth and Sylvie, and the disembodied forms of subjectivity they represent, Robinson\u2019s novel runs counter to one of the dominant trends of contemporary feminist criticism, namely, the reclaiming of the female body from the phallocentric designs of patriarchy.\u00a0 According to Mile, Robinson\u2019s novel \u201cdoes not reclaim but writes off the female Body . . ., the material world, and the sexual self as useless in the process of defining a woman\u2019s subjecthood\u201d (129). [2]<\/a>\r\n

\r\n
\r\n\r\n[1]<\/a> See Maureen Ryan, \u201cMarilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping:<\/em> The Subversive Narrative and the New American Eve.\u201d South Atlantic Review 56 (Jan. 1991):79-86; and Dana Heller, \u201c\u2019Happily at Ease in the Dark: Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 In The Feminizatiion of Quest Romance<\/em>. Durham: U of North Carolina P, 1990:93-104.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[2]<\/a> See Sian Mile, Femme Foetal: The construction\/destruction of female subjectivity in Housekeeping<\/em>, or NOTHING GAINED Genders <\/em>No. 8 Summer 1990: 129-36.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

In \u201cExtending the American Range: Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping<\/em>,\u201d Martha Ravitts examines the novel\u2019s relation to the canon of classic American literature, defining the ways in which Robinson draws upon and augments many of the central themes in classic American fiction. Like others, Ravitts notes the many echoes of and allusions to earlier American writers in Housekeeping<\/em>. However, she emphasizes the chief difference between Robinson\u2019s novel and the work of her predecessors. While there are numerous American novels that trace the efforts of a young male protagonist to define himself by escaping the constraints of society, Robinson is among the few contemporary women writers to adapt so successfully this familiar narrative structure to the story of a young woman\u2019s quest for identity. \u201cIn forging a bildungsroman <\/em>about a female protagonist,\u201d Ravitts writes, \u201cRobinson brings a new perspective to bear on the dominant American myth about the developing individual freed from social constraints\u201d (644). In the classic American novel of development, the hero typically must forge his identity by turning away from the feminizing influences of society and entering into a wilderness that tests his courage and his ingenuity. Often the hero is accompanied by a companion who becomes both an ally and a surrogate father on this quest for identity. One thinks of Natty Bumpo and Chingachook in The Last of the Mohicans<\/em>, Ishmael and Queequag in Moby Dick<\/em>, Huck and Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em>, or Ike McCaslin and the aptly named Sam Fathers in \u201cThe Bear.\u201d In Housekeeping<\/em>, as Ravitts notes, Robinson shifts the focus of this classic American myth from the male to the female protagonist and from the father-son to the mother-daughter relationship:<\/p>\n

Ruth\u2019s quest focuses long overdue attention on the individual\u2019s resolution of feelings about the bond to the mother as the primary, requisite step in the ascension to selfhood. For the maturing female hero, it is the mother\u2014missing, absent, but always present to the child\u2019s imagination\u2014who is the key to reality, in Whitman\u2019s term, \u2018the clef of the universes\u2019 (649).\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Martha Ravitts is one of many readers who regard Housekeeping<\/em> from a feminist perspective. In an essay published in the South Atlantic Review<\/em> in 1991, for instance, Maureen Ryan has described the novel\u2019s narrator Ruth as a \u201cnew American Eve,\u201d noting that at the end of Housekeeping <\/em>Ruth and Sylvie follow the examples of their literary predecessors–Huck and Jim, Ismael and Queequag\u2014by turning their back on society, or \u2018sivilization,\u201d to quote Twain\u2019s young hero\u2014but unlike their male counterparts, Ruth and Sylvie do not abandon one another. Instead, as Ryan observes, \u201cTheir flight from the . . .\u00a0 world of normalcy is an affirmation of female solidarity\u201d (85).\u00a0 In yet another essay on the novel from 1990, Dana A. Heller claims that \u201cthrough a reworking of the \u2018lighting out\u2019 motif that invokes elements of feminist literary and psychoanalytic theory, Robinson\u2019s novel explores new images of female selfhood and new modes of female social involvement\u201d (94). [1]<\/a> And, as the list of further readings included at the end of this collection of essays indicates, there are many other critics who have read Robinson\u2019s novels through the lenses of feminist and psychoanalytic theory. But not all such writers agree that Housekeeping <\/em>is a feminist novel. In an essay published in Genders <\/em>in 1990, for instance, Sian Mile has argued that in her portrayal of Ruth and Sylvie, and the disembodied forms of subjectivity they represent, Robinson\u2019s novel runs counter to one of the dominant trends of contemporary feminist criticism, namely, the reclaiming of the female body from the phallocentric designs of patriarchy.\u00a0 According to Mile, Robinson\u2019s novel \u201cdoes not reclaim but writes off the female Body . . ., the material world, and the sexual self as useless in the process of defining a woman\u2019s subjecthood\u201d (129). [2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

[1]<\/a> See Maureen Ryan, \u201cMarilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping:<\/em> The Subversive Narrative and the New American Eve.\u201d South Atlantic Review 56 (Jan. 1991):79-86; and Dana Heller, \u201c\u2019Happily at Ease in the Dark: Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 In The Feminizatiion of Quest Romance<\/em>. Durham: U of North Carolina P, 1990:93-104.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> See Sian Mile, Femme Foetal: The construction\/destruction of female subjectivity in Housekeeping<\/em>, or NOTHING GAINED Genders <\/em>No. 8 Summer 1990: 129-36.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-34","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions\/69"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/housekeeping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}