MARJORIE KIMNAN RAV/LINGS' TUI: YFARLING: A STUDY IN THE RHrTORICAI ^FFECTI VE^ilESi 01- "A NOVEL EDN'A LO'UiSE SAPFY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE CO-JNCIL Oi THE UNr\'T:R5ITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA Copyright 1976 Edna Louise Satfy To G'^iadij EoJiZ Jokn-bon, Juyvion. [lla n.a.{^lk haycutl makabatzyi abadiyah] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish 10 acknov;ledge those individuals who con- tributed to the accoTTiplish'rient of this document. Without Dr. Ronald Carpenter, a scholar, a gentle- parson, and T.)' iTcentcr, this dissertation would neither have come into existence, nor have reached coT.pietion. He gave not only of his wisdom but also of his faith. In a house divided, only by his example was the profession defined. The dissertation itself serves as an acknowledge- ment to another, that "Canadian Serpent" v/ho both sus- tained and nurtured me, for without Grady Earl Johnson, Jr., there v.ould have been nothing. The work of this volume reflects the composition cf av corrjaitteo and to each of the mem.bers T am grateful : to Dr. Lcland Zimmerman for. his introduction tc the gradu- ate st'jdy of speech; to Pr. Donald KLiliams for liis knowi- ed{;e; to Dr. Patricia Schmidt for her direction; to Dx . Vincent McCuire ^os h Li p!?r.Tpe',.t i\ e . T would like tc acknowledge the others In rhe Speech Defarcinent of t'i-3 Jniversity of i'Lorida, witliout who.s':? aid t'l^s •■voi'k ^hs i'.';<. cmpi. :' s.'.^d . Since a dissertation is never wi-itten alone, there are so many o::hers to tnank; Dr. Laura Monti, who guided ir.e through the freasures of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection; Dr. Harry Sisler^ Dean of the Graduate School, viho gave me his friendship; Dr. Cal VanderWerf, Bean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Ruth McOuov/n, Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who both gave me their support. And rhere are iiiore to v,hoTn I am grateful; to a group called Bloomsbury; to a small friend V'jb,ose name belied her value; and finally to the person with whOiTi it all began— my mother, Sadie Daumit Saffy. \'\BLE OF COiMTZNTS -ase ACKNCWLEDGE^IENTS iii ABSI RACT vi i CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCT IGN 1 Universal Thenic of The Yearling -. . . 5 Regionalism as a Symbolic Ba~sTJ of Universality 6 Regionalisn as a Rhetorical Response to a Crisis 11 The Study of Regional Literature as Rhetorical Discourse 20 Methodology 24 Utilization of the Mariorie Kinnan Rav/liags Collection 5C Conclusion 31 TWO MAR.JORIE KINNAN R.A.WLING5' T[!RCRY OF COMPOSITION 35 Biographical Sketch 36 Awareness of Audience 39 Communication of Beauty Through Reality .. 42 Definitiou of Beauty 13 Responses to Beauty i~ Sources of Beauty Particular L)' in The Yearling 19 Theory of Comnositicn Necessary to Achieve Effect of Beauty Through Creation of Reality 5 5 Through the Process of Character i ration . 3^> True -to -11 re character! :ar ion 5? Universality in characterization tf.' L'l'titv In ch'i rac t'.'. r i." •! t J.o;"i 63 Through Ust of Facts and Details 66 Methods of Expression 6 9 Ghi£c-:ivit--' 71 Uic-l-v::: 72 Si'HDlicity 74 Conclusion 79 THREE RESPONSE FROM THE GENERAL READERSHIP 81 Readership Response to Effect of Beauty ... 84 Response Based Jpon Perception of Reality as Produced b/ Mariorie Kinnan Rawlings 86 Response to individual Elements of Marjorie Kinnan P.awlmgs' Theory of Composition 90 Response to the process of characterization 90 Response to facts and details 97 Response to obiectivity 99 Cone lus ion '. '. 10 ^ FOUR RESPONSE FROM PROFESSIONAL READERSHIP 103 Professional Readership Response to Effect of Beauty •. 107 Response Based Upon Perception of Reality Ill Response to Individual Elements of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' Composition . 114 Response to the process of characterization 115 Response to facts and details 123 Response to objectivity 126 Response to dialect , 128 Response to simplicity 131 Conclusion 135 F iVS CONCLUSION , 137 Sumna ry 157 Perspective 151 BIBLIOGRAPHY 133 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH , 163 Abstract of Disserra-ion Preserited. to the Graduate Council ot the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillnient cf the Requirerie:its for the Degree of Doctor of Phiio:sophy M-XRjORIE KINNAN RAV/LINGS' the YEARLING: STUDY IN THE RHETORICAL EFFECTIVENESS OF A NOVEL By Edna Louise Saffy March 197 6 Chairperson: Ronald C. Carpenter Major DepartT.ent: Speech In 19.39 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Letters for her novel, The Yearling, and elected to the Academy of <^.Tts ?.nd Letters. Marjorie Kinnan Ra^'lings wrote with a preset concept of effective- ness. Her theory of composition as evinced by her personal papers, lecture notes, scrapbooks, newspaper articles, and correspondence ?Loai.ed in the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection at the. University cf Florida Library, was based upon the creation of a sense oF reality, which she believed neces'-ary in orde:- to conxiuiii cuce beauty. H er^ h e o r y _ A' ',:L- corporated the proces-i cf characterization, true-to-lice depiction, universa 1 it/\ unity, the use on facts .i">' .iv^r.iil-^ objectivity, simplicity, and dialect. Regionalism was the iitera'-y vehicle Marjorie Kinnan Rawl i.njjs chose for her novel, and in so doinj?, she responded rhetorically to an exigence, in accordance v;ith the ccii- straints of her personal theorv- of coinposition . Region- alisn, at that point in history, served as a response to a crisis; that is, the untenable situation of a population in the iriidst of society's ills during the Depression. Her writing had as its purpose the communication of the beauty which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings found in the Big Scrub country and its people, and by extension, of humanity in harmony wiih the environment. That Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' purpose was effectively achieved has been borne out by thorough investigation of the responses of both her gen- eral readership and her professional critics. This investigation places the effectiveness of Marjorie f^innan Rav-zlings' no'vol into the broader context of modern rhetorical critic Ismi and attempts to illume the rhetorical interaction of sender, message, and receiver in ^vhich the author o+' a novel determ^ines a method or theory of composition predicated upon the effect she wishes to acliieve. CHAPTER ONE INVRODUCT ION The Yearling was first publisb.ed in 19 5S. For it, Majorie Kinnan Rav/lingi v/as awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Letters for a Novel in 1939 and elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters. Receiving universal acclaim, The Yearling was subsequently translated into thirteen lang'jages and cited as the most ''distinguished novel published during the year by an American author dealing with American lirJe."" Reissued v-ith a special ''Study Guide" geared to secondary schools, the novel has been a part of the curriculum tiiroughout the country; and the book has been designated "a classic" and "a literary masterpiece"" on a regional, national, as well as an international level. Chosen as a Pook-ot - tho-Month Club selection at publication, accolades wore heaped upon it R. R. Bovvker, i.itfravy Pi izes and Their '>vinners (.Mew York: R, R, cowker' Company , li'b7j, pTTS.' 7 ■"M. K. Rawlings, The Yearling, Study Guide by Mary Louise Fap>' and F-dith' Ccvles rNVuTcTrk: Charii?.'? Scribner's Sons, 19C2J. not cniy fron the coirirrierciai i^arketp.Iace but also fron profess .1 0 n a 1 s i o >^ r n a I s . In 19 :> 8 , The >iorth Aniei'i c an Rev i^e;> a prestigious prof essioua'; iouriial, considered the work "flawless,"' and the aatho- an ''intelligenc and meticulous craf t.'irn.an . . . [who] v/ith The Yearling rightfully takes her place among our most accomplished '/riters of fiction." The ccncepc the public had of this "intelligent and meticulous" craftsperson was often distorted not only b>' the artistic milieu of the 1950's, but also by comrrer- cial publications. For example, a Saturday Evening Fcst article, "Marjorie Rawlings Hunts Her Supper: Menu: Alligator, Turtle, and Sxvamp Cabbage," contributed to the public image of the author as Great V/hite Huntress. This public facade was based upon a contemporary tradition of author -as-hero that her peers deliberately perpetuated: Fitzgerald, the international playperson; Hemingway, the great outdoors person; Faulkner, the country gentleperson. However, behind this appearance v;as a Phi Beta Kappa gra-iuate of the University of Wisconsin, an experienced journalist, and a creative artist who had as her goal in V r i^ti r.g The Yearling the accompl ish.Tient of a predetermined, effsct achieved by adherence to her p e r s o n a 1 a u d i e n c e - ■ oriented ti.eory of composition. In so doing she performs ,lovd Morris. "A New Classicist," The >^ v;ii:h -.lieiii, the creator will be his 1^ ^■'V'Uliam F. Thrall, A.ddison llibbard, and Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature (New York: The Odvssey Press, 15^ , p. 'SW: M. u. Raw! lags, The Yearl ir.g (New York: Charic Scril^ner's .^ons , '.97.2), p". ITT na.pp:.r.sss . ;.iving ir. nc.r^'.^^Tw witl; ana cxoseness to Nature creates a type of N'-jble Savage. Marjorie Kinnan Ra'vviings' "account [of The Yearling] ren-inds one of the eighteenth century theorists like Rousseau or Ciiai;ea\'briand who claimed that virtue would most abound in men \^ho lived . . - ,-9 m a state ot nature. The personal region of Penny Baxter was hounded by the environs of his daily life; yet, in the generic sense, these personal regions of the individual expandec to tlie persond.1 regions of all, and the environs of Penny Baxter's daily life expanded to the environs of each and every other person. Thus, Penny Baxter and the pir.e island were able to function syri^ibolically as a universal metaphor for the hu;nan condition. Regionalism as a Symbolic Basis of Universality Universality was achieved through ihe vehicle of regionalism; for m tiie genre of literary regionalism, the locale functions as a medium for understanding t'le universal by seeking out in tlie geographic region the 'Gordon E. Sigelow, "Mariorie Kinnan Rawlmgs' iv i 1 d e !■ n e s s , ' ' T 1 • e S e '.v :\ ; i e e ki- v i :- v .- , 7 ..' , Ap r i 1 - J iine , 1 9 6 5 \ 299-310. ■"■■ Ibid . , p . 3i' I particular aspects "of the huT'^sri character and of the human dilerina ccmrion to ail iTien in nil ages and places.'' A region may ha geographically, politically, socially, or econonically defined as a territory within which there are greater mutual dependency and homogeneity than exist outside its boundaries. Regionalism in a literary pro- duction usually concerns itself with a specific culture and its cus:oir:S, speech p-it tera:-, , physical landscape, legends, traditions, ai-d ideological or social point cf view. The .^e^ulcan: interacLior of the human individual with the immediate env^ircnment through the peculiarities of language, landscape, culture, race, and tradition are the domain of regionalism. Usually infused in this process is a sentimental roinanticism for an historical period by which the past becomes a vehicle for the study of the present and the future. The artists often fashioned their fiction from •vanishing aspects of the region. "What historical liter- ature reflects in terms of time and age, regional litera- ture reflects in terms of space and locality,"* By makin: "human drama from neighboring scrub and hammock country," ^'^Thrali, Hibbard, and Hclman , pp. 406-407. Heinnch Staumann, Amerj.c-tn Li t e rature in_ the Twentieth Ccnlurv (N'ow York: ""HaTper ana~Row, 'i965j , " Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings attenptcd to preserve that which was lost and dying, the traditions of the past, and for 1 '' this she has bee:\ acclaii-ed a great Southern Regional is t. Through the time warp of Cross Creek, the American past, the frontier, the tradition of nature, and the purity of the individual .ail could be brought into focus. As a result, according to one i^Iarjorie Kinnan Rawlings scholar, her vvritings reflect sone of th.e most deeply imbedded attitudes of the- American people, and belong to a main current of American culture fiov^?ing from Crevecoeur and Bartram in the eighteenth centurv, through Cooper, the cran- scendentalists , and vvhi'man in the nineteenth century, to Faulkner in modern times." "' Yet, Marjorie KLnnan Rawlings cared little for the mantle of Southern Regioxial ist . She described herself "as a writer who often suffers under the epithet of re- gional," for in the late 1950 's, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings considered regionalism limited. ' She denigrated her title thus: "John M. Bradbury, Renaissance in the South: A Critical History of t he Literature ,~rg"2 0'nrJoO" (Chapel"~Hri 1 university of North"'Carolina Press, 19c5j . p, 20. "Sigelov/, "Wilderness," p. 300. "^M. K. Rawlings, "Regional Literature of the South." College English. I (February, 1940). 581-389. RegionalisiT! written on purpose is perhaps as spurious a form of literary expression as ever reaches print. It is not even a decent bastard, for back of illegitiinacy is usually a simple, if ill- tiir.ed, honesty. ^^ Ker concern at being neatly classified as a regicnalist is understandable. During the 195C's she was v/orking in the literary milieu of Hemingv/ay , V;olfe, and Fitzgerald, who vvere the outstanding literary figures of her time, and the apparently popular modes were realism, naturalism or social consciousness. The title of Southern Regionali; was praise, hov/ever, for as stated by Bradbury, the liter- ary historian: . . . by no means all of the impor- tant novelists of the first generation (of what was referred to as the Southern Renaissance, 1930-1940) can be neatly catalogued under the label of symbolic naturalism . . . regional colorists like Edwin Cranberry and Marjorie Kinnan Rawl- ings write substantially outside the developing new tradition. ^^ Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings proffered a second ap- proach to her definition of regional writing which she found more am.enable and valid. It is the approach of the sincere creative writer who has something to say c.ii who uses a sp-?cialized locale — a region — as a logical or fitting back- ground for tho particular tlioughts or 1 c i.raJbii-y , ]i . 16 10 emotions that cry out for articulation. This approach results in writing:; that is only incidentally, sonatiiaes even acci- Though her "second approach" broadened the concept of regionalism and though tvo of her contemporaries basked in the term — Robert Frost and William Faulkner — Mariorie Kinnan Rawlings still chafed under her oxvn regional defi- nition and opinion of the teria. V'et in the 1930 's, Robert Frost's New England, William Faulkner's Yoknapatav;pha County, Steinbeck's Dustbovvl, and Mariorie Kinnan Rawlings Big Scrub each furnished a portrait or regional unit com- plete and self-contained. From the multiplicity of these parts the totality of the whole may be comprehended. In explicating the basic conceptions underlying the works of outstanding American writers, Heinrich Staumann states that the literary "stress on regionalism is just another powerful symptom, of that quest for a national tradition based on a profound love for the variety of its ethno- graphical aspects."" Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings achieved such thematic unive r'^al i ty in her novel, The Yearling, and It therefore is as one of the great Southern Region- alists that she is remembered. Rawiir.g.-, , "] "itaumann, p 1.1 Regional is :- a£. a Rhe t cric;il Response to a Crisis In the 1930's, regionalism was often discourse in response to a crisis; s.na as ?, re: pons e to the social and cultural changf^ o '? the 1930's, The Yearling may be treated r.ox tt.1/ as a iiter^r/ novel, but also as a rhetorical document. It fits the rhetorical paradigm of a response to a situation, for Bitzer regards a rhe- torical situation as . . . a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exi- gence which strongly invites utterance . . . Rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to a situation in the same sense that an answer comes ^ g into existence in response to a question." Following the collapse of the economic and industrial structure in 1929, the literary world argued for an agrarian as opposed to industrial culture. As Bigelow, in his study of Mar j one Kinnan Rawlings' career, de- scribed that movement: . . . economic catastrophe and social unrest produced a widespread renewal of interest in the regions, so that life in the village [the agrarian culture] began to receive new scrutiny as a source of those virtues which could heal che ills brought oa by too much city and too much big busi- ness [industrial culture].-'"^ ^'"^Bitier. pp. 385-536. in ** Bii;elow, frontier, pp. 70-71 12 October 28, 1929, stands as the augur of the crisis. National income plummeCed fro.ui a high cf SI billion in 192:) to 68 billion in 15."iO, and finally to 41 billion in 1932, Salaries dropped off -iO per cent from 1929-]_932; \^g:is were dov/n cO per cent and dividends 36,6 per cent- Unemployment ultimately peaked at 17 million, half the uor'k force of the country. When 22,821,857 cltizei:3 >^oted foi ^''ranklin Delano Roosevelt in the presidential election of 1932, "the clash between the industrial and agrarian minds [becanej apparent in the conflicting personal! r.ies of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt . ""^ Herbert Hoover's political philosophy in support of financial institutions and big business as opposed to Roosevelt's "distrust of big busi- ness and his concept of individual rather than corporate well-being as the cornerstone of our welfare brought back into our national thinking an agrarian point of view that had been moribund since the trium.ph of Northern capital 7? in 1365.""- The literary revival of the agrarian point of view was reflected in the voluminous outpourings of 21 ■"Rod W. Horton and Herbert 1^'. Edwards, Backgrounds of American Literary Thought (New \jrk; Applet on Century Crofts, 1952) , p. "37S. Did . . p . J) 7 b regional literature repcrted by Howard Gdan a:vi Harry Moore in their 1938 comprehensive study. Using the list- ings in The Publishers Weekly as the source, and restrict- ing titles to fiction, Howard Odum catalogued more than two thousand regional titles that appeared in the two decades from 1916 to 1936. As part of a pattern that peaked first after the Civil iVar and then more signifi- cantly after V/orld War I in the late 1920 's and 1950 's, the ten years preceding the publication of The Yearling showed the Southeast to be strong both in numbers and m literary quality. The Northeast leads with 449 titles followed strongly enough by the North- west with its 'westerns' with 344, the Southeast with 281, the Middle States with 183, the Southwest with 138, and the Far West 15 7 . . . Strangely enough the Southeast has the largest number of Pulitzer Prize winners and best sellers and has tended to give the best regional portraiture. -^ Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was already classified among "the best" foi- het nuvei, South Moon Under. Two years later, she was to prcvp a.jain, with the publication of The Yearling and su^;G^u.*r,t wiiining of the Pulitzer Prize, her worthiness to be cJa.-ced with tie other great regional writers. These ranks included WilliaT. Faulkner, Erskine 7-5 ■■ Moward vv . Odum and Harry h. Moore, American '^^^-ip^'l^^Vhl ^ CuJL^fjr^]. • Historical Approach to "National 1 n t'e"^ "f a 1 1 bn""T^ c w"V o ri. : If.' TTol t"anT''Cofnp".9ny","~l'gT5T7'"p'"T66 , Caldwell, Ellen Glasgov/, Zora Neale liurston, Margaret Mitchell, Jap.es Farreil, Sinclair Lewis. Louis Bromfield, Edna Ferber, John Dos Passes, and John Steinbeck. The ly.ajor impetus for the Southern literary renaissance of regionalism was a 1930 vciume of far reaching impact, I'll Take My Stand, compiled by twelve distinguished Southerners; John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Frank Owsley, John Gould Fletcher, Lyle Lanier, Allen Tate, Herman Clarence f^Iixon, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Robert Penn Warren, John David V/ade, Henry Blue Kline, and Stark Young. The main thesis of this volume was stated in the preface of the 1930 edition. All of the contributors tend to support a Southern way of life against what m.ay be called the American or pre- vailing way; and all as much as agree that the best terms in which to repre- sent the distinction are contained in the phrase Agrarian versus Industrial . '^'^ The influence of and reaction to this volume was vast and immediate, as well as of long duration. The author of a compilation of Southern litera"cure addressed the impact of the volume: ''The statement of principles, together with accom.panying essays, precipitated a more widespread controversy, perhaps then has attended any other Southern Tivelve Southern Authors, I'll Take ^!y Stand: The South and t he Agrar x ^t n_ j j; a d i r i on [N"c^7~'i""ol."Y. Harper and' Brothers, l"9o0), p." -.x. 15 cook ever printed. Copies of editorials, nevvspaper ar- ticles, and letr.ers of protest f-^cm every part of the - country virtually deluged the a'lthcrs."" William Knickerbocker, edito?- of The Sewanee Review, tenned it "the n:ost av.dTcious book ever v;r_^tten by Southerners . . . the most challenging book published since Henry George's Progress and Poverty." H. L. Mencken responded in both the American Mercury and Virginia Quarterly Reviev. Henry Hazlitt assailed i r. in The Nation on the grounds that the Agrarians would be obstructionists in attempting to stem the tide of progress. The volume was attacked in Haiper's by Gerald W. Johnson and disparaged in Dallas before a large audience by Howard Mumford Jones. The contributors were called Fugitives, Escapists, sufferers from nostalgic vapors, romanticists unwilling to face the realities of modern life." However, the twelve authors proudly bore the name "Fugitives," for their volume was an alert, a reaction, a respovise, and a reply for the prevailing economic, political and social conditions. Their volume was a call to a return Co the way of Life of the "middle landscape." Th-D upsurge and responses of literary regionalism attempted "Thomas D. Young, Flo/d C. Watkins, and Richard C. Uealty, Thj; Literature of the South CAt lant.-i: Scott F o r e s m a n a n'u Co'npany , VjZc.) , p . 606} '^^Ibid.. ;:. 606. See for total idf.M. 16 to bulkhead the er.crc-,^ching ciisc-.5ter, for 3? faumford stated in 1954, "regionalism is in parr a blind react Lcn against outward circu:.-i,rcance3 ^nd disruptions, an atteapt to find refuge within an old shell against the turbulent invasions of the outside world.'"' Thirty vea-^s after the book was first published, Louis Rubin, Jr., in the int-oduction to the 1962 edition °f I'll Take My Stand, ixaborated on the continued in- fluence of the volune and the philosophy that addressed the question of people separated from the well being of the natural land who are brutalized by the machinery of civilization. It is about something far more generally important and essential than the eco- nomic and social well-being of any one region. Man \/as losing contact with the natural world, v/ith aesthetic and religious reality; his machines were brutalizing and coarsening him, his quest for gain blinding him to all that made life worth living. The tenuous and frail spiritual insights of western civilization, achieved so arduously over the coarse of many centuries were being sacrificed. The result, if unchecked, coVild only be dehumani.zat ion and chaos. -^^ As thie Paris expatriates cf the Lost Generation of the 1920' s represented relection of the prevailing literary York: Harccurt, Brace and Korld, I'^'SH , ']:. . 15^2." '■""Twelve Southern Authors, '' ' 1 1 Take > ty S t a n d : Thr South ?.nd the Agrarian Tradition (Xew v-crk: Harpe: and Row, 1562) . 17 and social attitudes, so then in the 1950 's did the fu'ji- tive authors of I'll Tske >'y Stand represent rejection of prevailing literary and social attitudes. In fo doing, they "initiated the current regional movement."" And, as C. Hugh Holman states, "the movement was a response to social and cultural change.""^ The Yearling was an integral part or this movement Manorie Kinnan Rawlings' retreat in 1928 frori a career as syndicated feature v/riter for two Northern papers tc the precarious ov/nership of an orange grove in middle Florida can be viewed, in part, as subscription to the Agrarian philosophy. This poem, found among her papers in the Collection, may provide additional perspective. Now, having left cities behind me, turned Away forever from the strange gregarious Huddling of men by stoueb, I find various Great towns I knew fused into one, burned Together in the fire of my despairing. And I recall of them only those thing? Irrelevant to cities-, murmurings Of ram and wind: moons setting and rising. There was a church spire on i.