Marginality and Othering in Metalious’Peyton Place
Metalious’ best known novel, Peyton Place, was a bestseller and a media phenomenon in the mid-1950s and 1960s, creating a stir because of its depictions of teenage sexuality, incest, and illegal abortion. Surprisingly, however, few close examinations of the novel’s content and style have been published by literary critics. This essay provides a discussion of a key concern in the novel: racial, ethnic, geographical, and sexual marginality. Written to challenge the inscription of white, middle class, nuclear family life as the standard by which difference should be measured, Peyton Place features several characters who inhabit the metaphorical margins of American society, including Samuel Peyton, an escaped slave and the founder of the town; Tomoas Makris, a mysteriously handsome Greek school principal with several resemblances to George Metalious; and Selena Cross, a dark-skinned, beautiful young woman describes as a “gypsy,” whose life ties in to the incest and abortion subplots within the novel. I will provide a working definition of marginality and “othering” to begin this essay, followed by a discussion of Metalious’ social status as a French Canadian in New Hampshire, a description of the characterizations of Samuel Peyton and Selena Cross, and a final word on realism, reception, and the novel’s legacy.
Marginality and “othering” are terms that have a long history in literary and critical discourse of the 20th century. In cultural criticism of the last three decades, these terms have been used to describe differences in power among individuals, nations, and cultural forms. In Orientalism, for instance, Edward Said invokes this idea of marg...
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...ched understanding of the novel’s legacy. The unique and provocative treatments of marginality and othering in Peyton Place illustrate conflicts and anxieties that remain unresolved in 21st century American culture.
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Historically, Canada has held a world renowned reputation as nation with a magnanimous ideological approach to providing asylum to those individuals subjected to marginalization and persecution in their homeland – regardless of their nation of origin (Ismaili, 2011, p.89 & 92). Indeed, providing sanctuary to refugees who would otherwise experience significant hardships ranging from blatant discrimination and racism to torture and genocide, has very much become an institutionalized aspect of Canadian society. However, recent changes to Canada’s immigration policy delineated in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Bill C-31 may have perhaps put this ideology in peril (Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, 2001).
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Throughout literature, there have been many tales told about strong, brave heroes and mighty, wily savages and beasts. However, one story that still speaks to students today is that of a heroine by the name of Hannah Dustan, who killed ten Indians with the assistance of her two fellow captives. Together, they escaped capture, and Hannah Dustan told her tale again and again to individuals she encountered. Because she did not write her story down, others did it for her. In particular, John Greenleaf Whittier and Jonathan Carver both wrote compelling tales of Hannah Dustan’s capture, but it is only by looking at the differences between the essays, the reader gleans a more complete picture of Dustan’s experiences and societal issues that were occurring during the time period. For instance, gender roles, and savagery versus civility, and revenge are three themes running throughout both essays; all of these themes are still echoing throughout society today.
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According to Raymond Williams, “In a class society, all beliefs are founded on class position, and the systems of belief of all classes …” (Rice and Waugh 122). His work titled, Marxism and Literature expounded on the conflict between social classes to bridge the political ideals of Marxism with the implicit comments rendered through the text of a novel. “For the practical links,” he states “between ‘ideas’ and ‘theories’ and the ‘production of real life’ are all in this material social process of signification itself” (133). Williams asserts that a Marxist approach to literature introduces a cross-cultural universality, ensuingly adding a timeless value to text by connecting creative and artistic processes with the material products that result. Like Williams, Don DeLillo calls attention to the economic and material relations behind universal abstractions such as aesthetics, love, and death. DeLillo’s White Noise brings modern-day capitalist societies’ incessant lifestyle disparity between active consumerists and those without the means to the forefront of the story’s plot. DeLillo’s setting uses a life altering man-made disaster in the suburban small-town of Blacksmith to shed light on the class conflict between the middle class (bourgeoisie) and the working poor (proletariat). After a tank car is punctured, an ominous cloud begins to loom over Jack Gladney and his family. No longer a feathery plume or a black billowing cloud, but the airborne toxic event—an event that even after its conclusion Jack cannot escape the prophecy of his encroaching death. Through a Marxist reading of the characterization of Jack Gladney, a middle-aged suburban college professor, it is clear that the overarching obsession with death operates as an...
Maggie and Jimmie, siblings whom Cranes uses as protagonists, live in deplorable and violent conditions. The setting is America West, during the industrialization era. The change from agricultural to industrial economy led to many casualties, including Maggie and Jimmie’s parents. They found themselves in periphery of economic edifice where poverty was rampant. Now alcoholics, they are incapable of offering parental care and support to their children. This leaves the children at the mercies of a violent, vain, and despondent society that shapes them to what they became in the end. Cranes’ ability to create and sustain characters that readers can empathize with is epic though critics like Eichhorst have lambasted his episodic style (23). This paper will demonstrate that in spite of its inadequacy, Cranes Novella caricatures American naturalism in a way hitherto unseen by illustrating the profound effect of social circumstances on his characters.
