Matthew Soderblom's Doctoral Defense

Mon, 10/14 at 1:15PM via Zoom

Dissertation Committee: Miles Orvell, James Salazar, Kate Henry, and Paul Wachtel (CUNY)

Title: American Madness: The Frontier

Short abstract: The theme of madness along the frontier developed in American novels of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Willa Cather, and O.E. Rølvaag rely on the theme of madness to depict their frontier characters’ aberrant behaviors. Using these depictions of madness, I explore questions of religion, violence, gender, and ethnic identity to analyze the psychological impact of the frontier and its role in American literature. Melville and Hawthorne use themes of isolation and Puritan religious fervor to show the forms of madness that plague their characters. Cooper focuses on isolationist aspects of madness. Thus, I argue movement, violence, and clashes between settlers and the indigenous create a crucible for the creation of an American identity. Cather’s works focuses on the welfare of female, immigrant, and queer protagonists. She depicts madness as an inevitable part of frontier life, which is produced by the economic conditions of an industrializing nation along the vestiges of the frontier. Rølvaag uses themes of madness to explore the movement of Norwegians to the Midwest. Madness functions as a plot device to illustrate the collective anxiety of the Norwegian immigrant group and their integration into the mainstream of American identity. My dissertation reveals madness as a through line in this body of literature. Exploring the theme of madness in these texts provides new perspectives on American literature, perceptions of the nation, and the frontier. Above all, it complicates the idea of American identity, its past, and its potential future.  

Contact tara.lemma@temple.edu for the Zoom link.