- distant hill Clamorous with birdj by day and stars by night, Devout and singing. I have forgot its site-- Bost'^r . c-^ Rochest.-jr. cr Louisville 29 Paul R. Beath, "Regionalism.: Pro and Con, Foin Fallacits of Rsgi cnalisni," Saturday Rgvicv^/ of Literature, 15 (November, 1936), 4-14. C. Hugh Holman, "Literature :5nd Culture: The Fugitive-Agrarians," Social Forces, 37 fCctover, 195S) , Of a certain zity ail I can reme;Tiher 31 Is wild ducks flying southv/ard in November At the Cross Creek grove, as she later related to the iNatiojial Council of Teachers of English, "she found her- self, for the first time since leaving her father's farm to go to college, in full spiritual harmony with her 5 "^ environment." " She knew almost immediately that these Cracker people of inland Florida had not been dehumanized by industrialization and for that reason, as she told Stephen Vincent Benet, she began again to write. I had met only 2 or 3 of tlie neigh- boring crackers v/hen I realized that iso- lation had done something to these people. Rather, perhaps civilization remained too remiOte, physically and spiritually, to take fiom them something vital. -'^^ In one of her earliest autobiographical writings found within the Collection, she addressed the isolation from civilization of the Cracker country and predicted thai the "inland core of this state is part of America's vanish ing frontier . . . [and] it will be the last to vanisn,""'' Mar j one Kmnan Rav\ lines, "Having Left Cities Behind Me." Unpublished poem in Mar j one .Kinnan Ra;«-iings Collection. "'"Marjorie Kinnan Rav'.'lings, "Regional Literature of the South," College English, 1 (February, 1940), 3S5. "^.N'ew York Herald Tribune, February 9, 1941. In Mariorie Kinnan Rawlmgs Collection. ^^Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, "Cracker Florida." Early Autobiographic:\l i-ritmgs. In Marjcrie Kinnan Raw; ings Collection. 19 Other of her writings offered further evidence of her reaction against mdas ci ializar ioii . '*e ?ieed abov? al:. , I th.Lnk, a cer- tain remoteness from urban confusion, and while this c^n be found in other places. Cross Creek offers it v/ith such beauty and grace that, once entangled with it, no otrier place seems possible to us . . ,3j Finally, in another of her personal vvritings, she addressed civilization as a contributing agent to negative aspects of human behavior, for "man's savagery and personal self- ishness and greed, his materialism which seems to increase in direct ratio to the technical advance cf so-called civilization, are the stumbling block, the impasse. Plain people seem to be aiiead of the leaders.""^ Thus, not only her life, but also her writings, indicated a reaction against a national threat. Bigelow quite often referred to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' reaction against the cities, for he found her to be a "regiorialist ," "inextricably enmeshed with agrar- ian attitudes," drawn to a people "full of grace and dig- nity bhe has i\ever found in city life." Previously, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Cross Creek (New York: Ci^'irles Scribrer's Sons, 19^2"), p. 3. ■'Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, "Autobiographical Sketch." In Marjorie Kinnan Rawling.s Collection. 'Bioelow, frontier Hden , \> . 70. Bigelow, "Wildernviss ," TiOj. 310. 20 reviewers in 1938 b.-^H addressed Mariorie Kinnan RaVvlir.gs as a regional ist author, yet, as one whovvrote ''unlike the average regional novelist,' for The Yearling as another stated, "represents :.he best of the so-called regionalism school.""^ Thus, during, the 1930 's there was a regional reaction to a national threat, and based not only upon the personal writings of Mar i one Kinnan Rawlings, but also from the writings of literary historians and scholars as well as from reviewers of her book. The Yearling was an integral part of this movement. The Study of Regional Literature as RJietorical Discourse Functioning as a response to a change in the social and cultural situation is but one aspect of the rhetorical nature of The Yearling. In 197 2, addressing the direction of rhetorical criticism, Barnet Baskerville noted that ''we now enthusiastically advocate the rhetori- cai criticism of literature." ■ Baskerville maA' have Durham North Carolina Mornin^^ He--aid, April 3, 19 58. Chjj^ago Illinois >feu5 , April 6, 19 3S. 39 Barnot Baskerville, "Rhetorical Criticism, 1971: Rhetrospect, Prospect, Introsr-ect . " Southern Spe; CommanijC_at_i_on_Jou_rn,al , 2 7 (Wintei , 19 71), 115. 2.1 revived an anachxonis cic debate c one erring the relatively obscure distinction betv/een rhstoric and poetics. Not only have time and proximity, as well as usage, tended to blur the distinctions betv/een these two areas, but also the various attempts to discriminate betueen these two modes have proven unsatisfactory. The interface between rhetoric and poetics is even more obscured by Kenneth Burke, who, according to Baskerville, "seems not to acknowledge alleged distinctions," for in Burke's philosophy "effective literature could be nothing else but rhetoric." Then the obvious conclusion must be Bryant's, for though thecrists and critics have sporadic- ally attempted to keep apart rhetoric and poetic and to deal with the;i as separate entities, "the two rationales have had an irresistabie tendency to come together." Continuing the fccuy on the rhetorical qualities of literi'.tuve , other t'u;jri?ts have articulated their op ir ions, Wayne Booth argues "that the author cannot choose to avoid rhetci ic ; he can choose only the kind of rhetoric he will cnploy. He cannot choose whetlier or not to affect his readers' evaluation by his choice of '^"ibid. , p. 115. Kenneth Burke, Counter-Statement (New York Harcourt, Braco, igil), p. Zb^f. "^^Hryant, p. 34. narrative matter; he can o:\ly choose whether ro do it ■well or poorly."'" Black, in his tiro vocative article, "The Second Persona," provided further evidence concern- ing the rhetorical aspects of literature, foi', as he wrote, everL the person "who aspires to be nothing more than a simple chronicler stili must maKC decisions about perspective.""^ Thus, not only the historian, but the literary author as well, meets Bitter's concept of rhetoric as . . . ? mode of alter in j reality, not by ;he dlrec!: applica L icr of energy to objects, but by the creation of dis- course which cha.iges reality through the mediation o '^ thought and action. The rhetor alters reality bv oringing into existence a disccurse of such a character that the audience, in thought and action, is so engaged that it be- comes mediator of change. In this, rhetoric is always pcrsuasiv 44 Again, the Black article amplifies Bitzer's concept of rhetoric as a m.ode of altering reality, for Black vievfs discourse as having enticements not sii.ipiy to believe something;, but to be something. We 4 ' ^ Wayne Booth, T?ie Rhetoric of Fiction '^ Chic ago University of Chicago Press", 1961) , p. 149. ^"^Edwin Black, "The Second Persona," Quarterly Journal _oj.__ Speech , 56 ( Ap r J. 1 , 1970), 109. ^"^Bitzer, p. 384. 23 are solicited b/ the disccurse to fai- fiil its_blar.di ^h~?- 1 s ^-ich our very selves , ■^'■ So then did these v,Titers add^ress the rlietorical qualities of literature. To Bifev a rhf^toiic^l ivf rk roi?es into being "as a response to [a] si'-uition . , . the natural context of persons, events, objects, relations and an exigence wiiich strongly invites utterance."" Regionalism as a response to the conditions of tlie 1930 's was likewise a rhetorical response, persuading the audience of the value of an in- dividual struggle with nature and self in an environment removed from a dehumanized and mechanical society. Citing the relationship of literature to the culture and simul- taneously defining rhetorical discourse, C. Hugh Plolman expressed the point that in the Regional Agrarian move- ment of the 1930's, the artists "were making a literary use of economics and politics. They have taught us that artists respond to the pressures of their culture, not by making political gestures or by accurate reporting, but by imprisoning through their talents its themes and its subjects." Thus, as an artist responding to the 45, lack, p. 119. 46 .17 B i 1 2 o r , p . 3 o ' Holm.-jn, "Literature jid Culture," p. 19 cultural pressures v/ithin ■'-'■e context of the 1930'5, Maiori-e Kinnan Rawlings created rhet-oricil disccurse ■ which addressed the universal struggle of nature and self played out in the world of the middle landscape — the land between the jungle and civilization. Methodology Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings atterr.pted to evoke a predetermined response through her manipulation of language in The Yearling. in this study, her readership will be debriefed in order to ascertain achievement of the specific effects upon which the author had predicated her personal theory of composition. Debriefing was a term used by Munro in a paper read at the 1969 CSSA Con- 4 8 vention. Later, the term was elaborated upon by Tompkins 49 in "The Rhetorical Criticism of Non-Oratorical Works." Both critics defined the term in the militaristic sense cf questioning or interrogating or seeking to obtain knowl- edge or inforniation from an audience; for unless critics "'"Hugh P. Munro, "The the Wall, Enthymeme!" Pacer read at tlie 1969 CSSA Convent iorx, St. Louis. Non - 0 r a 1 0 r 1 c a 1 >■/ ,■.. r k s / ' OK^r t: ^ :ly J^jm al of Speech , S 5 (December J 19 69), 431- 1^9. " 25 have access Lo the audience, as To:rpkins pointed out, they are in a pC'Or position to explain the effect of language 50 nanipalat ion or other rhetorical strategies. The focus of this investigation shall not be into the discourse itself, but into the intention of the author and the resultant reaction of the readers to the discourse. In- tent lonality is clearly an integral part of the rhetorical function, for as Bryant has stated in his now- familiar definition: "the rheccrical function is the function of adjusting to people aad of people to ideas. "'^ Cha^-tsr Two will focus upon the delineation of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition and articulation of the rhetorical impact she sought. These shalL be de^-ived. from the autobiographical writing of Marjorie Kinnar Rawlings, froi.i her speeches, lecture notes, articles, and from various secondary sources. Her concept of the creati\/e act was predicated upon het personal theory of language usage necessary to achieve a result or create an effect. Investigation of her in- tent ioriali ty is consonant with Kenneth Burke, the icono- clast, who defines rhetoric as "the use oi language in •'^^'ibid. , p. 435 ^^ Bryant, p. 19 26 sucli a way as to produce a desired impression (ipon the hearer or reader." Frovn her lecture notes as a visiting professor at the University of Florida teaching creative writing, and from various articles she has authored, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings delineated those constraints under which an author must operate so as to achieve, through her per- sonal theory of composition, a predetermined effect upon her readership. 'Jcilizing Bltzer's concept of a rhetori- cal situation, constraints are one of the three constitu- ents of a rhetorical situation, the other two being exigence and audience. Standard sources of constraints include bexiefs, attitudes, documents, facts, traditions, images, interests, motives, and tlie like; and when the orator enters the situation, his dis- closure not only harnesses constraints given by situation but provides ad- ditional important constraints — for example, his personal character ,_ his logical proofs, and his style. ^- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition was a constraint that regulated or United her writing. Wayne Booth has stated that the author's '"attitudes towards the three variables, subject miatter, structure, and tech- nique, depend finally on notions of purpose or function Lirice, p. 26 S ■^Sitzer, p. oSS 27 cr effect"; and thus Chapter Two vvill be addressed to articulat ioji of Marjorie Kinnan Ravv'lings' "notions of effect" or theory of composition. The focus of Chapter Three will be upon debriefing her readership through utilizing of the correspondence in the substantial ifarjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection housed at the University of Florida. The methodological approach for this impact study is similar to the debrief- ing of a readership for their situationally bound reac- tions as employed by Carpenter in his study, "Alfred Thayer Mahan ' s Style on Sea Power: A Paramessage Conducing to Ethos." As in the Carpenter study, the extent of effectiveness will be based upon the reactions of her general readership to her language usages. For as Car- penter stated, achievement of effectiveness is "most accurately discernible in the responses of people for whom the discourse was intended"; and therefore, the methodo- logical focus of this investigation is not on the dis- course itself, but rather on debriefing the readership.^ t^ootn, p. 57. ^^Ronaid Carpenter, "Alfred Thayer Mahan 's Style on Sea Power: A Paraceosage Conducing to Ethos," Speech Monographs. 42 (August. 1975), 191 -20:. ''^Tbid., p. 19.. Since The Yearling is currently in publication., all correspondence in the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Col- lection from her general readership relating to the novel was examined. The bulk of the Collection, however, covers the period from the original publication of The Yearling in 1938 to her death in 1953. Only those re- sponses dealing specifically with areas of composition or v'hich indicate relationship to language usage shall be utilized in order to focus in on the achievement of the specific effect. Comments by the readership dealing with the process of her language manipulation in The Yearl ing were catalogued and analyzed to indicate recurring patterns. Through analysis of these responses, an attempt will be made to establish the causal relaricnship between technique and effect in Chapter Three. Chapter Four will focus on the responses of her professional readership, such as critics in newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. Six large scrapbooks con- taining the reactions of these critics are a part of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection. Phillip Tompkins refers zo these critics and revic',vcrs as "a sizable im- portant body of receivers v-ho 'debrief themselves volun- tarily."' The methodology for cataloguing and analyzing ^^ompVM^s, V. a; the reactions of this professional readership shall pro- ceed in the sair.e manner as follov/ed with her general readership. This professioaal readership, according to Tompkins, brings to the novel a fainil iarity \vith the genre and a psi -cepc ioi-. more soon Is ticated than the average reader which "makes them even m^ore useful in rhetorical analysis; [for] they do, aft*)?- all.- reveal their percep- tions and valae judgments of the art form under analysis."^ Several rhetorical critics have found the approach of debriefing critics most useful. William Jordan in re- views of the novel, To Kill a .Mockingbird, Phillip Tomp- kins in reviews of In Cold Blood, Patricia Weygandt in the reviews of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.*^ The results of this study should indicate that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings accomplished her rhetorical function as intended or not as intended, or that her rhetorical function was not accomplished. The metho- dolog/ employed is similar to tb.at proffered by Carpenter, for the focus of this study is upon establishing a metho- dology whereby documents as responses to discourse may be '''^Ibid. , p. 4 36. "William Jordan, "A Study of Rhetorical Criticism in the Modern Novel," Debut Paper, SAA Convention, 1967. Fhillit.) Tompkins, "In Cold Fact." Esquire, 6S iJi:nc, 19661, 12*5. Patricia Ueycjandt. , "A RheLoricaL Criticisju oi St. Pepper'-. Lonely Hearts Club Band." Unpublished paper, 1969, Kent State L'uivor .sity . analyi'ed in ordex- to asceri:airi whether a predetermined effect has been achieved by that rhetorical effort. Ut i 1 ization of tlie Ma r 3 o r i e K ihvi a a R a w 1 i n g s Collection In order to ac::orplish this studv, the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection in tne Universitv of Florida Manuscript Collection vvill be fully utilized. The Rawlings Collection is composed of extensive correspondence, from famous people as well as from he-^ readers; also manu- scrips of books, short scories, and unpublished poems. Her personal scrapbooks, as well as two previously kept by relatives and one forwarded from another library, photographs, newspaper clippings, early drafts cf speeches and lecture notes, as well as personal memorabilia are likewise included in this large collection, which co\-er5 m.ainly the period from 1950 to 1953. Although there has been some published scholarly vvork on Marjorie Kinnan Ra'-/lings, m.ost of the tneses and articles that have been written tend to investigate her work in a purely literary or biographical sense. Indeed, even the Collection itself has been only slightly employed for these purposes. The first, and only, extensive study of her v;ork v/as publislied by Gordon Sigclow in 1966. Tills volume. Frontier Hden, "though scholarlv in the sense I [Sigelov/I tried to gather ail the facts I rBlgelov:] 31 could find," is considered more a riography t'nan a research or scholarly docunent since it lacks documentation through either fcctnotes cr bibliography. I-Iowever, the Eigelow book was not just the first extensive study of both her work and life but also the only study. The Bigelow book employed the Collection, yet the recent minor study of v/orks by Sanuel Bellman did not. Through the Twayne Authors Series, Samuel Bellman published in 1974 a bock entitled, Ma r i or i e K innan Ra wl ing s , which dealt mainly with her writings. Bellman described her motivation for creativity as "bliglited motherhood ... a basically un- fulfilled . . . deep need ... of having and nurturing a young male child." Bellman in no way utilized the Collection and acknowledges his one visit with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' three paternal aunts as, in his own v/ords, his "major source of inspiration." Other research studies on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings are housed within the University of Florida Libraries. The doctoral dissertation of Ambolena Robillard, Nla^v e 1 1_ Evarts Perkins: The Author's Editor, contains original Bigelow, Hjontier, p. xiv. ^ ^Samuel Bell.nan, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlinj^s (New York: Twayn*:' Publisheri., I'v-^' . '''^''-r), pp. .:)o, > . ^"tbid. , Preface. correspondence between Marjorie Kinnai'. Rav/lings and Max- iv'ell Perkins, her editor, and i.s catalogued in the Rare '5 5 _ Book Room. ihe other four manuscript studies were written as partial fulfillment of graduate degrees in the Engli5-h Departm.ent of the University of Florida. The earliest stud/ was the Master's thesis by William J. Mc G u i r e , A Study of Flo rida Cracker Diale ct Based Chiefly on the Prose Vvorks of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, which was published m 1939.^'' During the 19S0's, two Master's theses from the English Department were published: Joseph Peck, The Fiction- V/iltirg A rt of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings , 1954; Mary Louise Slagel, The Artistic Use of rr- 6 5 .Nat Lire i n the Fiction of Mariorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1953 The most current manuscript study seems to be the Master thesis of Car] Purlcv.', Folklore Elements in the Florida ^'Ambclena H. Rob il lard, Maxwell Evarts Perkins : Authors' Editor, Doctoral Dissertation, University of FlorTda '(Gainesville, 1954). ^'William J. McGuire, A Study of Florida Cracker Dialect Based Chieflv on the Prose IVorks of Mariorie Kinnan Rawl in g s .. " Mas t e r ' s"""TTi."e s i s", ■Jniversity ot Floiida (Gainesville," 19 39) . ^ ^Joseph R. Peck, The Fiction V;ri ting Art of Ma r i o r i e K innan Raw 1 ing s , Master ' s TTie'sis , University of Florldxi (Gainesville, 1954). Mary Louise Slagel, The Artistic Use of Nature in the Fiction of i^larjorie Ki nnan Raw! mgs , Master ''s Thesis, University of Florida "(Gainesville, 1953). 33 Writings of Marjorie Kinnar. R;;w]. ings , 19 6 3. . A i t h o ;j g h these investigators dealt raaiiily with such aspects as the listings of flora and fauna, the main focus of their studies was the literary element of h.er writings. Beyond these, only a few other prof c^'s lonal articles have been written that were piiiriariry concerned with her. Margaret Figh's article in the 19^'7 Souther.;. Quarterly and Lloyd .Morris' article in the 1953 North /merican Review were the main and only liteiary studies until Bigelow's article on "Marjorie Kinnan Rav/lings' Wildern^s.," in 1965 in the Sewanee Review and Bellman's article in 1970 in the Kansas Quarterly. Thus, scholarly investigation into intentional symbol manipulation for predetermined effect- or investigation even tangentially related— has not been accomplished. Carl Furlow, Folklore Elements in the Florida Writings of_M arjorie Kinnan~Rawlings , Mast e r 's Thes is, " University oF Florida (Gainesville, 1965). 67 Margaret Gill is Figh, "Folklore and Folk Speech in the Works of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings," Southern Folk- lore Quarterly, 11 (September, 1947), 201-2^T, ' Lloyd Morris, "A .New Classicist," The North American Review, 246 (September, 1938), 179-1X4"! R igeiow, "Wi Idcrncss . " Samuel I. BelJman, "Marjoi'ie Kinnan Rawlin.^.?: A Solitary Sojourner in the Florida Backwoods," Kansas QiiarT.fcrly , .: ( 1 9 7 0 'i , 7 8 - ;^ 7 . Conclusion All published works have been concerned either in a biographical sense with ?Marjcrie Kinnan Rawlings or with her works in a purely literary sense. Moreover, some of these autliors. such as Bigelov/ and Bellman, have dealt with the themes o£ The Yearling as well as their sources. None have focused upon the rhetorical function of language manipulation to achieve her predeterinined effect. Conse- quently, this investigation shall be into effects of language manipulation and not into tnci.ies and sources of the novel itself. Because Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was a writer in response to a need or exigence. Chapter Two will investi- gate the limits or constraints under which she operated. Chapters Three an':^ Four will investigate the two segments of her audience and the ways in which they responded. These chapters will establish the causal relationship, if any, between technique and effect. Finally, Chapter Five will illustrate the various language techniques in her novel, summarising their effect upon readers and suggesting further perspectives on the novelist as rhetor. By investigation of The Yearling and 'varjorie Kinnan Rawlings m tliis way, we cone to a fuller understanding of the suasory fvinction of language in her novel as well as the particular coi:ipositional m.eans by which she achievec h.er iritended goal. CHAPTER TWO MARJORIE KINN.ANJ R.'^VvLINGS ' THEORY 0? COMPOSITION ^ ^ The Rhetcric ox_ Fj.ct.ion , '.V a >• n e Booth stated that "the author cannot choose to avoid rhetoric . . . cannot choose -.diether or not to affect hi.? readers . . . can onl)' choose whether to do it well or poorly."^ In so doing, Booth •./as arguing that the achiev-enent of effect is, in part, determined by the author's ai/areness of the necessity for audience adaptation. Since Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' effect-oriented theory of composition ha? as an integral element h.er awareness of the reader, her theory would be congruent likewise with the Henry Janijs' quotation upon which the Booth book is based: "The author makes his readers, just as he makes his characters." Booth elaborates upon this quotation, adding that "every stroke [of the author's pen] will help moid tlic reader into the kind of per<;on 'auited to ai)preciate .such a character and the book he is .vriting." Drawing upon tl\e Kayne- bootii, _i_^f kt m .■)r .'>. o i i- i.c^i : -.u! i^' The University of Chichi gc~"Pre.ssr"T96TT, p. Hr9. '■^IbKl., p. S3. 