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugee is a term applied to anyone who is outside his/her own country and cannot return due to the fear of being persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership of a group or political opinion. Many “refugees” that the media and the general public refer to today are known as internally displaced persons, which are people forced to flee their homes to avoid things such as armed conflict, generalized violations of human rights or natural and non-natural disasters. These two groups are distinctly different but fall ...
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Nuclear issue in the North Korea has been a problem widely discussed around the world in recent years, while the whole progress from the start of the nuclear crisis (The withdrawal of the North Korea from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003) to the cooperation (Six Party Talks) and its failure is quite dramatic and worth exploring (Fang, 2009). This paper attempted to use two perspectives including neorealism and neoliberalism to look at the issue, and examine their explanatory power. Accordingly, this paper recognized the importance of the two perspectives in explaining the issue. On one hand, neorealism showed the restraints and balancing behaviors of the states during the process of negotiation, implying the failure of the talks. On the other hand, neoliberalism contributed to clarification of the complexity constituted by different actors and problems in the issue, while demonstrating the rationality of states, as well as the birth of the institution forming international norms. Therefore, the author believed the two perspectives are not contradictory, but complementary.
This has caused a decrease in refugees since 2009 (textbook). This impacts the practice of social work with refugees, because social workers cannot help refugees if they are discouraged from being admitted into Canada, and if the refugee does make it to Canada, political and social barriers exist from the very start that alienate refugees from the larger Canadian society. Furthermore, another political and social form of oppression is that some members of the Canadian public, specifically politicians and the media, have represented some refugees as “safer” to the Canadian public. Specifically, that refugees who come to Canada straight away out of fear, are inferior and abuse Canada’s refugee system (textbook). This is a form of social oppression that alienates refugees from mainstream Canadian society, and labels them as “bad”. This is another oppressive factor surrounding refugee’s access to claim refuge in Canada, because certain refugees are deemed “acceptable” while others are not, all based on how they seek refuge and leave dangerous
1) O’Connor, Flannery, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Women Writers: Text & Contexts Series). Rutgers University Press, 1993.
Since the end of the Korean War, the United States has enacted policies to isolate and undermine the Kim Dynasty in North Korea. A key development took place in the past several decades where North Korea broke away from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop their own nuclear weapons and while lacking launch capabilities, they have been successful in their development. During this process, the United States took active policies to deter the North Koreans in pursuit of their goals. It is easy to assume that the United States took this stance in order to maintain a military edge in the region. But under closer examination, this neo-realist perspective does not explain why the United States pursued this policy. In reality, North Korea to this day does not pose a significant military threat, even with limited nuclear capabilities. A constructivist perspective is more able to explain US policy in this instance because it does not focus on sheer militaristic power. It takes into consideration the state's identities which drives their interests. The identities of the US and North Korea and the interactions between them drove both nations to the point of acquiring and deterring nuclear use.
“Choosing My Name” by Puanani Burgress is a poem that reflects Burgess idea of her identity and how it is related with her different names. Despite having three different names Chirstabella , Yoshie and Puanani, she particularly likes identifying herself as Puanani although it is not her “official name”. Strange as it sounds, I aslo have three different names: Basanta, Kancho, Xxxxxx. My third name Xxxxxx is my cultural name that I cannot disclose thus I have decided to write it Xxxxxx as it is made up of six letters. Xxxxxx is my favorite and preferred name because it connects me to my family, my culture and my land.
Ward, Susan. "Morag Gunn in Fictional Context: The Career Woman Theme in The Diviners." New Perspectives on Margaret Laurence: Poetic Narrative, Multiculturalism, and Feminism. Ed. Greta M. K. McCormick Coger. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. 179-184.
The developing world has been overwhelmed by major refugee crises in the past few decades, and a rapidly changing world has altered the dynamics of refugee flows and their root causes. For this reason, the authors of Escape From Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World, attempt to provide a more realistic theoretical framework of refugee trends in order to prescribe ways in which the developed world can help alleviate the problem. The book attempts to clarify why there have been so many refugees emerging recently from the developing world, why they leave in varying volumes, where they end up, and why they go back or not. The findings indicate that patterns of refugee flows and conflict are affected by various economic and political factors within originating countries as well as the global setting itself, with different kinds of conflict producing different kinds of refugee patterns. This suggests the complexity of the causes of refugee issues, which include many examples of external influence and intervention.