1. Introduction:
Although Michaels has been overwhelmingly viewed as an
apolitical author, through analysis of his narrative poetics, he
can in fact be considered a pop culture commentator
employing reactionary political values.
Methods:
New Historicist approaches unlock Michaels’ complex
rendering of important subjects from the 1950s and 60s (race
relations, counterculture, second wave feminism and sexual
liberation)
Marxism, cultural materialism, and particularly Raymond
Williams’ “structures of feeling” theory, addresses the
emotion-driven logic and ultimate humanity of Michaels’
characters. Solidly situated within literary theory and cultural
studies, my research thus draws parallels between two
otherwise distinct characters using Marxist critic Raymond
Williams’ notion of “structures of feeling.”
Narratology supplies the methodology for demonstrating how
Michaels voice and point of view determine his ethics with
respect to two pivotal female characters. The concept of
focalization is an especially important technique through which
literary criticism reveals power dynamics between characters
and how that power function with respect to their time period.
Results:
Far from affecting narrative personae by turns cool, aloof, and
nonjudgmental as his proponents suggest, I contend that Michaels’ voice
and tone betray a subtle ideological resistance to the era’s progressive
attitudes through narrative focalization of a deliberately unstable nature.
Specifically, I support my argument through a comparative reading of
Michaels’ fictionalized memoir Sylvia (1992) and a notoriously harrowing
early story, “Manikin” (1968)—both of which depict the rhetorical agency of
marginalized characters as little more than useful fictions.
HISTORICIZING LEONARD MICHAELS’ COUNTERCULTURE FICTION
Arianna J. Brown (Professor Daniel Burns) Department of English
Abstract:
My project recovers a neglected dimension in criticism
surrounding the work of American author Leonard Michaels by
asking to what extent his short fiction advances an implicit
sociohistorical critique of the emergent 1960s counterculture.
Ostensibly a proto-feminist commentary on the aftermath of a
female college student’s sexual assault, “Manikin” complicates
(and ultimately confounds) protagonist Melanie Green’s
experience of physical and emotional violence with the
competing variables of class-consciousness, institutional sexism,
xenophobia, and various race and ethnicity-based
microaggressions. Likewise, Melanie’s “real-life” counterpart, a
promiscuous woman known only as “Agatha” in Michaels’ thinly
veiled fiction about his tragic first marriage, seeks out precisely
these intersections as a form of ritual masochism perpetuated by
white upper-class guilt.
Literature Review:
Scholarship subordinates Michaels’ candid accounts of the
period’s politics to appraisals of wit, eloquence, and
compression. Yet, in contrast with this evaluative tendency, my
analysis draws on early affect studies, critical race theory, and
narratology to reveal a reactionary sensibility in Michaels’
treatment of “free love’s dark side.”
Critic Article Claim Primary
Text(Michaels)
Response
Phillip
Lopate
“The
Improbable
Moralist”
(2007)
"he became
increasingly receptive
to amorphism,
digressive reflection
and throwaway
wisdom…the
consequences of acting
our to those of restraint
and right action" (28)
"I lack a sensibility that
quivers at change in the
cultural atmosphere"
(156) "I did wonder
sometimes if the spirit of
those years wasn't in the
blackly comic elements of
my own writing" (157)
New Historist: Rather than style
priority, for Michaels, lies in
timeless contentions: race,
gender, sex and humanity. His
commentary is on society as a
whole but, of course, he and his
writing are products of his own
exposure.
Wyatt
Mason
“The
Irresponsibility
of Feelings”
(2007)
"Like the narrator, we
experience Sylvia by her
actions…-all viewed
without…the least
understanding of why,
or how, she attained so
precarious a hold on
being" (100)
"I listened [to music] for
forms, not oracles.
Sometime in the sixties a
lot of people began
listening to popular
musicians for the meaning
of life" (156)
1960s USA Sociohistoricism,
Narratology: Michaels'
conscious decision to remain
ambiguous and matter-of-fact
allow his work/characters
transcendence through time
and force readers to employ
their own "structure of feeling"
to bring discern meaning.
Lore
Segal
“Captivating
Horrors”
(1969)
"we sit back and keep a
steady on on orgies,
rape, mayhem and
suicide in city scenes
and subwayscapes.
Leonard Michaels
makes these horrors
horrible again and
funny"(55)
"A lot of people had stupid
lives in the fifties. I wish it
weren't true of mine…the
usual modes of debauch
came to nothing but
wasted time,
mononucleosis, clap and
crabs"(150)
"Structure of Feeling": Michaels’
cynical narrative voice and
characters reflect his own past
mistakes of youth. His work is
both anticipatory (Melanie) and
consequential (Agatha),
complicating the distinction
between Michaels the man and
character.
Conclusion:
Through this lens I conclude that Leonard Michaels’ short fiction is not
only thoroughly steeped in the social issues of its times, but also that it
expresses a tacit tolerance for the environmental circumstances
determining the bodily traumas experienced by women regularly in the
period—liberation notwithstanding.
“She saw an armless, naked manikin and flet like
that…all torso and short circuited…niether of them
said a word as he shifted gears, speeding and
slowing…he stopped the car. She got out running.”
-From “Manikin” (1968)
**All primary source text is from “The Lost Interview: The Paris Review”