35 36 lecture notes cf I'larjorit! Kini^.r/n Ra;v'l iri'js , her aucobio- graphical arcicle-, Uer correspondence, her speeches, and reported mterviex'.'s . her personal theory of ccinposi- rion V'.'ill be articulated and frciri it ivill be derived a theory of audience adaptation by vrhich the novelist at- tained her rhetorical objectives. ^i '^ graph ical Sketch As 3.n added insipht into the author and her theory, it is perhaps appropriate at this point to consider briefly the background from which the novelist e^ierged. In 1928, Marjorie Kinuan Railings found her Yoknapa tawphaw County, her unturned stone, on 72 acres betiveen two lakes in central Florida, in a small, isolated, Florida- style clapboard house in an orange grove at Cross Creek, Florida. Here, after thirty- tv/o years of northern cities, journa- listic professionals, and abortive literary attempts, she found the source from v/hich her creativity was to flow and through which she was to receive international recognition. Before her v.iove to Florida, Ms. Rawlings had sold stories and i-ad published cth.er types of material; in fact, at eleven, she wlmi a tViO dollar prize for a story thai: was published in the IV a s h i n g t o n Post. At the uni- versity of ■v'isconGin, sne served on the editorial staff of both the yearboolc and the Lit [literary) F.agazin.e. Her playwright credits inciuded the conposition of a panto- mime fantasy, '■'Into Nowhere," that was perforriCd by her classnates. After graduation iron th.e University in 191S, she soiight ''tlie best of everything" in V.cw York City. She relates the episode wherein all her money and valuables were stolen, but ironically, the thief left her manuscripts intact. In New York City, she worked as an editor of the National Board of the YWCA until in 19ir she married Charles A. Fiawlings, her college sweetheart, and moved to his home in Rochester, Net/ York. During the next decade, she v/rote for both the Louisville Courier and Journal and the Rochester Journal American. Her daily syndicated feature, "Songs of a Housewife," promoted such joys as: Baby Sue's Bath I vow, Sue no more needs a bath Ihan any sweet Killarney rose! But rub the foamy lather on From golden head to sea-shell toes She stretches out her dimpled hands To catch the bubbles as the/ rise. Each ripple is a miracle, Bach soap splash a gay surprise. Yes, let Aunt Annie watch the run Before we tuck Sue up in bed. See how the sunlight blues her eyes And gilds her water- towsled l\eadl Now wrap her snugly for her nap, In her all. lovelaness erinieshed. Her bath does me ir.ore good than Sue It always leaves me so refreshed! June 18, 19 26 Roc h_e s ter Times Un i o n Even though she attempted to publisli short fiction she vvas unable to break into the literary market. At this poinc in 1928, she and Charles purchased the 72-acre prop- erty at Cross Creek, Florida, and here the literary chron- icle of Marioric Kinnan Rawlings begins. Less than tv;o brief years after her move to Cross Creek, Scribner's Magazine purchased "Cracker Chidlings" and "Jacob's Ladder." Maxwell Perkins, the great editor of Scribner's and the editor of the great — Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Vv'olfe — begari a correspondence with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings that admitted her to the small circle of creative literary giants of the 1950 's v/hom Perkins nur- tured. In 1933, she won first prize in the 0. Henry Memorial Awards for "Ga] Young Un," and her first novel. South Moon Under, was published as a Book-of - the-Montri Club selection. She v.'c^s to have other novels chosen as Book-of -the-Month Club and Literary Guild selections, she was to win the 0. Henry Award again ("Black Secret," 1945), and she was to publish three other- novels before her death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1933; however, 1953 through 1939 were hex years of greatest literary achievement, for with the puolication ot The Yearling came zhc recognition and success she had sought for 42 vears. 39 wareness oi Critical to the formulation of her theory of com- position v/as M'ariorie Kinnan Rav/lings' awareness of and concern with the reader and the process of audience adaptation. From a thorough reading of her personal doc- uments, which are housed in tlie Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection of the University of Florida Library, it became evident that her theory was predicated upon basic assump- tions pertaining to the reader as a vital part of the creative process; as she wrote, "The honest author writes to meet his own preferably severe standards, true, but lie must have an audience if he is to communicate.""^ Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings attempted to adjust and modify her writing not only to her own standard, but to t'nose of her audience as well. The importance she placed upon the audience was paramount: "Let dilletantes prate as they will of the 'ivory tower' of writing for himself, a book is not a book until it is read, just as there is not sound v.'ithout an ear to hea r it." •^Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, "Autobiographical Sketch." (flereafter, unless otherwise stipulated, all references (cited with the initials M. K. R.) are from documents in the Marjorie Xinnan Rawlings Collection, University of Florida Library.) ^Ibid. ;o Another cf the several quota r ions found in her papers indicating av/areness cf the reader as audience was the following: "Just as music is only music when it is heard, so characters ia a book only come to life xvhen the reader takes them to his heart " Ker a;vareness of the effect-oriented nature of composition was consonant with that of Francois ^lauriac, upon v;hom. Vvayne Booth also relies in The Rhetoric of Fiction: "An author who assures you that he writes for himself alone, and tiiat he does not care whether he is heard or not, is a boaster and is de- ceiving either himself or you." A major element of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' literary focus was involvemiont with the readers and ai'/are- ness of the rhetorical process of "adjusting ideas to people and people to ideas," as defined by Bryant [see Chapter One). For example, she felt that specific revision; should be based upon reader reaction (prepublication) at Scribner's. When Max\;ell Perkins, her editor, suggested eliminating some of the hunting scenes in The Yearling, she replied, "Their inclusion or elimination should be determiiaed solely by the answer to the question: 'Does the reader recognize the beginning of another hunting I. X. R. , "Lecture Notes on Characterization, ^Sooth, p. 88 41 episode v/ith pleasurable anticipa t ion, or is \\e bored at the thought of another and impacient to be en with the narrative?'" Vvriting, re'.;riring, and editing were all dependent upon their effect en the reader, for neither the book, nor the writer, nor the reader exist in isolation; each cciT.pl CiTi.ents and- completes the other. As Majorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote to Maxwell Per- kins, in May of 1958, "Readers thei-iselves , I think, con- tribute to a book. They add their own imaginations and it is as though the writer only gave them something to work on and they did the rest." This mutually advantageous association of reader and author was dependent upon both's fulfilling an obligation, for the reader's duty was "to open his mind to what the author was trying to say, if it was plain that the author's intention was sincere and o earnest." In a 1938 letter to Nornan Berg, an Atlanta editor, she expanded on this audience concept: "By that [reader's duty] I mean the obligation of the reader to give hLmself, mind and soul, to the honest writer so that he should be open to receive everything offered." Though referred to her as "reader's duty," she also called it 7 To Maxwell Evai t Perkins iron M. K , R., Deceniber 29, 19.^7. g M. v.. K. , "Lecture Notes on Characterization." 42 "tlie reader's delight to give hiiiiself to a book, to exer- cise his own iTnaginaticn on the unliving material." Her concern '.vith the reader's imaginative partici- pation xvas a critical element of her effect-oriented theory of composition, since achievement of effect was, in a large part, dependent upon' the awareness of the audience. In The Rhetoric of Fiction, Booth quotes the author and critic Ford Maddox Ford, as saying, "You must have your eyes for- ever on your Reader. That alone constitutes Technique." ^ Comm.unication of Beauty Through Reality As a thorough investigation of her papers revealed, beauty was the effect Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings attempted to comiffiLinicate to her audience. However, in writing of her ov/n personal concept of beauty, she v,'as aware that her con- cept might differ from that of her readers; consequently, she was concerned about tlie difficulty in transmitting her concept of beauty to her readers. Her lecture notes on "Tiie Relativity of Beauty" address this concern: "I do not know whac is beautiful o-'- what is ugly, I only know what seems beautiful to m.e . As a writer I can only try ■"ibid 43 to 3:ocus ia.'' Nev'erti.eJ.esi , sh-'i knew she had the ability to "focus in," to make visible the invisible, to irake others see the natural Florida with the "inner eye," for she stated in her lecture, "I seen to have the gift for i?,aking others see. ..." Marjorie Kinnan Rau'lings may have called her ability to share what she perceived as beautiful v.'ith others a gift, but it was not by so amorphous a trait as a gift that she w.-s able to convey beauty to her audience. Within her definition of the artist lay the means whereby she achieved the results: "No one is immune to beauty. The artist is one -v/ho tries to share, by giving it con- crete expression, the particular form of beauty that has , ■ • ,,12 stirred mm." In order for tJie reader to be stirred as she had been stirred, in order for the reader to see beauty as she had seen it, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings felt she must formu- late a reality for those forms of beauty wliich have stirred her and through tlii.s reality share that beauty with tho I'eader. Reality was no simple fidelity to actuality, however, for Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings attempted to create for the reader a sense of reality into which the reader might: oring the imagination to play. This, then, is not M. K. R. , "Notes for Lecture on Creature Writing." ^^M. K. R., "Le.-r.,r.^ v,.rM< ,.., i^.l,rivMv Ml- K,^;M,fv." 44 mere factuaiitv, but ver is irp Llit.-de . As she defined it, "the sense is only the imaginative awareness of actuality," which is both vivid and natural. Here, then, was total reader participation, for the reader brought into play the imagination which finalized and actualized the reality Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had attempted to formulate. Through this perceived sense of reality she was able to transmit to the reader the beauty evoked in her by the Florida Crscker. Without this vividness, the communication of beauty can be difficult to achieve. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ad- dressed this point: "Perhaps that is the secret of fic- tion. When people written about miove in reality before our eyes, touch us, then anything they do becomes vivid and important." "^ In her lecture, "Facts, Verses, in Fiction," she also stated, "it is difficult to be stirred by something w^e have never seen or that is not recreated for us with great vividness." ^ So then does she attempt to share her concept of beauty with the reader through the creation of a vivid sense of reality. M. K. R., "Facts, Verses, in Fiction." "'''To Maxwell Evart Perkins from H. K. R., undated^ Lpproxim.ately January, 1937. 15 M. K. R. , "Facts, Verses, in Fiction." 45 Def init ioT! o f . B e a u ty The predetei-ir.ined effect Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings sought in her writing was the communication of beauty to her readers. In this study, beauty is defined through the perception of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. To her, the designation of the title "artist" was predicated upon the ability to communicate the effect of beauty; for the artist was one who shared with the audience as the writer was one who shared with the reader. Since, for the writer, beauty was always in terms of reader or audience percep- tion, then the definition of the artist v.'as consonant with her earlier assumptions that the creative product did not exist until it was received. To her, all people were susceptible to beauty; however, the true artistic impulse was in the sharing. To illustrate this sliaring, this communication of beauty, she related to her lecture class the following incident. I took some negio boys into my orange grove to pick up the dropped fruit. One ragged dirty little darky found an orange- tree snail, no bigger than a pea. He brought it to me and said, 'Lady this here is purt)-. Do you want it? ' ^^ Upon recitation of this anecdote, she stated, "Incidentally, that is probably an example of the true artistic impulse. "•^M. K. R., "Relativity of Tieautv, 46 The artist is one who tries to share ..." for the crea- tive iinpulss does not exist in isclatlon, but in conjunc- tion v/ith an audience."'' The beauty u-hich she, as an artist, atterapted to ccmnunicate to the reader was more important to her tJian truth, for truth may- not be validated aesthetically. When beauty has been commiinicated , the result can be authenti- cated, for as she stated, "beauty is more valid, more important, more trustworthy than truth, because whJ.le we cannot be sure of truth, we know w^ith our own minds and senses when we are aesthetically or spiritually stirred and by what."'^ In a 1935 speech delivered at Florida Southern College, she expressed her feelings of inadequacy as an artist ivhenever she was unable to communicate the sense of beauty to her readers: "I always feel that I've failed completely as an artist when I've left anyone with ,,19 a sense or ugimess. Although .''!arjorie Kinnan Rawlings' goal as an artist was to share with the reader that in which she found beauty, she asked the folloviu'- question in a 18 p „, i-i. K. R. , "':^reative isriciag. • 19- M- K. R. , "Flor j c' ian.: Tbe Invisible i-'lorid3 Tyr-ed scrint of- soeech. 1955. 47 lecture: "n'hat hope :.? there :--;r ?n;- writer to pass on the particular beauty that happens to stir him?" In reply to her own query, she stater., 'It is in his fierce de- termination to make inrangible beauty tangible"; there- fore, comsriunication to the reader of the sense of beauty lies for Mariorie Kinnan Rav\rlings In the adherence to her personal theory of composition." In dealing v/ith the concept of beauty, usually the aesthetic and not the rhetorical dimension has been inv'olved; however, Marjorie Kinnan Ravvlings' concern was with the communication of beauty, and it is therefore her concept and her definition of the term that this study uses. As the author herself stated, "I do not know what is beautiful or what is ugly, I only know what seems beautiful to me. As a writer I can only try to focus in."" And it was through the formulation and utilization of her effect -oriented and personal theory of composition that sfie attempted to "focus in," and communicate to her read- ing audience that sense of beauty she felt was essential to art. Respc)nse.s to Beauty The existence of beauty for Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was defined not only by her own reaction, but M. K. R., "Relativity of Beauty." 21 Ibid. 48 also by the reaction of her readers. Since Marjorie Kinnan Raivlings i-ecognized ''the obligation of the reader to open his mind to what the author was trying to say," then reader reaction was in part dependent on the artist's intention, which at that point was the communication of beauty. Marjorie Kinnan Raw! ings perceived beauty in the interaction of tlie Florida Cracker with the natural environ- p.ent; however, in order to share this beauty, she had to communicate it to the reader. Since to her beauty existed not in isolation but in reaction, it was by this reaction that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings defined it. Beauty is anything that stirs an emotional reaction to an extent that we are conscious of a spiritual excitement over and above the sensory perception . 22 Stressing once more the resultant effect, she views beauty as that which "stirs the imagination of the beholder."'"^ In her 1935 speech delivered at Florida Southern College, she again addressed the resultant "spiritual excitement" to beauty that occurs in those to wliom the invisible is raade visible, for "beauty must be seen with spiritual as well as physical eye. It is invisible to those unfortunate folks who ... do not have the inner eve with ?2 ""M. K. R. , "Creative IVriting." ibid. which to see." By these emotions, then, shall beauty be known to have been efcected. Mien the reader has experi- enced or has expressed the experience so then shall the reader have seen with "the inner eye." Basically, though, this effect is ach.ieved through techniques that are a part of her personal theory of coinpo- sitiw.i. Thus, when a reader has experienced beauty, tlie resultant effect will manifest itself through a stirring of the iraagination as well as an emotional and spiritual excitation. And what are the sources of beauty which the author communicates? To Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings the interaction of a small group of people In a specific locale provided a wealth of such beauty. Sources of Beauty Particularly in The Yearling Although her avowed objective was the achievement of the effect of beauty on the reader, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings realized that beauty was a relative quality. for her personally, the beauty ihe sought to share was explicit within the Florida Scrub. I find them [the people of the Florida backwoods] beautiful because they are an integral part of their background, buautiful in cheir repose, their dignity, their self-respect . . . They joke about hunger and death. But they are distinctly conscious of their harmony with their .surroundings. Many ,of then are deifiniteiy conscious of the nat;j7-a.l beauty ai'Qund them and of t. h e ]\ a r m o n y of L h e i r 11 v e s . - 4 Hov/ever, her concept of beauty might be dissinilar to that of hei' readers. She v;rote in her notes on Creative Writing "It means that beauty is not absolute, but is distinctly . relative, and, that what fails to stir rr.o , may constitute beauty for you."" She v/as , ho\v-ever^ quick to point out some particular benefits to the relativity of beauty as far as her personal focus ivas concerned. Peihaps it's just as well that everyone doesn't see beauty as we do, for it" everyone was stirred deeply as some of us by the hammocks and the rivers and the marshes , the state would be overpopulated. -'6 Although recognizing the possibility of differing perspec- tives between the reader and the writer, Marjorie. Kinnan Rawlings had three main parameters within which she, her- self, found beauty; and as revealed in her papers, these areas may be designated to the following categories: (a) the simplicity of the Cracker people, (b) the natural Florida setting, and (c) the harmonv of the people v;ith this setting or background. K. R. , "Relativity of Beautv '^M. K. R., "Creative Writing." "Floridian. 51 The < ircplicitv cf the Florida Cracker was one of the main foci o£ beauty as perceived by Marjorie Kinn^'^n Rav/lings. When asked, in a radio interviev; in 19-il, her reasons for remaining in Florida, she praised "the natural beauties and a certain sirriplici t>- of life m the rural sections.""' Con-^inualiy sac both v.'rote and spoke about the beauty of these people: "I see the simplicity and courage and natural fight behind these people. Other writers see ot}\er things.""'' Vvhen as;:ed why she wrote of these people, she answered, "They were a part of something that I found entirely beautiful; I '.vrote of the people and the background I found stirring and admirable."" For all her interest in the simplicity of the Florida Cracker, she had been chastised by the Florida Commerce Department which apparently failed to see this beauty. When I began to write of the simpler people more and their simpler life, I was condemned for emphasizing a side of life tiiat was not believed to be helpful to the state's develop- ment. 30 ^^M. K. R., "Radio Interview." Typed Script, li'41 2 8 M. K, R. , "Lecture Notes on Charac uci' izar i on . " 29,, ., ., ,,,,■■ r M. K. .'! . , "u;)'.::o ' i:r r rv i (V; . ' '"ibid. 52 It riar.tered little tc Marjorie Kinnan Ra'ivlings. She knev: siie liad fv'^'and. beaury when she saw the people, and decided "I n\ust v.Tite o£ this land and these people as I saw them, stirred by ny nevv love."'"' According to a personal inter- viev. by Harry Evans, "'The things Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wanted to write about were so simple she doubted her ability to make them, interesting.""'"'" That this fear was ill-founded is evident in the interest -holding qualities of the fol- lowing speech, in which, she described the sense of beauty she found in the simplicity oc the people. You must have seen some v\'ithered old woman in a gray and white percale dress standing in the doorv/ay of an unpainted pine shack under a live oak or a magnolia, and felt that she was a strong and lovely part of a sturdv_ and admirable and a difficult life.^-^ It was of this beauty that she attempted to write and to preserve before it vanished into time. The true Florida Crackers are al- most gone and I regret it, because they are an integral part of their background, and beautiful in their repose, their dig- nity, their self respect. -"'4 l\. K. R., "Autobiographical Sketch." "Harry tvans , "^uariorie Kinnan Rawlings," Th; j3mn.lj^_Circ_:L_e , 1 (May 14, 1943), unnumbered scrapbooK :opy . "■f!. K. R., "The f-'loridian." ■^"Ibid. 53 Thus, it was in the vanishing Florida backwoods people she fourxd a major element of lier concept of beauty. The beauty Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings sav«; v;as also within the natural setting of the Florida Scrub, for as she stated in one of her speeches, "To those of us who find the natural Florida so lovely, everything about it is beautiful, its v;ild life and even its few remaining back- woods inhabitants." Enveloped by the beauty of the land, the fJora and the fauna of her environment pervaded her literary approachi. As a personal interviewer remarked, ■'Siie wanted to write about flowers, ferns, frogs, and the people who lived close to them..""^" As cited previously, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings v/as aware that there were some wlio could not see the beauty she saw: "those unfortunate folks who are blind or blunted to many forms of beauty because they do not have the inner eye with which to see."' It is ciitirely possible that her work in The Yearling reflects an attempt to make what ■■may have been invisible beauty to some, visible to others. To Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, beauty also existed in the harmony of the Fiorida Cracker v/ith the Florida •^^Ibjd. " Evans, "!Iarjorie Kinnan Raivlings, Family Circle •^''m. K. n. . "The rioridim." Scrub She stated ^his ijhilosonhv m a 1941 radio ir,tov 1 have a tiieory that t!;ere is an affinity betv/een people and places. Each of us is entitled to live in a place aeamst a pnvsical background tliat is h.arrionious v;itl: our own nature. -^"^ This Iiarmcny of people and environment, this balance and affinity, vas the beauty she saw and of v;hich she v/rote. I was struck at once b}- a harmony between the people and their backaround. The poorest Cracker? had a sense of one- ness with the country itself, the scrub, the piney woods, the haniriocks, the prair- ies. TJK'y '.vere a part of _^somet hi ng I fouTid entirely beaut if ul . -^9 What she saw in the people and their background she believed was shared by the people theraselves, for she felt they were aware both of this beauty and of their harmony with It. To her, one aspect of beauty was this very awareness, "the feeling of those people for a natural and liarmonious a 0 background . " ' " Ker rendering of the closed svsten of The Yearling -s discussed previously in Chapter One, elaborated on her oncept of beauty of the individual interacting with he environ;:ien :. ft is this harmony of the Flo'-ida Cracker '^l- k. R. , "Radio Interview Ibid . To Norma 7: S. '^''.'vo from id. 1 v/ith the Florida Scrub whijh Mariorie Kinnan Rawlings sougi-it to share and nhich is the beauty that personally "stirs an er.otional reaction [and brings about] a spiritual ex- ^1 citement over and above the sensory perception.'' The< ?ry of Compos it ■ ion > leces sary to Achieve Effe.. :t ci Deauf, ,' ini roug!- i Lre. atioi 1 01 : Real It V Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition was the raeans whereby she, as an artist, was able to create a sense of actuality by which beauty was comn-iuni- cated to the reader. The salient facets of that theory cf composition are the process of characterization, the use of facts and details, and the use of objectivity, simplicity, and dialect. To Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings these elements of language manipulation helped achieve rhetorical effec- tiveness by creating a reality for the reader whicli conveved her concept of beauty. Through the Pro c o s s o f Characterization Concerned witii a ''sense of actuality," specific- ally reality in characterization, Mariorie Kinnan Rawlings adhered to the definition of characterization proffered by Kclman that characterization i.3 "the creation of images '^^U. K. H., "Creative V/riting." 