Date of Award
Spring 5-2-2018
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. Audrey Goodman
Second Advisor
Dr. Gina Caison
Third Advisor
Dr. Christopher Kocela
Abstract
This study reflects on the midcentury myth-and-symbol school of criticism as a tool for comparatively reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934) and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller (1981). The first chapter applies Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth” paradigm of the archetypal hero’s journey as the foundation for a comparative character study of Storyteller’s Yellow Woman/Kochininako figure and the characters of Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender Is the Night. In subsequent chapters, I situate Tender is the Night, the myth-and-symbol movement, and Storyteller within their interrelated historical contexts. I argue that Fitzgerald used emergent mythologies of psychoanalysis to illustrate the plight of the misled, pathologically extraverted modern man; Campbell refashioned psychoanalytic and modernist sensibilities alongside traditional mythologies in service of his influential “monomyth” paradigm; and Silko drew from diverse familial and cultural influences to emphasize the power of syncretic narrative to resolve dissonance and achieve cultural translation.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/12009203
Recommended Citation
Peace, Carley, "Reimagining the Modern American 'Monomyth': A Comparative Study of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night, the Midcentury Myth-and-Symbol School, and Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2018.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/12009203