56 by imaginary persons 5o credible that: they exist for the reader as real within the linits of the fiction. The ability to characterize the people of his imagination successfully is one of the primary attributes of a good . ■ ^ ,,42 novelist . " Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings attempted to achieve reality through the process of characterization. She viewed this element as of primary importance: "In the novel of people, of life and living, nothing is m.ore im- portant than charactorizar.ion. ''"^^ Her approach to the novel mirrored this statement. Elsewhere, she compared the characters in her novel to piano keys, for tlie charac- ters ivere the instruments by ivhich the story vvas brought forward. ' Ultimately, "the success of the novel of ideas depends on whether the characters are sufficiently alive .1 c to carry tnose ideas . . . ho\; real,' Characters, to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, "are like people in a long friendship or in a m.arriage; if the author's job is well done, they become a part of you, so that you never forget them." Various lectures of "'.villiam F. Thrall, Addison Hubbard, and Hugh' Holnan, A Handbook to Liiierature (New York: The Odvssey Press, 19o0j , p. / 9 ., 4 3 ' M. K. R. , "Characterization." 4 4. T 1 - 1 ^^Ibid. hers and letters were addressed to the process of charac- ter i2:ation. It was of major concern, since by this process, she attempted to achieve the sense of reality fron; which caiTie the effect of beauty. Investigation of primarily four of her lectures ("Characterization," "Facts Verses, in. Fiction, "■ "The Mechanics of V/riting," and "Creative Writing") , as well as several pieces of her correspondence, yielded tliree broad principles of charac- terization to which she adhered: (1) The characters are "true- to- life" : although the characters may have so:r:e basis in reality, it is by the infusion of the author's artistic imagination that the character achieves "a sense of actuality." (2) The major characters function not only as particular but also as the universal, acting in ways identifi- able as Every Person. (3) The characters are used as cohesive units encompassing v\-ithin their per- sonalities the individual limits of their thoughts and actions. True- to- 1 ife c haracteri tat ion Characters may have some basis in rrutli, but it is through the infusion of the artist's creative imagina- tion that the characters begin to "move in reality." Except for the doctor, the characters in The Yearl ing are all fictitious, more fictitious than any she had used previously, ■•ihc to\d ar, i :, r r r\ i tnvor ; iio.vcver, Jody did 58 have some basis in truth, lor he embodied the memory of two old men, one of whom had told Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings about his youth arid of the destruction of his pet deer which threatened the family's meager crop of corn; and as she stated: "I ciystalliied their tales into the story of a boy who m.ight have. lived that uncomplicated life in the 4 7 scrub." This was the basis of her story. The situation involved in the creation of characters for The Yearling was the subject of one of her lectures. Sometimes an idea or an emotion or a situation or a set of dramatic incidents cries out to be written about. In that case, the writer creates the characters to express the idea, the emotion, the situation or the set of dramatic inci- dents . ^^ Through the addition of artistic details by the author, through the infusion of the creative imagination of the author, these characters take on a reality. The reality stems, not from, a j ourna 1 istic- like reportage, but from an artistic rendering. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings stated, there is "more activity required in making truth artistic 4 9 than starting f^-om scratch."' She would begin with 47 Aut.tior unknown, "Author Tells of Hot Trip from Bimini," undated scrapbook copy. Author unknown, "Today's Woman/' Christian Science Monitor, September 4, 1940. " 48 M. K. R., "Facts, Verses, in Fiction." ^"'m. K. R. , "The Mechanics of Writing." 59 an idea or perhaps with the seiublance of a character from reality and then create the personage her narrative required Addressing rhis matter, she stated in a lecture: "V/hat often happens is tiiat he [the artist] adds his own thoughts, for his own purposes, to characters he has knovvn." Out of her own imagination she then "fertilizes by the creative germ" the character she has created. The artist hopes "then in actual writing to transfuse your vvork v/ith your own personality ... a process of osmosis, to filter vshat you have to say through your characters."' The resulting character, then, is mainly fictitious — the creation of the artist, who "may begin with an actual living person, but his imagination takes him further to adapt the character to his own creative needs so that the final character, even though dozens of people claim to recognize him or her, is fiction." " Though she has often denied it, many have assumed to recognize characters as being copied from life, but, in fact, none of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' characters is a "life copy," nor does she feel that otlier authors have copied characters. "i think no writer has ever com[)letcly ■"m. K. R., "Facts, Verses, in Fiction " .M. K. (I., "Creative Writing." ■^ fi. K. R. , "Autobio.p.i-.'.iphical Sketch." 60 copied a true character- . . . Many of ny own characters are based on people I knov;, but not a single one is a life copy." "^ Ihe created character has been supplemented by the author's point of view, infused by the creative imagina tion, and placed in "an abode in tine and space." Like- wise, charactei'S are. changed and adapted for coherence to the author's intention. Univers ality in characteriza t ion Another general principle of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was the portrayal of the major characters as representative of a fusion wlierein the individual func- tions both as the particular and the universal, or as the literary term states, the concrete universal. Her defini- tion of the role of the ivriter embodies the concept of universality of characterization to which she adhered. For the producer of literature is not a reporter but a creator. His con- cern is not with presenting superficial and external aspects, however engaging, of an actual people; it is ivith the inner revelation of mankind, thinking and moving against a backdrnp of life itself v/ith as much dramatic or pointed effect as the artistry of the writer can command. 55 -^U)_id. "M. K. R., "Characterization." Maricrie Kinnan R.awlings, "Regional Literature of .h," College English, 1 (February, 1940), 3S1-389. 61 The individual J iiiteracting v/ith the environment, reflects the macrocosm of total humanity ^ interacting v/ith the ur. iversi.. The closed S'/stem of the novel. The Yearlins^ detailed in Chapter One, existed as an attempt to order the Ciiacs of life. As she stated in her address to the National Council of Teachers of English, The creative v;riter filters men and women real and fancied through his imagina- tion as through a catnlytic agent to re- solve the confusion of life into an ordered pattern, the coordinated meaningful design colored with the creator's personality, keyed to his own philosophy that we call art. "56 Characters may function on several levels either as the specific individual or as the universal. In an early lecture, Marjorie Kinnan Ra\\/lings states, Character can be strictly an indi- vidual or as a character can typify m.an- kind in various situations of defeat or success, tragedy or joy, love or hate, or any aspect of human conflict within itself or in relation to other people or to life. 5^ The major characters in The Yearling function on the uni versal level, whereas the minor characters function more on the specific factual level. In a 19 1? interview she stated specifically the universal function within t)\e closed system of The Yenrlinq: 56lbid ^^M. K. R , "Characterir.at ion." 62 . . . life (is represented by his pet, the deer), love (the real signifi- cance of i'.is father's love and his o\\m love of the deer], death of Iiis father, and loneliness . 5o Expressed througn Jody is the universal premonition of maturity that Marjorie Kinnan Rav,lings first experienced on her father's farm. long years before. The youth and adolescence of Jody function to reflect the remembered common emotion. At the beginning Jody is twelve years old. In the year covered by the book he experienced the thing I remembered exper- iencing that April day back in Brookland . . . that definite premonition of matur- ity ... I referred to it a while ago as ecstacy tinged with sadness. 59 Her youth and her father were, as she stated, the basis of her feeling of universality, for "from, him I learned my love of nature . . . and a sense of kinship with men and women everywhere who live close to the soil."' Thus, through the generalization of the particular, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings attempted to achieve in The Yearling the universal, typifyiag those human emotions common to all people in all ages witliin a chosen character. Evans, "Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings," Family Circle. "M. K. R. , "Autobiographical Sketch.'' 65 Up. i ty in characteri :.a tion The third aspect of characterization to which Marjorie Kinnan Ravlings adiiered was the functioning of the characters as cohesive units. The concept of unity of characterization in a novel is the organizing principle that the characters are integrated and liave, as stated by Holrian, "a necessary relationship to each other and an essential relationship to the whole of which they are parts." The totality of character is achieved by the cohesiveness of action and plausibility of motivation. Credibility is resultant from coherence; in other words, the characters do nothing in contradiction of their roles, thereby achieving a reality of harmony and unity. The Yearling was told tlirough the perspective of a tv/elve-year-old boy, and in order to achieve unity, Marjorie Kinnan Raw] ings is constantly cautious of using too mature a vocabulary or too complex a perspective for a twelve-year-old. She felt her previous work. Golden Apples , had failed because of a disharmony and a lack of unity, for as she wrote Maxwell Perkins on July 11, 1956, "1 am sure you are wrong about the reason for Golden Apples not doinjj better. People recognized unconsciously in it d i sharinony — and every one is hungry for harmony and ^Mhr.-il], Hibbard, and Holman, p. 54 S 64 unity." She worked to nake sure this v/ould not be the case with The Yearling. On July 3, 1956, when she wrote Maxwell Perkins of her plans for her nevv' book, she stated: "It will be absolutely all told through the boy's eyes. I want it through his eyes before the age of puberty brings in any other factors to confuse the simplicity of viewpoint." Although she later considered changing her approach, she realized the possible disharmony and loss of unity that could result. "But I dare not sv/itch the interest that way; that is, begin from the father's point of \'iew, then take it up from the boy's; for the father continues throughout the narrative, but it m.ust be as the boy's father, not as the chief protagonist. . . . " "^ A change could be inconsistent with the reality of the novel. For Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings harmony and unity result from adequate reinforcement of character with de- tails, since as she expressed it, in a novel, "character doesn't stand alone; character mast be backed up." Though she had the background, and basically the idea for The Yearling, she had to work hard to achieve unity. In 1935, she was aware of the hard work that would be involved 1936 f-i. fv . K. , '^naracter.i zaticn 65 Its success v/ill dep«".d, I should say, almost altogethei" or how real, how vivjd, I am able to niake individuals whose lives move along . . . [.-^nd it involves] treraen- dously hard work in delineating anything like a reality. 61 Two years later, she felt the characters were not adequately created and she had not achieved unity of characterization, so she rewrote much of the novel. I had to discard everything of The Yearling ... to give it cohesion. My first thoughts had been to plunge into more or less exciting events. Then I realized that they were not exciting un- less the boy and his father and his surroundings were so real, so familiar that the things that happened to him took on color because it ail came closer home in its very f amiliarit/. *^^ One of the basic precepts of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' writing was the value of characterization: "In a novel you can't get away from the importance of charac- terization." The careful delineation of character to achieve unity was a major factor in characterization, and to accomplisii it, often, "infinitely apparently snnall details require rewriting to give a final harmony of char- acterization." The character functions as an integral 64 To Maxwell Perkins from M. K. R. , undated, approx imately December, 19.35 ■^To Maxwull Perkins from M, K. R.. undated, approx- imatelv January, 1947. 06 .M. K. R., "Characterization." M. K. R. , ".^utobio^jraphical Sketch." 66 and cohesive unit, supplementing and complementing the total novel. In an autobiographical sketch, she stated, "None of my novels has satisfied me, [however] The Yearling is probably the most coordinated of my books." Through Use of Facts and Details The use of facts and details to achieve a sense of reality by which the effect of beauty is accomplished was another major element of her theory of composition. The place of fact or scientific details in fiction was manifest throughout her papers; for example, the title of one of her lectures was "Facts, Verses, in Fiction," which, as indicated on the folder in the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection, she had filed originally under 'Facts vs. Fiction.' To Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings all the facts that surround the writer are source material; but those facts may be "fertilized by the creative germ" and "transfused with your own [author's] personality." "Even the still- life painting is transformed with the personality of the painter." These facts were a part of the adjustments made to actuality so that, as stated by Marjorie Kinnan 68,, . , Ibid. 69 M. K. R. , "Facts, Verses, in Fiction." M. K. R. , "Creative IVriting." '°Ibid. Rawlirxgs, ''it better fitted the quality of mind I wanted catch . . . yet that quality of mind is true. . . ." Writers are like great teachers, who have transfused facts with their own creative personality and "have found beauty in ideas, in what pass for facts."'" The botanical details of the Florida Scrub, the agricultural information pertinent to farming, the data important to day-to-day existence, and the folklore that pervaded the lives of the Florida Cracker were, to the surprise of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, that which greatly interested her readers. Her surprise was in part due to the pleasure she also received from this type of factual information . It is only since Golden Apples that I realize what it is about my writing that people like. I don't m.ean that I am writing for anyone, but now I feel free to luxuriate in the simple details that interest me and that I have been so amazed to find interest other people. ^3 These botanical, agricultural, and social details were those she fully utilized to infuse her writing with a sense of reality. M. K. R., "Facts, Verses, in Fiction." ^^M. K. R., "Relativity of Beauty." ^•^To Maxwell Perkins from M. K. R. , July 51, 1936. 68 Her concern vvith the problems of accuracy in the details and facts continued to pervade many of her per- sonal papers. Once when questioned on the authenticity of a dance ot whooping cranes she had written about in The Yearling, she defended herself to an interviewer by stating, "she could not prove the story, but believed it because it was told her by a man whose memory she found to 74 be unfailingly clear and accurate." In her continuing desire for authenticity, she drew a geological map of the region used in The Yearling and a "month-by-month chart of events for the year that is covered in the book."'' Much of her energies had been spent in gathering factual data; for example, living with different families for weeks in the Florida Scrub, keeping journals on folklore and pharmacopoeia and botany, informally interviexv'ing people at the Creek. All this was part of her concern with factual information, which was most apparent in her letter to Maxwell Perkins one month after the publication of The Yearling. My secret fear about The Yearling has just been allayed. I was so afraid that the old-guard hunters and woodsmen would find flaws. I know you think I put too much emphasis on the importance 'Author unknown, "Author Tells of Hot Trip . . ." To Maxwell Perkins from M. K, R. , March 26, 193' 69 of fact in fiction, but it seems to me that this type of work is net valid if the nature lore behind it is not scien- tifically true in every detail. 76 And finally, in one of her lectures, she replies to her O'.vm rhetorical question, "U'hat makes characters real?" by stating simply, "Details. Methods of Expression ,77 Marjorie Kinnan Railings' attempt to achieve a verisimilitude which could bring the reader's imagination into play encompassed the use not only of facts and de- tails, but also of various methods of expression in her audience-oriented style. For Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, style was the adaptation of her language in order to achieve mutual understanding between the author and the reader. No effect, especially the effect of beauty, would be possible if the style were inappropriate. In a 1940 paper written for the National Council of Teachers of English, she discussed style as it related to a volume by Margaret Mitchell. Yet we ask of style principally that it be an effective medium of ex- pression for the material itself, and it seems to me that no narrative, no set of characters, could carry the 76 To Maxwell Perkins from M. K. R., May 14, 1937 77 M. K. R., "Charjcter ization, 70 excitement and the living conviction of this book_unless the style were at least adequate . "^ Marjorie Kinnan Rav/lings' style was a combination of both the idei to be expressed and the individual language manipulation necessary to achieve a close transmission of the idea. Beauty vvas the idea to be expressed, and certain personal methods were necessary in order to create a vivid and natural reality from which to obtain the effect of beauty in the reader. What the reader receives from the language manipulations of the author may not only be what explicitly was stated, but also what subtlely was connoted. Evidence within her papers indicated specific facets of her concept of style to achieve a predetermined effect. These included evincing a quality of objectivity, as well as utilizing simplicity of construction, and dia- lect. Fully realizing that the goal of all narrative is understanding, she stressed the advantage she had received from her earlier career as a iournalist: "In newspaper work, one has to write so that one is understood clearly. 79 Only a great genius is privileged not to be understood." In her lecture to a class in Creative Writing at the Uni- versity of Florida, she succinctly summed up the goals of 7 R M. K. R., "Regional Literature." 79 M. K. R., "Writing as a Career," Bock of Knowledge Annual. 194S, Typed Scriut. 71 style as follows: '"The desire to write is the desire to say something, to say that something well, to make that 8 0 something understood." Obi ect ivity Objectivity is a major quality used to create a sense of actuality with v;hich to communicate beauty to the reader. Objectivity may be defined as that effect evinced by a literary work when that v/riting is understood by the readers as being independent from the emotional or personal sentiments of the author. Personal detachment was for Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings an important technique that she described in her lectures as tJie ability of "being able 8 1 to view it all from the outside." This type of objec- tivity, once more, was gleaned from her newspaper work, for in journalism, "one learns human nature in the raw. 8 2 One learns to see human beings objectively." As she wrote in a letter to Maxwell Perkins, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings aspired to sharing this aesthetic distancing with another literary figure of her day, F. Scott Fitzgerald, for she hoped to emulate his ability to 8 0 M. K. R. , "Mechanics of Writing." ^^M. K. R., "Creating Writing." '^^M. K. R., "Writing as a Career." "visualize people not m their immediate setting from the hiim.an point of view — but in tine and space — almost you might say vrith divine detachment,"'" Her aesthetic dis- tancing was in no way accidental. In a letter to Maxwell Perkins in 1936, three years before The Yearling's com- pletion, she explicitly stated her goal of objectivity: ". . . it ma> sound sentimental or too symbolic to make a good story ... I have no fear of it at all, and I shall be careful never to sentimentalize." Dialect Another m.ethod Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings employed was that of dialect. By stressing dialectical differences in vocabulary, grammatical habits, and pronunciation, the isolation and separation of the Florida Cracker by both natural and social barriers ;vere ever made evident. The resultant dialect used in The Yearling to convey the realis- tic elem.ent of the Florida Cracker emerged over a period of time, after her first attempts at dialect proved inadequate, In a letter to Norman Berg she stated her awareness that q c "dialect is a dangerous business. ..." Marjorie Kinnan ■^To Maxwell Perkins from M. K. R., February 11, 1934. 84 To Maxwell Pericins from M. K. R. , undated, approx imately October, 1936. q C '"To Norman S. Berg from M. K. R. , November 27, 194: Rawlings also indicated her avvareness of the effect of incorrectly written dialect when, in her correspondence, she criticizes another author for giving not only the dialogue but also the narrative in dialect: "The Llewellyn book . . . was indeed sorry stuff . . . what invalidated it was the use of dialect to convey thoughts as well as speech." Likewise, in a talk to the National Council of Teachers of English, slie stated that too deep an involvement with dialect moves the work into a technical or National Geographic type of study: "Elizabeth Madox Roberts evinces such a scholarly preoccupation with dia- lect speech as to force her work into the class of tech- 8 7 nical or erudite writings. ..." Her use of Cracker speech functions not only as part of her attempted creation of actuality, but also as a symbol. As she stated, "Cracker speech is a certain 88 sign of the isolation of the Florida interiors. . . ." The importance of the use of dialect to create the real- istic sense of the Florida land and the isolation of the frontier is evinced in her statement: "The Cracker speech of long isolation is in my opinion one of the assurances 86,. . , Ibid. 87 M. K. 11., "Regional Literature." 8 P M. K. R., "Cracker Florida." Early Autobioj^raphi - cai Writin.'is. 74 of the entrenchn'ent of this frontier. Your true frontier go is resistant." " Within this isolation, both the Cracker people and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings find beauty. Dialect, even though "a dangerous business," seemed to be a necessity to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings if she Vv-ere to create a sense of ■ actual ity, but she was aware that dialect must be used carefully: "I have suffered over my own necessary (or so I thought) use of it [dialect] for dialogue. A writer can JUST get by on using it for dia- 90 logue . . . but to carry it further is fatal." In The Yearling, dialect was used only for dialogue. Simpl icity With her audience-centered theory of composition, simplicity of style was of major importance to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. To complicate the text with superfluous elements would result in a mockery of reality, and not the sense of actuality she wished to achieve. Syntax was determined by the goal of reality. For example, as she stated in one of her lectures, it is necessary to use "short, almost blunt sentences j.f I am not to lose real- 91 ity." Hov;ever, she also stated that her natural tendency 89., - , Ibid. 90to Norman S. Berg from M. K. R. , November 27, 1943. -^M. K. R., "Creative Writing." 75 seemed to be toward' a cluttering of the text and oniy through self -discipline was she able to accomplish the simplicity of style she desired. In a 1939 article about her winning the Pulitzer Prize, she xs quoted as address- ing the concern of simplicity in a letter vvritten several years previously. Now I think I have discovered my weakness ... It is a tendency to clutter the text with gaudy colors that somehow mock reality, like a Maxfield Parrish print. I must work under my own mental thumb screws, hold myself in check when I want to gallop. 92 The various tricks of style were anathema to her simplis- tic approach, for she felt, "tricks of technique annoy 93 rather than please." Her admonition was against the artificial and for personal integrity and honesty in writing. Use "integrity in fiction ... be yourself," 94 she warned. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings stressed neither the use of new words singly or in new combinations, nor the use of old words in old combinations. She admonished against the latter, saying, "The most hopeless sign in beginning 9 5 writers is the use of trite phrases." " However, she did Author Unknown, "Pulitzer Winner, '= Independent Woman, January, 1939, in scrapbook. ^■^M. K. R., "Mechanics of Writing." 76 advocate the use of old simple words m nev; combinations. The words themselves do not seem stale to us and we do not tire of them anymore than we do of water to drink; [however], certain often-used combina- tions of words are stale. 9*^ Subsumed under the heading "Choosing a Style" in her lec- ture on the "Mechanics of Writing," she labels saying the obvious as "burbling." Even symbols and metaphors are to be simplistic, but not obvious: "In my stories, not the red of Chinese lacquer but the red [of a cardinal]." Underplaying vv'as another aspect of this simplistic approach. Once again, she cites the contribution her early journalistic career made to her literary style, for the style she learned as a journalist is the style she advocates as a creative artist: "There was no place for the purple prose to which all young writers are so jj- . J ,,98 addicted. In the type of uncluttered, simple writing to which she often referred, "the story must be told v\fith no waste of words and the superfluous adjectives and ad- 99 verbs dropped by the wayside." Understatement forces Ibid. 97ibxd 98 M. K. R., "Autobiographical Sketch." Ibid . the reader to bring into play the imagination, whereas overstatement leads to surfeit. Since to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings effective writing was often dependent upon this interplay of reader's imagination with artistic creatioD, then to her "most bad writing is overwriting; understate- ment in the hands of anyone who is basically a writer is always more effective than overstatement." Her pref- erence for understatement is just another facet of her con- tinued awareness of the reader and the writer's effect upon the reader. As she told her class, the writer uses understatement "for the simple reason that you have to leave some play for the reader's own imagination. The reader himself fills the gap." The expressive technique Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings utilized to achieve a sense of reality was basically direct and simple. The process of narrative that best created a sense of reality was that which she had learned through experience, for she felt tliat the complex narra- tive used earlier had diminished tl^e effect and so was responsible for "the fatally divided interest that we got in Golden Apples ." '" Fo'- The Yearling :-he did not make that mistake. ^°°M. K. R., "Creative Writing '"ibid. ^°"To Maxwell Perkins from M. K. R. , October 10 1936. 78 With a predilection for wanting to bring the audience's imagination into play, her natural tendency, as far as narrative was concerned, was toward generaliza- tion and implicitness, leading at times to a type of vagueness; however, from Maxwell Perkins she learned that reality is gained otherwise. I had to learn what I learned from Maxwell Perkins, the book editor at Scribner's, is the value, no, the neces- sity, of direct narrative, direct, not implicit, not generalized. It is much better to make one direct incident of such intensity and let the one incident speak for ail. 103 So, then, does she attempt not to generalize in her narra- tion in order that once mere the reader can bring into play the imagination. Thus, the reader through imagination extends the explicit incident to a larger content. Another pitfall to this type of direct, simple narrative was the episodic narrative. She wrote Maxwell Perkins of this concern on May 10, 1937: "The principal difficulty at present is in keeping a steady flow of narrative rather than falling into the disjointed abyss of mere episodes." However, the narrative method of events in their time sequence seem^ed to fit with the total harm.ony and simplicity of the novel and evolved naturally to create a sense of reality. "Once I have decided on the people 103 M. K. R. , "Creative Writing 79 who will be in the book, I think the narrative will flow naturally of its own accord," she wrote in 1956. ' In order to create a sense of reality from which to obtain the effect of beauty she sought expression that utilized dialect for appropriate purposes and was basically simple and objective. These stylistic and narrative goals were set long before she began writing The Yearling, for she wrote in an October, 1936, letter to Maxwell Perkins: "The style [for The Yearling] will be very simple and direct." For the next two years she sought to accomplish that goal. Conclusion The objective of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' personal theory of composition was to communicate beauty to her readers. Since, to her, the artist was "one who shares . . , the particular form of beauty that has stirred him," she therefore attempted to communicate to her readers that form of beauty which had stirred her and to wliich she had responded— the Florida Cracker interacting with the Florida Scrub. Marjorie Kinnan Rjwlings had defined beauty as a soaring of the imagination as well as an emotional and 1 04 To Maxwell Perkins from M. K. R., July 31, 193 6 spii'itual excitation, and this defined also her reaction to the Florida Cracker. Her personal definition of beauty placed the emphasi? on the resultant effect on the reader and by this effect was beauty known to have been achieved. Yet, for the reader to experience beauty as she had experienced it, a sense of actuality must be formulated for that form v/hich had stirred her. Her theory of composition was the means by which she created a sense of actuality for the reader, first through the process of characterisation, specifically focusing on the use of true-to-life characters, universality, and unity. Secondly, she attempted to achieve reality through the use of scientifically accurate facts and details. And finally, she used objectivity, dialect and simplicity. As it functioned within these three broad principles, The Yearling evinced an audience adaptation to attain specific rhetorical goals, working through the reader's imagination to communicate the beauty Marjorie Kinnan Raw] ings recognized around her. CHAPTER THREE RESPONSE FROM THE GENERAL READERSHIP Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' audience-oriented theory of ccmposition had as its goal the accomplishnient of a predetermined effect. In the preceding chapter, her personal theory of composition was articulated to isolate those characteristic language usages by which she sought CO communicate the effect of beauty. In order to determine the extent of that possible effectiveness, the responses of her readers must be studied, operating from the per- spective advanced by Tompkins, in liis work, "The Rhetorical Criticism of Non-Oratorical Works," as well as the model provided by Carpenter in "Alfred Thayer Mahan's Style in Sea Power: A Paramessage Conducing to Ethos," who stated that effectiveness is "most accurately discernible in the responses of people for whom the discourse was intended."^ Thus the methodological focus of this chapter is not on her discourse itself but rather on debriefing the readership, 'Phillip lompkins, "The Rhetoricil Criticism of Non-Oratorical Works," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 55 (December, 1969), AZl-'i1>T. Ronald Carpenter, "Alfred Thayer Mahan's Stvle on Sea Power: A Paranessage Conducing to Ethos," Speech Monoj^raL)hi_s , 4 2 (August, 197 5), li) 2. 82 Hoased in the L'niversity of Florida Library, the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings CoJ.lection contains within the substantial correspondence from her general readership comprehensive documentation of effects. The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection also is complemented by the papers of Phillip May, her lawyer, in which there are additional letters she had forv/arded to him. In both collections, all correspondence specifically related to The Yearling was examined since the novel was currently in publication; however, the main body of correspondence utilized covered the period from 1938 until Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' death in 1953. Reactions of her general readership to the novel were the basic area of investiga- tion for this chapter. The Collection yielded substantial responses; though, in som.e respects, it may have been culled. For example, after Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' death and prior to some of the m.emorabilia being transported from tlie Cross Creek house to the University of F],orida Library, one box of papers, now a valuable part of the Collection, had to be rescued from a garbage pile. Also, coiimenting on the relative paucity of negative comments among the response to her work, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in the 1940 's provided reason that the proportion of unfavorable letters from her general readership v/as : In inf irit?s imal portion, and the reascii is that the person who troubles to sit down and write a letter to an author is almost invariably a kindly person. I mean that is simple human narure; people go out of their way to do a kindly thing, and verv few go out of their way tc be unkind . - However, since the thrust of tliis study was focused upon responses that suggested effectiveness and the crucial point Av'as that for some people these techniques did work, the letters in tlie Collection from her general readership proved adequate. All letters from the general readership were read; however, only those comments dealing specifically with areas of composition or which indicated or implied relation- ship to language manipulation were utilized. These letters were then cataloged to indicate recurring patterns. Let- ters with vague, general or nonspecific comments were not included in this investigation; such as letters that stated the novel was "enjoyable" or "entertaining" or "interest- ing" but in no way suggested the reason. Nonspecific evaluations with comments of this ilk were a type of general reaction common to any novel. Thus, through analysis of tliose responses applicalile to audience reaction, both this and the subsequent chapter attempt to establish the causal relationship between technique and effect. "Proceedings of Second Trial of Cason versus Bask in , Alachua County Florida , 1946, inTTiTTl ip~TTa/ CoTlectior., University of Florida Library, Volume III, p. 357. 84 Readership Response to Effect of Beauty Study or the responses from Mariorie Kinnan Rav;l- ings' general readership revealed their focus on the effect of beauty. Perhaps one of the most explicit was from Betty Odgers who indicated her awareness of the com.muni- cated effect: "In some strange way the shared loveliness of your book was an important bond in the adjustment of my life.""^ To several of her readers the effect of beauty was intense yet inexpressible. Hamilton Holt ivrote on July 29, 1947, "it is impossible to express in words," and Bea H. also wrote in her April 2S, 1939 letter to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, "I haven't words to describe the way I feel about your beautiful appealing book." Though a wounded young English flyer repeated the inability to express his appreciation of the beauty, he did elaborate on the effect. Of The Yearling I can say nothing except thank you. To try and tell you of its beauty would be useless ... I read it while being bombed. It brought a light to that siielter that made a warm glovi for us all, for ^ read it aloud. One little cockney bey said,, 'I wish I was him, oh I wish I was. ' The EnglisJ-i flyer expressed appreciation of the effect of To "lariorie Kinnan Rawlings (hereafter cited as M. K. R.) from Betty Odgers, August 3C, 1945. ■^Tc M. K. R. from Perry Potter, undated. 8 5 beauty as did man\ ether respondents, so many in fact that the letters became a type of "thank-yoii" note for beauty received. One typical of these comments cane from a Uni- versity of Wisconsin classmate of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings who gratefully wrote, "I finished The Yearling in a flood of tears . . . You've done a perfectly beautiful job . . . ny thanks for so much pleasure." Publication of foreign editions brought similar response to the effect of beauty from distant lands. Sigrid Undset from Norway wrote January 19, 1942, that Marjorie Kinnan Rav.'lings' book "makes us Europeans marvel that America is so rich in natural beauties . . . the loveliness of America . . . and beautiful wilderness. . . ." From Australia in 1943 came another note of appreciation for the beauty of the book. I have just read your magnificent book The Yearling and feel compelled to write and tell you the joy it gave me from beginning to end ... so very un- usual it is, and so beautiful in theme and language. 6 Thus, not only America, but also other countries, responded to the effect of beauty in her book. One reader did, in fact, offer to share the beauty in a section of land that he possessed in return for the To M. K. R. from Esther Forbes Hoskins, July 14 1938. ^To M. ^'. P. from Laura Dix, May 17, 1945. 86 beauty Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had given to him through her book, for as he stated: '"We too know the beauty, the birds, the orange trees, the ducks." Perhaps the letter written to her on August 29, 1938 by Marjorie Douglas can serve as a summation of those letters received that so intensely had felt the effect of beauty: ". . . add my voice to the chorus. It is so lovely, so finely felt. ..." Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had defined the artist as one who shares beauty and as such so was she defined, as indicated in a copy of a letter Lafarge had written about her and that had been forwarded to her: "This book is an exquisitely beautiful thing; it seems to me a flawless v/ork of art . . . She is a great o artist." In 1945, Neil Phillips \\'as to write Marjorie 9 Kinnan Rawlings and once again define her as an artist. Obviously from these responses, the effect of beauty had been communicated to her readers. Response Based Upon Perception of Reality as Produced by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Beauty was felt because the audience perceived the reality Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had produced. As addressed 'To M. K. R. from Henry Dozier, M.D., June 19, 1942, To Rudolf 'veaver from Grant Lefarge, May 24, 1938, forwarded to M. K. R. and in Rav/lings Collection. ^To M. K. R. from Neil Phillips, April 29, 1945. earlier in Chapter II, in order for the reader to see beauty as Marjorie Kinnan Rav/lings had seen it, she must formulate a reality for those forms of beauty which had stirred her and through this reality share that beauty with her reader. From rhis created sense of reality, she was then able to effect in the reader the sense of beauty. The response indicative of having perceived this creative reality was ample. Reality was so pervasive to some of her readers that they literally sought the specific geographic loca- tion of episodes depicted in The Yearling. The President of a Florida hunting club wrote of one such attempt. We have tried to locate the exact spot you had in mind that 'Old Slew Foot' crossed Juniper, also the point • that you had in mind where he crossed Salt Spring Run. 10 The tendency to seek a geographic reality on the part of her readers took on such force that the Cross Creek Big Scrub became known as Yearling Country, Cracker Country, etc. One reader v/rote requesting exact directions: "Would you be kind enough to tell me liow, by train, I would get to the enchanting Cracker Country?" Another reader located the Cross Creek area not by the characters in The Yearling, but by the animals: "To Mrs. Rawlings a 1944. ^°To M. K. R. from H. L. Nevin, May 26, I9.?8. To M. K. R. fro.Ti Robert Corlis, Scplembov 50 S8 welcome to the land of Slewfoct which The Yearling has inimortalized in our hearts." " One service person wrote in 1944: I have enjoy [sic] oh so very much your book on the Yearling Country. Most of us boys away from home feel the same. Give us more, we do appreciate them, its like a peek at the real thing. ^^ The reality perceived was sustained in part by the readers' ability to locate literally the geographic parameters. Anne Brennon in a June 14, 1941 letter com- mented on this geographic reality: "The story took us to Florida ... it made us feel that we were right there with Flag and Jody and Penny Baxter." Other readers ex- tended this reality and commented upon Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' ability "to immortalize the Florida Country."" These, then, were a sampling of the responses from her readers indicative of their having perceived the reality which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had created. Other readers expressed an awareness that they had not only shared the reality as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had perceived it, but also that her perception was correct 1? "To M. K. R. from C. L. Alder son, January 3, 1939 ■'•■^To M. K. R. from Errol Hunt, October 12, 1.944. ''To M. K. R. from Eugenia Pilkington, July 13, 1942, in Phillip May Collection, file number 175. To M. K. R. from C. L. Alderson, January 3, 1939 8 9 acccrdiTig to their evaluation. A letter to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings from Betty Odgers tended to confirrn this sharing even to the point that there was confusion on Ms. Odgers' part over the author and the omniscient narrator of The Yearl ing: "I love your right v;ay of living. Your atten- tion to the real and important things."'^ This letter did not indicate Ms. Odgers had knowledge of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' habits beyond having read The Yearling. Joseph Grace assumed also that his perception of reality was correct and that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings concurred with him; however, he assumed also her ability must have been attained through "some girlish great sorrow in [her] young life in order [for her] to be able to see at a glance how other folks live both internally and exter- nally." Finally, another reader in a 1946 letter praised the author's "talent for making reality translucent." These, then, were several of the letters from her readers that indicated Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had indeed formulated a reality through which beauty had been communi- cated. 1943 194 b ^ To M. K. R. from Betty Odgers, August 50; ^''Tg M. K. R. from Joseph Grace, May 21, 1944. To M. K. R. from Mrs. Eugene Meyers, July 14, 90 Response lo Individual Elements of Marjorie Kinuaii Rawlin; Theory of Co ni pasTti^ Although the audience appeared to be responding to the created reality, it was in actuality responding to trie elements which constituted that reality. Reality v;as the result of the individual elements of Marjorie Kinnan Rawl- ings ' theory of composition, and each elem.ent contributed to the total reality through which beauty was achieved. Marjorie Kinnan Ra^^/lings' theory of composition has been defined in Chapter II as the means whereby the artist was able to create a sense of actuality by which to communicate beauty to the reader. Investigation of her papers revealed a pattern of responses to the various elements of her theory of composition. Response to the process of characterization The process of characterization was one element of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition by which she attempted to create a reality for the reader through which to convey her concept of beauty. Her readers tended to respond as though the characters were real, true -to -life people. For example, H. L. Nevin, a native of the area, attempted to display his powers of observa- tion Dy identifying those individuals whom Marjorie Kinnan Ra'wlings had supposedly copied: 91 Penny Baxter can only be one person . . , , that person happens to be Mel Lans who has hunted with us these many years. l8 Not only are the humans identified by her readers, but also the animals: The dog Julia, in our minds, must be 'Old Bess' who had her side torn somewhere on Juniper Creek and a patch of skin the size of one's hand was hanc^ing loose when Mel carried her into camp.^- Written in the m.argin of this letter was a brief denial by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Several other readers responded to the realistic portrayal of Jody, both expressing an awareness of the difficulty in recreating a real boy and citing amazement at a woman's ability to do so. In a copy of a letter that had been forwarded to her by the recipient was the follow- ing reaction: It is one of the most difficult tasks that she sets herself [Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings] to take you inside the very heart of that perfectly real little boy . . .-^ Another reader in the same vein added, "How any woman could depict a boy's mind and emotions as perfectly as you do is 0 1 beyond me."~ A January 28, 1940, letter mirrored tlie response of both: ^^To M. K. R. from H. L. Nevin, May 26, 1938. ■^To Rudolf Weaver from Grant Lafarge, May 24, 1933, foi^wavded to M. K. R. and in Rawlini^s Collection. ^^To M. K. R. from Ihubcrt Clark, October 21, 1958 92 Anyone can write about a child; few can do it with such depth and strength; few can capture the evanescent moment that you chose. ^^ If some readers did not try to explicitly name the person who had been copied for portrayal in The Yearling, they then felt Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had created a recognizable type of flesh and blood person, for as Laura Dix wrote to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings on May 17, 1945, "I feel I know each of those wonderfully drawn characters, especially the lovable splendid Penny and his equally lovable son." Other correspondents praised Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' "understanding of young people" and her ability to "live their lives with them.""" Several of her readers reacted to the emotion which, as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote in "Facts, Verses in Fiction," "the ivriter creates the characters to express Several viewed Ma Baxter in this light. Neil Phillips wrote: ^^ The Yearling in a few unrestrained strokes you give one of literature's great examples of pathetic frustration— the mother groping to share the intim.acy of the father and the boy and telling the pointless tale about refusing a dog because 'a hound dog sure will suck eggs. '24 'To M. K. R. from Donald Peattie ,■ January 2S, 1950 zo o M. K. R. from Lorretta Ryhill, March 26, 1956 To M. K. R. from Joseph Grace, May 21, 1944. ^To M. K. R. from Neil Phillips, April 29, 194S. 95 Another reader also responded to the emotion Ma Baxter represen.ted : ''Somehow so many of us are 'Ma Baxters,' Vie'd like to be in on the big brave things, but actually the black calico warms us just as much."" And finally to some of her readers the characters were so real, so true- to-life that they reacted to them as though they were living human beings. Some w-ept over the T 6 death of Fodderwing and later the killing of Flag." Others felt so strongly about the father and son that they wrote, "I can't decide whether I love Penny or Jody more," or "it was impossible to decide whether I liked father or son best. . . ." A second pattern within the process of charac- terization that emerged was the tendency on the part of the readers to respond to the function of the characters both as the particular and as the universal. For Felix Schelling, the parameters of The Yearling were extended because of this universality, ". . . for it is so much more than a story in its insight into common human nature." imately 1945 26 To M. K. R. from Perry Potter, undated, approx- To M. K. R. from Laura Dix, May 17, 1945. "^To M. K. R. from Bea H. , April 28, 1939. To M. K. R. from Ralph Prouty, August 9. 19 11. ^^To M. K. R. from Felix Schelling, May 27, ig-iS. 94 A letter from N. C. IVyeth suggested that the basis of The L~JLlliM!A ^'i^s appeal was the functioning of the charac- ters as not only the individual but also the universal. It is happy augury, I think, that we have all as a family enjoyed vour sto-^-y deeply and mostly I think because the larger contours of romance so imnressively transcend locality and become superblv universal in appeal. 29 Others reacted as did Wyeth, for The Y8arling_ through its universality had appealed to all ages. Donald Peattie wrote of the reaction of his two sons as he had read the novel to them: Congratulations! I was interested in the way the younger one was able to endure the death of Flag and the v^av the elder listened to Penny's last words to Jody. Your success was complete with all three of us. 30 Esther Forbes commented also on the universal element in her August 13, 195S, letter: "I think one of the reasons it is so beloved is that it is one of the few recent books that appeals to the entire family." Another respondent referred to The Yearling as "truly great literature ... a minor American classic. "^^ Agnes Hclmquest categorized the novel as ". . .in the 29 To M. K. R. from N. C. Wyeth, January 13, 1939. ...,.,, '° '■^- ^- ^- f-'''-'^^ Donald C. Peattie, January ^8 -""To M. K. R. from Ralph Prouty, August 9, 1944. 95 characters air.ong the most famous in literature. I keep my own sacred 'hall of fame' of my favorite literary characters. I include Jean Valjean, Huck Finn, etc. Among my favorites are your ^ two charac- ters Penny and Jody Baxter. ^^ Tiie ability to transcend time limitations, to affect and appeal to people in a later time, was the focus of a 1943 letter. It must make you happy to realize that all over the world, perhaps for centuries of time, you may be affecting people's lives. 34 So, then, did readers react to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' attempt to achieve the universal through general- ization of the particular by typifying those human emotions common to all people in all ages within a chosen character. A final letter from a thirteen-year-old boy who related directly to the story was indicative of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' degree of success. I always thought that Daddy liked the girls better than I. I suppose I didn't pay as much attention to Dad as the girls. When I began to read this book The Yearling of deep love between Penny and' Jody, father and son [sic]. ■^"To .M. K. R. from Agnes Ilolmquest, July 22, 1958, ^■^To M. K. R. from Ralph Prouty, August 9, 1944. ■^''to M. K. R. from Letty Odgcrs, Auv.ust 30, 1943. 96 He worked with his father and made over him. I think this book will start a^_ better love betv/een my father and I.^^ A third pattern of responses within the process of characterization tliat emerged was reaction to the characters functioning as cohesive units. As explained in Chapter II, the totality of character is achieved by the cohesiveness of action and plausibility of motivation; in other words, the characters do nothing in contradiction of their roles. Several letters addressed the unity of the novel by stressing the "perfection" they found ^^fithin it. Two readers responded to the author's ability in depicting "the mind and emotions as perfectly" as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had accomplished and also to her ability in taking "you inside the very heart of that perfectly real little boy." Another addressed the total harmony, for she wrote, "The whole thing seems quite perfect and I think you must be happy about it yourself.""^' Perhaps, though, the letter To }[. K. R. from Frank Kelly, January 29, 1939. To M. K. R. from Hubert Clark, October 21, 1938. To Rudolf iveaver from Grant Lafarge, May 24, 1938, forwarded to M. K. R. and in Rawlings Collection. To M. K. R. from Esther Forbes Hoskins, July 14, .938 ^^To M. K. R. frovTi Bea H., April 28, 1939 97 from ilariorie Douglas more succinctly expressed the unity she found within the novel: "It is ... so beautifully unified and sustained . "■^'" This harmony and unity resulted from adequate delineation of and reinforcement of character and it was to these that Hamilton Holt addressed his letter of 1958. . . . moved me so . . . I have never read such art in character delineation. You have made the characters speak for themselves and have never acted the part of the Greek Chorus in explaining them. How you entered into the heart of those people whose exteriors must be alien to you is . . . evidence of your genius. -^^ Perhaps the unity and the totality of the whole was best expressed by Robert Herrick, for he perceived The Yearling as "all of a piece — people, background, animals, woods, flowers, everything" all functioning as a cohesive unit. Thus did her readers respond not only to universality and true-to-life depiction, but also to unity within the process of characterization. Response to facts and details A second element of Marjorie Kinnan Fvawlings' theory of composition to which her readers responded was TO To M. K. R. from Marjorie Douglas, August 29, 1938. •^^To M. K. R. from Hamilton Holt, May 14, 1938. "^'Ho M. ;(. R. from Robert Herrick, May 14, 193S 98 the use of facrs and details to achieve a sense of reality by which the effect of beauty was accomplished. A letter from the president of a local hunt club was attested to her accuracy of detail: "I congratulate you on your splendid descriptions of not only the Juniper County but your marvelous descriptive power of bear and deer hunt- ing." Her pleasure in receiving this letter ^^fas mani- fest in her reply: I trembled in my boots for fear the old guard hunters would find too many flaws. I'd rather please the people who kno^v that life and section than all NY Cities rolled together. 42 Not only did the old guard respond to this accuracy, but also a zoologist from the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cam>bridge, Massachusetts, as well as a nationally known naturalist. Hubert Clark, the zoologist, wrote: As a former boy and as a zoologist I take off my hat to you ... I am amazed at the accuracy of your natural history . . . Not once in reading The Yearling have I detected a careless or inaccurate statem.ent. Yet your descriptions of scenery, vegetation, animal life and a boy's reactions to them are simply de- lightful. 43 "^■"■To M. K. R. from H. L. Nevin, May 26, 193S. "To H. L. Nevin from M, K. R., May 30, 1958, copy in Rawlings Collection. '^^To M. K. R. from Hubert Clark, October 21, 1938. 99 The naturalist too added his ccngratLilations for accuracy of fact and detail: I might add, since it is in my line . . . few can stand up to Nature as you do. Fevv can look at it as it is. People play with its prettiness; they paint its colors, they read in it something that is not writ- ten there. You are a minute observer of Nature. . . . '• "^ Several other readers com.mented on the pleasure received from, "such a wealth of intimate detail" and the knowledge gained, for as one reader wrote, "I never had an idea what flowering Dogwood or Hemlock pines were like until reading 45 The Yearling." Thus did readers respond to the botanical details of the Florida Scrub, the agricultural information perti- nent to farming, the data important to the day-to-day existence, and the folklore that pervaded the lives of Florida Crackers; in other words, those facts and details Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings utilized to infuse her writing with a sense of reality. Response to objectivity;; A third element of Marjoris Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition t:> which her readers responded was To M. K. R. from Donald Per.ttie, January 2S, 1940. ^^To Rufolf Weaver from Grant Lafarge, May 24, l9^'/i, forwarded to .M, K. R. and in Rawlings Collection. To M. K. R. from Sigrid Undset, Jinuary 19, 1942 100 the techniqii? of objectivity. Earliex", objectivity was defined as that quality within a literary work that may be understood as being independent from the emotional or personal sentiments of the author. Perhaps the letter Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings received in 1938 most parallels the reader reaction with the definition when it praised 46 the author for never becoming '"sappy." However, in a wore literary fashion, Hamilton Holt, the President of Rollins College in Florida, com.pli- mented Marjorie Kinnan Raivlings for "the art of creating subjective characters by objective descriptions."'^'' One reader wrote of her as "a conscientious reporter, under- standing, wise, and brave" i\[hom, another reader, found, gave a wealth of essentials but was never "obstrusive . " ^ So then did readers respond to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' attempt to achieve objectivity in order to create a sense of actuality with which to communicate beauty to the reader. 193S 940, ^^To ^[. K. R. from Esther Forbes Hoskins, July 14 '" To M. K. R. from Hamilton Holt, July 1, 1938 48 To M. K. R. from Donald Peattie, January 28, To Rudolf Weaver from Grant Lafarge, May 24, 1938, forwarded to M. K. R. and in Rawlings^Collect ion ICl Response to simplicity A fourth eleiTient of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition to which her readers reacted was simplicity, for she attempted an uncluttered, simple, writing style \v'hich v\ras determined by her goal of reality. To this simple style her readers responded, some in an explicit manner, others more subtlely. A service person in a Quebec hospital sometime during World Ivar II addressed the simplicity of language directly in his undated letter. People like you who write so simply, so close to the little people mean a great deal to people like us who live so close to the edge — we never know just what's over the edge. 49 However, others were less explicit and a pattern of lan- guage emerged in which a number of letters referred to the simple people, the simple life, the simple background. This letter from Ralph Prouty exemplified the response: The grand thing is they are not spec- tacular persons who flash across the pages of literature like a comet, but plain, simple people. Simple they may be, but they are undoubtedly great. 50 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings advocated use of short, almost blunt sentences if she were not to lose reality. On reader remarked that her language in The Yearling had '^^To M. K. R. from Perry Potter, undated. ^^To M. K. R. from Ralph Prouty, August 9, 194. 102 the attributes of a prov'erb — that is, a short pithy saying express irjg a truth or fact — for, as he wrote, "many words and sentences have become proverbial in our daily conver- sations." Such was typical of the response of her reader- ship to the simplicity that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had utilized in her attempt to communicate reality. Conclusion Thus, the response of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' readers focused on the effect of beauty. However, beauty was communicated to the audience because they had perceived the reality Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had produced, and it ;vas from this created sense of reality that she was then able to effect in the reader the sense of beauty. The audience reaction to the created reality was reaction to the individual elements of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition. Therefore, the response of her general readership to these individual elements of characterization, facts and details, and methodology, each contributed to the total response of the audience to the composition, that is, a response of beauty as perceived through these elements . CHAPTER FOUR RESPONSE FROM PROFESSIONAL READERSHIP Another source of information about reader response was Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' professional readership. Just as the letters of individuals served as an index of effectiveness, so likewise did the reviews by professional critics, who, through their experience with the craft and their knowledge of the genre, functioned as a valuable body of receivers. Tompkins, who also found this segment of the audience vital to rhetorical analysis, argued that though this "sizable important body of receivers who debrief themselves voluntarily" are . . . atypical of the average man audience . . . , on the basis of the two- step flow of communication and influence, their very eminence, their atypicality, makes them even more useful in rhetorical analysis some ei is . . . They do, after all, have ffect on other receivers.^ Carpenter, in his study on the effectiveness of style, utilized fully the file o[' newspaper and periodical reaction Phillip Tompkins, "The Rhetorical Criticism of Non-Oratorical Works," Quarterly Journal of Si)eech, 5S (December, 1969), 438. 103 104 in the Alfred Thayer Mahan Collection in the Library o£ 7 Congress as a part of his investigation." In "The Rhetor- ical Criticism of Non-Oratorical Works ," Tompkins cited several other investigations of non-oratorical art forms in which the approach of debriefing critics was both valid and fruitful . "^ The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection contains a substantial number of clippings housed in six large scrapbooks. These newspaper and periodical clippings \vere acquired from three sources: (1) the estate of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, (2) a compilation of clippings by Grace I. Kinnan and V/ilmer Kinnan, and (3) a compilation of reviews by Pat Smith, Director of Public Information at the University of Mississippi [although the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection provided no reason for this compilation or for tPie forwarding of these reviews by "Ronald Carpenter, "Alfred Thayer Mahan 's Style on Sea Power: A Paramessage Conducing to Ethos," Speech Monographs , 4 2 (August, 197 5), 192. William Jordan, "A Study of Rhetorical Criticism in the Modern Novel," Debut Paper, SAA Convention, 1967. Phillip Tomokins, "In Cold Fact," Esquire, 65 (June, 1966), 125-127, 166-171. Patricia Weygandt, "A Rhetorical Criticism of of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." 'Jnpublished paper, 1969, Kent State University. Pat Sir.ith). The reviev;s and clippings from the Marjorie Kinnan FlaKlJags estate arc, in themselves, quite compre- hensive, for Sci ibner ' 5 had forwarded to her from its clipping services reviews pertaining to the publication of The Yearling. A survey of other periodicals of the period revealed that the Collection contained most of the reviews which the book provoked. All reviews and critical articles in the Collection related to The Yearling were examined; but the primary area of investigation covered the year of publication, 1938. Since few reviews extended beyond the fev\r months following publication, and successive reviews were often merely re- issues of previous ones, this period was considered most crucial. The newspaper and periodical files proved to be a generous sample of that important body of receivers who [according to Tompkins] "reveal their perceptions and value judgments of the art form under analysis." In the main these responses were positive, and although Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had provided an explanation of the paucity of 4 Scrapbooks; two leatherbound volumes compiled by Grace I. Kinnan and Wilmer Kinnan in the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection, University of F-'lorida Library. Scrapbooks; four volumes compiled by Pat Smith, Director of Public Information at University of Mississippi Rawlinys Collection, University of Florida Library. Clippings and newspaper materials, Rawlings Col- lection, University of Florida Library. Tompl'.ins. "The Rhetorical Criticism," p. •l.'S8. 106 negative response on the part of her general readership, no such explanation v,as either offered or suggested for the dearth of negative criticism from her professional readers. Perhaps the prepublication announcement of a volume having been chosen the Book -of -the -Month Club selection was, in the late 1930' s, a type of literary intimidation. Nevertheless, the extensiveness of the newspaper and clipping file including not only the col- lection of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, her publisher and relatives, but also a voluminous compilation by the information officer at the University of Mississippi argued against the possibility of the deletion of negative criticism. Using the same criteria previously applied to the letters of the general readership, only those articles dealing specifically with areas of composition, or which indicated or implied relationship to language manipula- tion were utilized. Articles meeting these criteria were then catalogued to indicate recurring patterns. Thus, by analysis of the response of her professional readership through their reviev/s of The Yearling, as by the analysis of the response of her general readership in the preceding chapter, this chapter will attempt to establish other dimensions of the causal relationship between technique and effect. 107 Professional Readership Response to Effect of Beautv In the summer of 193S, a reviewer wrote this of The Yearling: "The greatness of the book lies in its striking evocation of beauty." A thorough investigation of Marjorie Kinnan Rav.-lings' papers (as accomplished in Chapter Two) had revealed that her concept of beauty was the effect she attempted to comiaunicate to her audience. This review vvras just one of a number of professional articles that acknowledged that effect, thereby cor- roborating the responses of the general readership. Though the quality of beauty is both nebulous and subjec- tive, the utilization of the term by this and other pro- fessional readers seemed consistent. One professional reviewer was most articulate in expressing the resultant effect of beauty. In a newspaper article entitled, "Novel is Characterized by Beauty and Reality," Carl Roberts elaborated : One other thing incessantly forced its way into our minds — beauty. The word as applied to this story is not a static or une.xplainable thing, for you will find it wherever you go with Penny and Jody. It is alive ... It shows itself in tranquility in Jody's favorite haunts and Halfcrd Luccock, "Through the Novelist's Window," Yale Divinity School, Christendom, Summer, 193S, in scrap- books, Marjorie Kinnan"Rawlings Collection, University of Florida Librarv. 108 the ver>- life of Jody ' s little friend . . . There is quiet beauty in Penny's philosophy, spiritual beauty ... in Penny's prayers . . . beautiful things. 7 This was among the first reviews, for it was written only a few days after the novel's publication date of April 1, 1938. This reviewer's involvement with the beauty communicated through Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' novel was by no m.eans unique, however, for other reviewers also immediately focused on this effect. Richard Daniel used a vocabulary similar so that by which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had defined beauty. It is Mrs. Rawlings' spiritual mystic insight into the unseen life in the forests and streams that lifts her book to new heights . . . She has found beauty in our backwoods and has preserved it for future generations to enjoy. ^ Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had included the spiritual heightening as a response to beauty, "an emotional reaction to an extent that we are conscious of a spiritual excite- 9 ment." Also focusing heavily on the spiritual quality of beauty, another reviewer in Vermont reacted to The Yearling as capturing a "spiritual quality," for. ' Dayton Ohio News , April 3, 1938. (Hereafter, unless otherwise stipulated, all references are from newspaper clippings from unnumbered scrapbooks in the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection, University of Florida Library.] Jacksonville Florida Times Union, April 3, 1938. -'M. K. P., ''Lecture Notes on Creative Writing," Rawlings Collection, University of Florida Library. 09 above and beyond the breathless beauty of its physical background and the stir- ring scenes m which the tale abounds, there is a spiritual meaning which gives the v\:hole narrative a special quality » and makes reading it a unique experience. So although they may have been using terminology with con- siderable potential for ambiguity, several reviewers even used some of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' own adjectives. Eleanor Follin praised both the spiritual and dramatic qualities in her 1958 newspaper article: "In The Year] ing one finds a spiritual quality which can never be forgotten, drama, conflict, tragedy, humor, and beauty."'^''" Follin was not the only critic to react to the dramatic aspect of beauty. Paul Oehser granted the novel "great beauty and dramatic process"; and Govan repeated the re- action of several of the general readership, stating that it was "a picture so dramatic, so utterly beautiful and sympathetic as to move one to tears." Continuing to address the dramatic quality of beauty, Wagner envisioned the book "mounting to its height of tragic beauty"; how- ever, Hoult best expressed the dramatic quality of beauty in the April 1, 1938 review. Eurlington Vermont Xews , April 9 , 1 9 5 S . Winston Salem North Carolina Journal and Sentinel April 10, 1TI5T •Was hi Source unknown, April 10, 1958. ^^Washington, D.C. Post, April 17, 1938 110 But she has done more; she has taken us into a Floi'ida swamp, created human beings, made the struggle of the Baxters for a bare living as dramatic as good theater and invested the whole drama with a sense of true values and beauty which is rare for drama to give. 13 Thus did several critics react to the dramatic quality of beauty within her novel. While citing beauty as the major effect, other pro- fessional readers liberally utilized the term throughout their reviev/s. Groverman Blake found the story "movingly [sic] v/ith freshness and beauty"; whereas another found The Yearling "recaptures the beauty which marked her first story"; while others reviewed the novel as "filled ^'/ith the wonder and beauty of nature." Additional examples of this reaction were Gladys Solomon who wrote of the novel as "tender and beautiful" or the Atlanta Journal^ reviewer xvho claimed Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had "discovered beauty" or as several wrote quite simply, the novel was "beautiful." From these responses and reactions of her -'••^New York Mirror, April 3, 1938. New York Sun, approxim.ately April 1, 1938. 14 Cincinnati Ohio Times Star, April 6, 1938. Star tVashington, D.C. , April 3, 1938. IVinston-Salem North Carolina Journal and Sentinel April 10, 1933 15 xNew Haven Connecticut Register, April 10, 1958, Atlanta Georgia Journal, April 10, 1938. Source vsnknown, April 10, 1933. Yale Divinity School, Christendom, Summer, 193i Ill professional readership, as well as those from her general readership as documented in Chapter Three, it is obvious that beauty had been corp.niunicated to these readers, for beauty, though an omnibus term, had been discussed by both sets of readers in a manner consonant with Marjorie Kinnan Rowlings' formulated goal. Responses Based Upon Perception of Reality As a reviewer in the Chicago Journal Commerce wrote, "There is a beauty of absolute truth in this fine story . . . This idyll of the wilderness is completely beautiful and real." In so writing this critic had addressed that which was expressed earlier in Chapter Two, for in order that the reader see beauty as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had seen it, the author must formulate a reality for those forms of beauty which had stirred her and through this reality share that beauty with her reader. Through this created reality, she was then able to transmit to the reader a sense of beauty; i.e., beauty is the communicated effect and perception of reality a moans to express it. This reality was not simple fidelity to actuality as in newspaper reporting, but verisimilitude, or as she defined it, "the sense is the imaginative Chicago Journal Commerc e, ^prii 9, 195 'J 112 av/areness of actu;.l ir^. "^ ' Like those previously noted from the general readership, the response from critics and reviewers indicative of their having perceived this created reality was ample. Critics reacted immediately to the "quality of verisimilitude," that is, the sense, of actuality. In reviewing The Yearling as "a real piece of life,""^^ a Washington, B.C. critic's response was quite similar to the reviewer who wrote, "the problems they face are real . . . [for] The Yearling emerges as an impressively true picture of a life that is hard."^^ Others wrote with an indication of their awareness of the use of verisimili- tude; Carl Robers wrote that the novel takes the reader to the 'Hammock' country of inland Florida. And that expression is not an idle one . . . you will actually live with them in the year of their lives which the story describes . ^0 Butcher addressed also the sense of reality for she wrote ^'- K. R. , "Facts, Verses, in Fiction." Notes -n Rawlmgs Collection, University of Florida Library. IS New York Sun, April 1, 19 53. 19e. ,. , - b.-ar 'vasnmgton, Dj^^ , April 3 , 1938. Ne^-vv Orleans Times Picayune, April 10, 1958. Djrv-ton Ohio News, April 5, 1958. ] 13 "one rarely meets people as simple and real as those on the primitive pine island vvhere its cliaracters live their ''1 lives."" These critics, as did the general readership, indicated by their response an awareness of the sense of reality that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was trying to create . Another group of critics, in a manner similar to that of the general readership, addressed not only the reality, but also the truth or honesty of her novel as a part of that reality, thereby seeming to equate and define the two conditions as one, Marjorie Kinnan Ravv'lings was defined as an "honest writer," for she "invested the whole drama with a sense of true values. "-" To others, the reality was heightened because the volume had "veracity' and "rings true at every point. """^ Two other critics viewed the created reality as a realistic study, perhaps perceiving Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' writings almost as anthropological, like Margaret "^Chicago Tribune, April 9, 1938. ^^New York Post, Juno 10, 1938. New York Sun, April 1, 1958. ^•^Ncw York World Telegram, April 1, 1938. Horschel Brickell, "Books on Our Tabic, Marjorie mnan Rawlinjis' Fine Novel," source unknown, undated. 114 Mead's works on Samoa. Gladys Solomon cited the volume as "an excellent study of those people"; likewise, another critic conimented that "what results is a superbly realis- tic study . . ."" Though these professional reviewers did not seek the literal geographic location of the novel as had several of the general readership, both groups were parallel in their reactions. Such opinion on the part of her reviewers that the novel was in part nonfic- tion attested further to her success in achieving her goal, for they had indeed responded to the reality she had created. Altogether, these responses and reactions from both the critics and the general readership indicated that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had formulated a reality through which beauty had been communicated. Response to Individual Elements of Marjorie Kinnan Rawling: Compos ition Although these professional readers appeared to be responding to the created reality, they were reacting as well to the elements of composition by which it was achieved. A thorough investigation of professional reader ship responses within the Collection revealed a pattern of reactions to the various elements of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition. 74 New Haven Connecticut Register , April 10, 1938. Toledo Ohio Blade, April 14, 1938. Response to the process of characteviza t i o n The process of characterization was one element of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition by which she attempted to create a reality for the reader by ;vhich beauty might be conveyed. A principle of character- ization to which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings adhered was that the characters were "true- to- life . " Although the characters in the novel may have som.e basis in observed reality, she felt that only by the infusion of the author's imagination could the characters achieve a sense of actuality, or verisimilitude, for the reader. Just as her general readership had attempted to identify those whom Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had sup- posedly copied, some of her professional readers similarly decided the resultant "true- to-1 ife" characters were "neighbors and friends she had studied with care and ^ 5 affection."" Several critics labeled the character por- trayals "valid," "convincing," "accurate," or "true"; and Charles Poor's column in the New York Times best summarized the "true- to- 1 ife" effect of the characteriza- tions : All the people come vigorously to life. Her sensitively written accounts of his inner life, his private forays in ^Record Philadelphia, April 2, 1938 116 the country, his feelings of despondency or elation when things go right or wrong are beautifully done . . . All her char- acters are true. 26 Poor's final statement was reflected in a substantial number of professional responses; two of these expressed the idea that "the people are real," and especially that 1 7 "his father and mother are real people."" Another pattern of professional response indicated that portrayals of "true- to-life" characters stemmed from the author's insight into human nature. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was reported as an author "who sees deeply into human hearts," thereby writing "a story everyone will 2 8 enjoy for its people are human. ..." In a review en- titled, "Graphic Characterization of People," another critic also addressed the ability of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to describe characters with accuracy and insight: 1958 . Madison Wisconsin Journal, April 17, 1938. San Diego Sun, April 17, 1958. Toledo Ohio Blade, April 14, 1958. '■) n '' ' New Orleans Times Picayune , April 10, 1958. Co_ld S prings New York News Re corder, April 14 7J3 ^ >'ew York Post, June 10, 1958. Fairfield California Republican, April 7, 1958 117 Mrs. Rav;l ings has described them with the art of a great writer. She has sworn vvhen they swore, cried vs'hen they cried, laughed and talked only as these people could. ^^9 Where her general readership had reacted on a inore personal level (identifying a local person, Mel Lang, as the charac- ter from whom she had copied Pa Baxter) and had established a more emotional relationship with the characters (being unable to decide whether they loved Penny or Jody more as well as weeping over the death of both Fodderwing and Flag) her professional readership had to a degree maintained a m.ore objective response to the characters. But to both these groups of readers, the characters in The Yearling were true- to-life . Another principle of characterization to which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings adhered was the portrayal of the major characters as representative of a fusion whereby the individual could function both as the particular and as the universal. A substantial number of her critics re- sponded to the universality of the characters. Though all re\;iewers were quite explicit in their reactions, Ruth Carter was most articulate: When a writer succeeds in making a sectional novel so universal that the people become man and women and young folks of all time, anywhere in the world 29 San Diego Sun, April 17, 1958. lis yet retain the flavoi- of their country, she has indeed transmuted words into art. This is what Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings has accomplished in The Yearling, a novel of the backwoods FloriHa region. oO Samuel Tupper found "almost every page sounds quite another note of universal recognition as Mrs. Rawlings touches the depths that lie below ordinary things." Extension of the time dimension as an element of universality was the focus of several critics. As men- tioned in Chapter One, iMarjorie Kinnan Rawlings saw herself as more than a regionalist writer. Halford Luccock de- scribed her novel as a "regional story . . . yet almost tim.eless and universal"; and affirming this critic, llerschel Brickell cited that "every line . . . lifts it out of the limitations of time and space into the higher realm of universal experience." " With reaction to the extension of the time param.eters, "t imelessness" became a common word in the reviews of The Yearling. The Toledo Blade called the novel "as timeless as the forests and Atlanta Georgia Georgian , April 10, 1938. •^^Atlanta Georgia Journal, April 10, 1938. 32 Yale Divinity School, Christendom, Summer, 1938 Brickell, "Books on Our Table." 119 swamps it describes," whereas the Nevv York Herald Tribune called it simply, "the old timeless story . """'■^ To many of the professional critics as to many of the general readership, Jody was the generative source of universality, "for he is Everyboy and so touches in Every- man those lost portals of recall through which reality 34 lingers but a moment and is gone forever." Several cited the novel as "a delicate picture of youth finding itself," "typical of all boys . . . [in] a universal springtime"; however, not just a joyous story, but also "the old time- less and oftimes tragic story of youth grown to m^aturity." That this was found to be the story of youth, personified through the character of Jody, vvas evidenced not only in the response of the general readers, but also in revieivs such as the following, which advised the public to "add Jody Baxter to your gallery of immortals, for he belongs with Huck Finn and all other real bovs." Another critic. •^•^Tolcdo Ohio Blade, April 14, 1938. New York Herald Tribune, April 5, 1938. •^^New York Mirror. April 3, 1938. Source unknown, April 10, 1938. Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal, April 10, 19 38. Cincinnati Times Star, April 0, 1938. New Haven Connecticut Register , April 10, 1938 120 Eleanor Foilin, also invested Jody with the universal qualities usually associated with other literary immor- tals, writing that he would "live forever in the hearts of all, as did Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.""^ A Connecticut critic added, "We are reminded at once of the Mark Twain boys, though the treatment is quieter and subtler at once."-^'^ The term, "classic," linking The Yearling with Kim, Green Mansions, Huckleberry Finn, and Tom Sawyer, uas a continuous thread throughout the reviews. Lois Bennett Davis' review in the Macon Georgia Telegraph summarized the reaction of the critics to the principle of universality for Jody functioned in the novel not only as a twelve-year-old Cracker boy, but also as a symbol of youth undergoing the rites of passage. The author has plumbed the depth of human misery and human need, but just as a Greek play leaves no place for wishful imagining so does this novel affirm the truth that life is Winston-Salem North Carolina Journal and Regis- ter, April 10, 1958. " — 193S New Haven Connecticut Journal Couri e r , April 7 , Providence Rhode Island Journal, April 3, 1958 New York World Telegram, April 1, 1958. Chicago Daily Tribune, December 3, 1938. New- York Herald Tribune Books, April 3, 1958. Book- of- the -Month Club News, March, 1938. 121 irrefutable, inexorable. Far more than a picture of life in inland Florida, ~ Jody's story touches the universal. 4o Thus, the reactions of the general readers and professional readers confirmed that the characters in The Yearling func- tioned on both the particular and universal levels. The final principles of characterization to vvhich Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings adhered was unity as achieved by the cohesiveness of action, integration of characters, relationship to background, and plausibility of motivation. Thus, the characters functioned in no v^/ay contradictory to their roles. Various critics addressed the cohesiveness of the total novel and suggested several reasons that the novel had been as one stated, "given unity." For ex- ample, Samuel Tupper suggested that although "one waits intensely for the destroying false note, this note is never sounded ..." for there is "no artificiality, nor self-conscious folklore." " Several critics affirmed that which her general readership had stated; for these cited unity as a function of the cohesive interaction of character with the environment, since Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings "created characters who wero . . . living men and 40 Macon Gcorsia Telegraph , Ai:» r i 1 1 , 1 9 3 S . 41 Charlotte North Carolina News, April 17, 1P3S 42 Atlanta Georgia Journal, April 10, 1938. 122 women whose relationship to their particular environment was credible and natural." "^ The Tampa Morning Tribune called this harmony "a vivid perfect picture of the people and the pine xvoods." Frarces IVcodward mirrored the response of the general readers in this review which addresses the total unity depicted in the character of Jody through cohesive- ness of action and plausibility of motivation. Her Jody Baxter lives, a person within the boundaries of his own years and his oivn world . . . Even a Thoreau cannot report on the world outdoors as a child might. The naturalist sees only those things which concern his informed eye. To a child the barn and the wood- shed are as much a part of the natural workable landscape as the lizard under the log. Mrs. Rawlings has done a small miracle in that she knows this . . . she never once steps out of Jody's person- ality . . . She has captured a child's time sense in which everything lasts forever and the change of season takes him always unaware. "^^ Another reviewer confirmed Vvoodward's review of the total unity and harmony in characterization, for to this critic the people, the problems they face and the background "all are naturally intertwined . . ., the denouement is ^•^Star V;ashington, D.C., April 3, 1938 'Tampa Morning Tribune, May 20, 1938. The Atlantic, undated, 123 fitting, his return is as natuial as his running a'-vay. There is nothing iir.plausible about the whole bock." By these patterns of response, the professional readership reflected agreement with the general readership that Mar- jorie Kinnan Rawlings had communicated not only true-to- life depiction and universality, but also unity within the process of characterization. Response to facts and details A second element of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition was her use of facts and details within the novel to communicate a sense of reality. Like her general readership, Rawlings' professional readers also responded favorably and commented on the accuracy of her descriptive powers. To her critics, the wealth of facts and detail, though substantial, never bogged down the novel but instead was an aspect of sustaining it. As one critic put it, "Mrs. Rawlings has written a fine poignant story . . . grounded on uncncyclopediac [sic] yet never merely academic knowledge of their way of life." Similarly emphasizing how Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' details maintain the story, another critic wrote New Orleans umes ticayunc, April 10, 195S. New Haven Connecticut Journal Courier, April 7 ]958. 124 that, "It gets effects without [the details seeming to become mere] documentation"; for as still another critic explained : . . , detail is piled upon detail and incident upon incident with such cumulative purpose, that the reader knows the feel and sound of the country and identifies his experience with that of the Baxters. . . .^^ In his article entitled, "The Yearling is Refreshingly Pungent and Detailed," Charles Niles summarized several critics' perceptions concerning the heightened qualities accomplished by use of details: Nothing has escaped the author in her endlessly detailed picture, whether it be the whirring of frightened birds or the picturesque fluttermill. The same detail might seem wearisome reading at first, like tramping down tall grass to find clover, but The Yearling grows on one and the pungency . . . creates an impression that will not soon be erased from the memory. ^^^ To the majority of her critics, then, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' facts and details were not merely a parade of inf orm.ation , but a vital aspect of the novel. The range of both the professional and general readers' reaction to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' use of facts and details was similar. Like one segment of her '' 8 The _ A_ t If |Jilic__ _g o okshelf , undated. Macon Georgia Telegram, April 1, 19 38. ^^Hartford Connecticut Times, Auril 9, 1958 125 general readership, several critics seenied almost surprised by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' ability to use facts and de- tails. For example, "Mrs. Rawlings seems to knov; the country with amazing thoroughness," and she has "a rare gift for picturing animal life." One critic referred to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' ability as "a natural gift," adding that she had knowledge of "the intimate affairs of Florida wildlife."^" Just as within the general readership wherein both a zoologist and a naturalist re- acted to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings as a skilled, scientific professional observer of her environment, so too did a segment of her professional readership. That which had been referred to by some as "feeling" was to others "skill,' and that which had to some seemed "a gift" was seen by those critics as "result of keen observations . "~''' Within this scientific framework the novel was praised for the "obvious accuracy of its detail" from an author who "observes meticulously" and therefore, "the background is ^^New York Times, April 1, 1938. Yale Divinity School, Christendom, Summer, 195S. Source unknown, April 10, 1938. Chicago Journal Commerce, April 9, 19 38. Cincinnati Enquirer, April 7, 1938. 126 faithfully recreated." '^ Much of the focus on this metiiod of observation v.'as concerned with Marjorie Kinnan Rav/lings' emphasis on precise detail. One critic referred to the "close observation" or "candid camera" focus on "detail"; this critic also noted the "intimate description of Pa 54 Baxter's snakebite."" Response to objectivity A third element of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition to which her professional readers responded was the technique of objectivity. In Chapter Two, objectivity had been defined as that effect evinced by a literary work when the writing is understood as being independent from the emotional or personal senti- ments of the author. A large segment of her professional readers responded to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' objectivity. That her novel "never slips into sentimentality" ^ v of Florida Library. 144 He thou;jht stubbornly, "I'll build me another. " He cut t\/igs for the supports, and the roller tc turn across them, from the wild cherry tree. He whittled feverishly. He cut strips from a palmetto frond and made his paddles. He sunk the up-rights in the stream bed and set the paddles turning. Up, ov-er, dovm. The flutter-mill was turn- ing. The silver v/ater dripped. But it was only palmetto strips brushing the water. There was no magic in the motion. The flutter-mill had lost its comfort. He said, "Play-dolly " He kicked it apart with one foot. The broken bits floated down the creek. He threw liimself on the ground and sobbed bitterly. There vr^as no comfort anyxvhere. There was Penny. A wave of homesickness washed over him so that it was suddenly in- tolerable not to see him. The sound of his father's voice was a necessity. He longed for the sight of his stooped shoulders as he had never, in the sharpest of his hunger, longed for food. He clambered to his feet and up the bank and began to run down the road to the clearing, crying as he ran. His father might not be there. He might be dead. With the crops ruined, and his son gone, he might have packed up in despair and moved away and he would never find him. He sobbed, "Pa— Wait for me." The comments of this reviewer concerning unity were, in part, based upon the above passage. Another compositional element by v;hich Marjorie Kinnan Raw! ings influenced her readership was that of facts "^Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearlin; 14S and details; for as one critic noted, "Nothing has escaped the author in her endlessly detailed picture. . . ." One re\^ie'.%'er wrote how he was influenced by the use of facts and details in the narration of Penny's snakebite. Penny stopped short. There was a stir- ring ahead. A doe-deer leaped to her feet. Penny drevsr a deep breath, as though breath- ing were for some reason easier. He lifted his shotgun and leveled it at the head. It flashed over Jody's mind that his father had gone mad. This was no moment to stop for game. Penny fired. The doe turned a somersault and dropped to the sand and kicked a little and lay still. Penny ran to the body and drew his knife from its scabbard. Now Jody knew his father was insane. Penny did not cut the throat, but flashed into the belly. He laid the car- cass wide open. The pulse still throbbed in the heart. Penny slashed out the liver. Kneeling, he changed his knife to his left hand. He turned his right arm and stared against the twin punctures. They v/ere now closed. The forearm was thick-swollen and blackening. The sweat stood out on his forehead. He cut quickly across the wound. A dark blood gushed and he pressed the warm liver against the incision. He said in a hushed voice, "I kin feel it draw " He pressed harder. He took the meat away and looked at it. It was a venomous green. He turned it and applied the fresh side. He said, "Cut mc out a piece o' the heart . " Jody jumped from his paralysis. He fum- bled with the knife. He hacked away a por- t ion. 14 Hartford Connecticut Times, April 9, 1938, in Rawliagi~ir6TIectxon, Trrriversity of Florida Library 146 Pennv said, "Another." He changed the application again and again. He said, "Hand me the knife." He cut a higher gash in his arm where the dark swelling rose the thickest. Jody cried out. "Pa! You'll bleed to death!" "I'd ruther bleed to death than swell. I seed a man die " • The sweat poured down his cheeks. "Do it hurt bad, Pa?" "Like a hot knife was buried to the shoulder . "15 It was the above-cited passage to which the reviewer re- ferred when complimenting and reacting to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' use of facts and details. As previously explained, perhaps the concern of the critics with facets of style was a function of their professional involvement with the craft, for they responded incisively to her use of objectivity, dialect, and sim- plicity. V/hile working on The Yearling, in 1956, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had v/ritten to her editor at Scribner's, Maxwell Evart Perkins, that though the story of the novel "may sound sentimental ... I shall be careful never to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling, pp. 146- 147. 147 sentimentalize." In a later letter to Maxwell Perkins, continuing to refine her concept of objectivity, she added that she hoped to "visualir.e people . . . almost you might 1 7 say v^ith divine detachment." The reaction of her critics to this objectivity attested to her achievement of this goal, for they addressed not only "iier fine sense of de- tachment," but also the fact that she "never slips into 1 8 sentimentality." As an example of the reaction to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' use of dialect, one critic wrote "the dialect . . . is so simple here it becomes the only natural means of expression." Simplicity, the third facet of her con- cept of style and last element of her theory of composi- tion, proved successful, for as one critic wrote, the quality and beauty of the novel come "out of the simplest To Maxwell Evart Perkins from M. K. R., undated, approximately October, 1936, in Rawlings Collection, Uni- versity of Florida Library. ^ To Maxwell Evart Perkins from M. K. R. , Febru- ary 11, 1934, in Rawlings Collection, University of Florida Library , ^^Xew York Herald Tribune Books, April 3, 193S, in Rawl ings CoTTection,~lJnivers ity of Florida Library. Herschel Brickell, "Books on Our Table, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' Fine Novel," source unknown, undated, in Rawlings Collection, University of Florida Library. 1 9 Chicago Journal Commerce, April 9, 1938, in Rawlings Collection, UnTverslty ot Florida Library. 148 and most fundamental material,'' or as another explicitly stated, "the hoeing of cow pea5, the excitement of the hunt, the feel of spring in the air."" Similarly, several reactions emphasized "the utmost simplicity of style and structure," for as one critic observed , "The effect is achieved not so much by the plot of the book as by the 21 author's simple but beautiful prose. . . ." Thus did these professional critics substantiate the success of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' implementation of her theory of composition. Precisely v\'hich passages in The Yearling did the professional and general readers have in mind when respond- ing to the various elements of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' theory of composition? Perhaps a passage which had been referred to by some readers can be illustrative of several of these elements, especially the modes of expression: objectivity, simplicity, and dialect. In the following selection from a closing chapter of the novel, a year has passed since the boy, Jody, built his flutter-mill at the New York Sun, approximately April 1, 1938, in Ra\vlings Collection, University of Florida Library. Cincinnati Ohio Times Star, April 6, 19 38, in Rav;lings Collection, University of Florida Library. New York Post, June 1, 1938, in Rawlings Col- lection, University ot "Florida Library. Untitled nev;spaper article. April 3, 1938, in Rawlings Collection, Universitv of Florida Library. 1*9 sprirxg. His pet deer, Flag, has grown to be a yearling and has, no matter what desperate measures Jody has taken to the contrary, partially destroyed the Baxters' young crop. To save the family from the threat of starvation, Ma Baxter has been forced to shoot the deer; but she has only wounded it and Jody now must complete the task. He turned on his father. "You went back on me. You told her to do it." He screeched so that his throat felt torn. "I hate you. I hope you die. I hope I never see you again." He ran after Flag, whimpering as he ran. Penny called, "He'p me, Ory. I cain't git up " Flag ran on three legs in pain and ter- ror. Twice he fell and Jody caught up to him. He shrieked, "Hit's me! Hit's me! Flag!" Flag thrashed to his feet and was off again. Blood flowed in a steady stream. The yearling made the edge of the sink- hole. He wavered an instant and toppled. He rolled down the side. Jody ran after him. Flag lay beside the pool. Fie opened great liquid eyes and turned them on the boy with a glazed look of wonder. Jody pressed the muzzle of the gun barrel at the back of the smootli neck and pulled the trigger. Flag quivered a moment and then lay still. Jody threw the gun aside and dropped flat on his stomach. He retched and vom- ited and retched again. He clawed into 150 the earth with his f ir.ger-nails . He beat it with his fists. The sinkhole rocked around him. A far rcr.ring became a thin humming. He sank into blackness as into a dark pool . 22 This was one excerpt froi.i The Yearling, typical of the work to v;hich the readers responded. Thus, according to those responses investigated, both her general and professional readers corroborated that Marjorie Rinnan Rawlings accom- plished her purpose as intended. Regionalism v;as the literary vehicle Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings chose for her novel, and in so doing, she responded rhetorically to what Bitzer would call an exigence, in accordance with the constraints of her per- sonal theory of communication. Regionalism, at that point in history, served as a response to a crisis; that is, the untenable situation of a population in the midst of society's ills during the Depression-— with the city as a symbol of those ills. Her writing had as its purpose the com.munication of the beauty which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings found in the Big Scrub country and its people, and by extension, of humanity in harmony with the environment. That Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' purpose v.-as effectively achieved has been borne out in this and previous chapters; that this purpose vvas rhetorical in nature is evidenced Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling, p. 410 151 by the successful accomplis'nment of the author's predeter nined goal. Perspective In achieving such effectiveness with language, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings seems to fulfill Kenneth Burke's concept of the rhetor as one \\?ho "used language in such a way," based upon her preset concept of effectiveness, "as to produce a desired impression," that being the 73 effect of beauty, "upon the hearer or reader."" For as Wayne Booth argued in The Rhetoric of Fiction, a novelist, whether realizing it or not, and therefore with suasory intent or not, performs a rhetorical function." Another Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings scholar addressed the merging of these two great modes of discourse, for to Bigelow, all attempts to discriminate between the literary and the rhetorical have been unsatisfactory. So, too, has Barnet Baskerville, speaking to the direction of rhetorical criti- cism, noted that: 2 ^ 'Kenneth Burke, C 0 un t e r - S t a t eme n t (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), p~.~2 6 5 . ^"^iv'ayne Booth, The Rhetoric oF Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19G1J , p. 14y . Gordon Bigelow, "Distinguishing Rhetoric from .f'oetic Discourse," in Contemporary Rhetoric, cd . Douglas .f-hninger (G)envicv/, 111 inois : Scott, Fb'resman and Co., 1972) , pp. 87-88. 152 This blurring o£ old distinctions, this extension of the terms 'rhetoric' and 'rhetorical,' has obvious iinplications for criticism. Where Wichelns once protested against the literary criticism of oratory, we now enthusiastically advocate the rhe- torical criticism of literature . 26 The present study into the rhetorical effectiveness of a novel, operating from the perspective advanced by Tompkins, pursued the functional as opposed to the structural approach, for it has been asking the functional question, "How do sender, message, and receiver interact in concrete, veri- 97 fiable ways?"" With few exceptions, according to Tomp- kins, rhetorical studies have tended to deal with the structural school of criticism, being interested mainly 7 8 in the text or message variables." However, this study, though concerned with the structure, x-zent beyond it and sought, "in addition, the im.pact of that structure upon 29 receivers." Only by accomplishing this can "we explicate a specific attempt to adjust ideas to people and people to Barnet Baskerville, "Rhetorical Criticism 1971: Retrospect, Prospect, Introspect," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 37 (Winter, 1971), 115. 27 Phillip Tompkins, "The Rhetorical Criticism of Non-Oratorical Works," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 55 (December, 1969), 438, tW. '' "^Ibid. , p. 438. 7Q -■'Ibid. , p. 439. 155 ideas. ""^' The very title of the Tonpkins article, "The Rhetorical Criticism of Non-Oratorical U'orks," was sug- gestive of the emerging body of research that advocated a rhetorical approach to literature. As Baskerville noted, this emerging rhetorical approach places "an emphasis upon the persuasive element in poetry [and other types of liter- ature] and upon the part played by the 'audience.'"'^ Earlier discussion elaborated upon the discourse of literary authors fitting the rhetorical paradigm of "a mode of altering reality," since literature often func- tions either as a reflection of or a reaction to a situa- tion, thereby providing the audience with the means to escape from or modify the exigence which generated the discourse, or to accept the influence of the exigence. " Ernest Bormann, in "Fantasy and Rhetoric Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality," provides insight into such rhetorical effectiveness of a novel. Though for the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' novel studied, the ultimate effect the author intended to communicate to ^"^Ibid. , p. 439 31 Baskerville, p. 115, ^^Lloyd Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation," in Contemporary Theories of Rhetoric: Selected Readings , edited by Richard Johanncsen (Tiow YorF: Harper and Row , 1971) , pp. 385-386. 33Ernest Bormann, "Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality," Quarterly Journal of Speech (December, 1972), 396-407. 154 the audience was beauty, her "cheor;/ of composition dictated that only by creation of a reality perceivable to the audience could this effect be attained. In speculating about this type of created reality, Bormann provided an account of how dramatizing communication or fantasy chains created social reality for groups of people. These fantasy chains consisted of characters-real or fictitious -play- ing out a dramatic situation in time and space, a situa- tion analogous to the characters in The Yearling. So, then, according to Bormann, through the novel or fantasy "one has entered a new realm of reality-a world of heroes, villains, saints, and enemies-a drama, a work of art."^^ Whether as individual reactions to works of art, small group reaction, or larger group reaction, these dramati- zations "serve to sustain the members' sense of community, to impel them strongly into action ... and to provide them with heroes, villains, emotions, and attitudes . "^^ As had been suggested, the novel to a degree provided its own reality for its audience and in so doing, a mode of altering reality, for as Bormann added, fantasy themes and rhetorical visions "help people transcend the everyday and provide meaning for an audience. "^^ Ibid. , p . 598 3 c "Ibid. , p. 3 98, ^^Ibid., p. 402, 155 Unfortunately, the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collec- tion was not a place in which to find extensive evidence of the extent to which people did alter their realit>-. To be sure, the Collection offers some indices of how the readers projected the themes of The Yearling to their own lives. In an August 1943 letter to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Betty Odgers related how "the shared loveli- ness of your book was an important bond in the adjustment of my life." Ms. Odgers added this was in part due to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' having written of the "right way of living [and of her] attention to the real and im- portant things." Another letter, undated, from one of her readers. Perry Potter, told of a young boy who, upon having the book read to him and yearning to exchange his world for that of Jody, said, "I wish I was him, oh I wish I was." Among readers who responded with emotion to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' work, Laura Dix wrote on May 17, 1945, "I wept over the passing of Jody's little Fodderwing and later Flag," One of those who found the simple way of life purported by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' novel admirable or worthy of emulation was Ralph Prouty who wrote August 9, 1944. His praise of her "plain simple people" included the comment, "simple they may be, but they are undoubtedly great." These examples sug- gest how the novel well may have provided "heroes, emotions and attitudes [which] help people transcend the everyday 156 and provide meaning for an audience."" But the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection could not be the most appropri- ate place to explicate Bormann's concept of the altering of reality, for that examination would have to investigate "how people who participated in this rhetorical vision related to one another," and correspondence in the Col- lection gave very little indication of such possible inter- 3 8 action. Moreover, for the reviewers, the solitary nature of their craft and the time element of their having written almost immediately preceding or following the publication of the book limited the interaction between them. However, Gordon Bigelov;, her biographer, did directly address the novel's effectiveness in altering reality and positing an alternate world view to the existing Depression. In a time of great social and economic stress, of moral confusion and uncertainty, her stories quietly reasserted a familiar American ethic . . . The pastoral vision in her books is of a world of natural beauty free from the stench and ugliness of modern cities. . . . -^^ On December 3, 1938, an article in the Chicago Daily Tribune stated that The Yearling as well as several other ^' Ibid. , pp. 398, 402. 38, Ibid. , p. 401. Gordon E. Bige University of Florida Press, 1964) , pp. 156, 157. "Gordon E. Bigelo^v, Frontier Eden (Gainesville 157 novels from 1938, " . . . have a certain staunch reality about them and at the same time 'have been escape literature in the sense they have lifted the reader out of his own life into scenes so exigent that they make him for- get his surroundings and their demands. Anotlier suggested that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings presented a more simple ivorld, a world that we had lost, for, . . . by choosing this locale, the author is abie to awaken the reader to the realization that American boys lost something charming and real when movies, cars, radios, and electricity replaced the crude pleasure giving contrivances of the pioneers. ^0 These were some of the responses that did offer some indi- cation of how readers accepted the world vieiNT of The Yearling as an alternate to the reality of their own existence . Thus, the characters in The Yearling did seem to have an impact for readers. Indeed, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings may well have typified the Flenry James quotation upon which the Wayne Booth book. The Rhetoric of Fiction, was based: "The author makes his readers just as he makes his characters." Moreover, she illustrates the rhetorical function of what Edwin Black has called a "Second Persona"; for in the auditor or respondent implied '^^Portland Maine Express, April 2, 1938 158 by a discourse such as TPie Yearling, there is "a model of what the rhetor would have his real auditor become.""^ Just as the author makes her readers, so too, according to Black, can the language of an ideology imply an auditor who might share that ideology; for "actual auditors look to the discourse they are attempting for cues that tell them hovv' they are to view the world, even beyond the ex- pressed concerns, the overt propositional sense of the 4 "* discourse." " So, then, may a discourse not only alter both the reader's perception and manner of apprehending the world, it may also provide, through implication, an image or character to be im.itated. This would be espe- cially valid for a discourse with a structure determined by a preset concept of effectiveness. Thus, we have seen how this investigation into the rhetorical effectiveness of a novel fits into the context of a broader scheme of rhetorical perspective that people such as Booth, Black, Bormann, and others are speculating about today. This study has attempted to illumine the rhetorical interaction of sender, message, and receiver, in which the author of a novel determined a method or theory of 41 Ed'.vin Black, "The Second Persona," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 56 (April, 1S7C), 113. '~ '^"Ibid. , p. 113. 159 composition predicated upon the effect she v.'ished to achieve. For purposes of this study, investigation was made into the individual theory and approach that v;as particular not only to this one author, but also this one work. The approach selected here will, therefore, not be universally applicable to all authors wishing to com- municate beauty. But, as indicated by this study, an author can and does formulate a theory of language effec- tiveness dependent not upon arbitrary choice but instead designated by the particular reaction desired. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is the epitome of such a user of language. On February 21, ]958, after Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had submitted the final manuscript of The Yearling to Scribner's, one month before publication date, she wrote to her friend and editor. Maxwell Evart Perkins. The things all of you write me about The Yearl ing and the Book of the Month Club choice, make me very happy and very humble. The only reason I can accept it as even remotely deserved, is that I all but sweated blood in doing it. I do not see how any writer could work in greater agony and effort than I did on it and this is strange to me, for no writer could ever have a clearer conception than I did of Vrhat I wanted to do and where I was going. In rJ.'59 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Letters for a Novel and elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters. IBLIOGR^^PHY Prinarv Sources The voluminous Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection housed in the University of Florida Library, Gainesville, has been the principal source on ivliich this study was based Therefore a description of the Collection indicating the nature and type of material may be useful. The Collection was established by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings at the Univer- sity where she had lectured and had received an honorary degree. The form of the Collection is in part transcripts (typewritten) , photo copies (positive) , and microfilm (negative) . Additional material has been received since her death in 1955 from her estate, friends, and relatives; however, the bulk of the Collection covers the period from 1930-1953. Housed in twelve archival boxes are manuscripts of her books, short stories and unpublished poems, as well as newspaper articles she authored. Her personal, unpub- lished papers include journal entries of her first impres- sions of Florida, notes concerning local customs, informa- tion for her books, lecture notes, speech manuscripts and short stories. Her vast correspondence is stored in nine file drav;ers. These letters include a large number of responses from readers as well as a personal correspondence with friends and relatives. Among the letters addressed to her are forty-eight from James Branch Cabell, twenty- five from A. J. Cronin, thir-ty- three from Sigfrid Undset, and letters from Maxwell Perkins, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Herrick, Edith Pope, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Steinbeck, Zora Neale Hurston, James Still, Hudson Stroke, Carl Van Vechton, Mrs. Ernest Hemingway, Thornton Wilder, and many others equally important. Microfilm copies of her letters to her editor, Maxv;ell Perkins, supplement the correspondence. Additional correspondence, records, and transcripts are to be found in the papers of her lawyer, Phillip May, also housed in 16Q 161 the University Library. Several other file drawers con- tain information Mariorie Kinnan Rawlings gathered for the purpose of writing a biography of Ellen Glasgow. Five large scrapbooks from several sources are a part of this Collection. Though four of these scrapbooks contain mainly newspaper and periodical clippings about the author and her work, one scrapbook contains mainly family photographs and information. There are, of course, included in this large, approximately three thousand piece collection, various memorabilia as well as one large box of artifacts. Secondary Sources Baskerville, Barnet. "Rhetorical Criticism, 1971: Rhetrospect, Prospect, Introspect," Southern Speech Communication Journal, 27 (Winter, 1971), 115. Beath, Paul R. "Regionalism: Pro and Con, Four Fallacies of Regionalism," Saturday Review of Literature, 15 (November 28, 1936) , 4-14. Bellman, Samuel. "Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: A Solitary Sojourner in the Florida Backwoods," Kansas Quarterly, 2 (1970), 78-87. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (New York: Twayne Pub 1 i shers, Inc. , 1974) . igelow, Gordon E. "Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' Wilderness," The Sewanee Review, 72 (April-June, 1965), 299- 310. . Frontier F.den (Gainesville: University of FToriar Press, 196'6) . _. "Distinguishing Rhetoric from Poetic Discourse Tn Contemporary Rhetoric, Douglas Ehninger, ed. 1 tzer (Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1972). Lloyd. "The Rhetorical Situation," in Contemporary Theories of Rhetor ic: Selected Readings, Richard Johannesen ~~eT. ("New York: Harper and Row , 1971). Black, Edwin. "The Second Persona," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 56 (April, 1970), 113. 162 Booth, Wayne. The -Rhetor; Lc of Fiction (Chicago: Uni- I'ersity of Chicago Press', 1961). Bormann, Ernest. "Fan.tasv' and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality," Quarterly Jourjial of Speech (Decenber, 1972), 396-40T^^ '~ Bowker, R. R. Literary Prizes and Their Winners (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1967). Bradbury, John M. Renaissance in the South: A Critical History of the Literature, 1920-1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963) . Bryant, Donald C. "Rhetoric: Its Function and Scope," in The Province of Rhetoric, Joseph Schwartz and John Rycenza, ed. (New York: Ronald Press Com- pany, 1965) . Burke, Kenneth. Counter -Statement (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 19'51) . Carpenter, Ronald. "Alfred Thayer Mahan ' s Style on Sea Po^ver: A Paramessage Conducing to Ethos," Speech Monographs, 42 (August, 1975), 192. Figh, Margaret Gillis. "Folklore and Folk Speech in the Works of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings," Southern Folk- lore Quarterly, 2 (September, 1947), 201-209. Holman, C. Hugh. "Literature and Culture: The Fugitive- Agrarians," Social Forces, 57 (October, 195S), 19. Horton, Rod W. and Edwards, Herbert W. Backgrounds of American Literary Thought (Nev\/ York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1952) ." Jordan, William. "A Study of Rhetorical Criticism in the Modern Novel," Debut Paper, SiVA Convention, 1967. Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964) . McGuirs, William J. A Study of Florida Cracker Dialect Based Chiefly on the Prose Works of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Master's Thesis, University of Florida (Gainesville, 1939). Morris, Lloyd. "A New Classicist," The North American Review, 246 (Septem.ber, 1938J, 179-184. 163 Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilizarion (New York: KarcoufL, 3race an'3~World^ 1954) . Munroe, Hiigh P. ''To the Wall Enthymeme I " Paper read at the 1969 CSSA Convention, St Louis. Odum, Howard W. and Mocre, Harry E. American Regionalism: A Cultural-Historical Approach to National In- tegration (New York: H. Holt and Company, 195 S ) . Peck, Joseph R. The- Fiction Writing Art of Marl or ie Kinnan Rawlings , Master's Thesis, University of Florida (Gainesville, 1954} . Rav>?lings, Marjorie Kinnan. The Yearling (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938). "Regional Literature of the South," College English, 1 (February, 1940) . The Yearling, Study Guide by Mary Louise Fagy and Edith Cowles, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962). Robillard, Ambolena H. Max^vell Evarts Perkins: Authors' Editor , Doctoral Dissertation, University ot Florida (Gainesville, 1964). Slagel, Mary Louise. The Artistic Use of Nature in the Fiction of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Master's Thesis, University of Florida (Gainesville , 1963) . Staumann, Heinrich. American Literature in the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1965) . Tompkins, Phillip. "In Cold Fact," Esquire , 65 (June, 1965), 125. "The Rhetorical Criticism of Non-Oratorical Works," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 5 5 (December, 1969) , 431-439. Thrall, William F., Hubbard, Addison, and Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature (Mew York: The Odyssey Press, 1960). Twelve Southern Authors, I'll Take Mv Stand: The South and the Agrarian TradTtTon [^Tew York: FTarpcr and Ff others, lT50) . 164 Twelve Soutriern Authors. I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition, (New York: Harper and Row , 196 2). Weygandt , Patricia. "A Rhetorical Criticism of Sgt. Pepper's , Lonely Hearts Club Band," Unpublished Paper, 1969, Kent State University. Young, Thomas D., Watkins, Floyd C, and Beatty, Richard C. The Literature of the South, (Atlanta: Scott, Foresman and- Co., 1968). BIOGILA.PHICAL SKETCH Edna Louise Saffy was born March 8, 1935 in Jacksonville, Florida, She attended West Riverside Grammar School, John Gorrie Junior High, and Robert E. Lee Senior High. She attended the University of Florida and received her Bachelor's degree in 1967 and her Master's degree in 1968. She is married to Grady Earl Johnson, Junior, of Virden, Manitoba , Canada. While at the University of Florida, Ms. Saffy was a member of the President's Committee on the Status of Women, the Student Senate, Savant Leadership Organization, and Alpha Chi Onega Sorority. Ms. Saffy is an officer of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association and a founder of its Women's Studies Section, She is a member of the Speech Communica- tion Association, the Southern Speech Communication .Associ- ation, and the College English Association. Ms. Saffy's political affiliations include the Presidency of both the Gainesville and Jacksonville chapters of the National Organization for Women, State of Florida Strategist for the Equal Rights Amendment, and membership in the Women's Political Caucus. 165 166 Among the honors she has received are membership in Lambda Iota Tau, Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, and the University of Florida Hall of Fame, I certify that I have read tnis study and tha my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of sch presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and qual as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philoso / t in olarly ity, phy. Ronald H. Carpenter, Chairpe Associate Professor of Speec rson h I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. V'incent McGuire Professor of Education I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. /^^-Z^-C-C^w /- . ■St-t^A^^Z.-f^-C Patricia L. Schmidt Assistant Professor of Speech and Behavioral Studies I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosot )pny &m£3L Donald E. Williams Professor of Soeech I certify that I have read this studv and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy' Lelana:^-L;-^-^immerman Professor of Theater This dissertation was submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Department of Speech in the College of Arts and Sciences and to the Graduate Council, and was accented as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. March, 1976 Gr A c]/u.ai-e-^]iool B^ B.