The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry James
Wasn’t America the land of opportunity? And wasn’t the Vanderlyn Hotel a golden opportunity?” (MD 18):[1] Steven Millhauser’s Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (1996) aptly dramatizes the role of Henry Adams’s agonistic clash between “the Dynamo and the Virgin” in the construction of...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Ex-centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media |
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| Online Access: | https://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/ExCentric/article/view/8404 |
| _version_ | 1797202631470350336 |
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| author | Evangelos Magkoutas |
| author_facet | Evangelos Magkoutas |
| author_sort | Evangelos Magkoutas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Wasn’t America the land of opportunity? And wasn’t the Vanderlyn Hotel a golden opportunity?” (MD 18):[1] Steven Millhauser’s Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (1996) aptly dramatizes the role of Henry Adams’s agonistic clash between “the Dynamo and the Virgin” in the construction of America’s exceptionalist urban frontier. Particularly, his protagonist’s vertical experimentations in the par excellence modernist city of New York capture the zeitgeist of America’s Gilded Age, rendering the novel as a postmodernist reworking of Henry James’s experience in The American Scene travelogue, where he delineates the irreversible technological changes in the city grid. In both narratives, the locus of the modern hotel appears as the American Adam’s ultimate means for his mission of taming the city wilderness. My comparison of the two writers’ city narratives reflects on the era’s two dominant trends towards space, i.e., skepticism and respect for the machinery, bringing to the forefront America’s disrespectful treatment of space, where skyscrapers threaten to erase the city’s “pleasant and promiscuous patina of time” (TAS 97).[2] Drawing from Jamesian scholars (T. L. Follini, W. Graham) who focus on James’s treatment of space, the paper argues that “The Jolly Corner” foreshadows America’s overweening technological future by presenting memories as the protagonist’s defense mechanism to salvage a sense of at-homeness in the face of the ever-changing urban grid. In the same vein, Millhauser’s historiographic metafiction exposes American Adam’s “yearning for the exhaustive” (256) through Grand Cosmo’s “architectural gigantism” (MD 256), and by extension, the nation’s blind devotion to vertical “forms of abstraction” (Follini 36) as a way of self-representation.
[1] MD: Millhauser, Steven. Martin Dressler: The Tale of the American Dreamer. 2nd ed., Corsair, 2015.
[2] TAS: James, Henry. The American Scene. Chapman and Hall, 1907. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T08:06:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ce61299f5bf24202a48c6e8660c9d4d4 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2585-3538 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T08:06:30Z |
| publishDate | 2022-12-01 |
| publisher | School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ex-centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media |
| spelling | doaj.art-ce61299f5bf24202a48c6e8660c9d4d42024-04-17T11:00:30ZengSchool of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GreeceEx-centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media2585-35382022-12-010613014910.26262/exna.v0i6.84047881The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry JamesEvangelos Magkoutas0Université Paris Cité, FranceWasn’t America the land of opportunity? And wasn’t the Vanderlyn Hotel a golden opportunity?” (MD 18):[1] Steven Millhauser’s Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (1996) aptly dramatizes the role of Henry Adams’s agonistic clash between “the Dynamo and the Virgin” in the construction of America’s exceptionalist urban frontier. Particularly, his protagonist’s vertical experimentations in the par excellence modernist city of New York capture the zeitgeist of America’s Gilded Age, rendering the novel as a postmodernist reworking of Henry James’s experience in The American Scene travelogue, where he delineates the irreversible technological changes in the city grid. In both narratives, the locus of the modern hotel appears as the American Adam’s ultimate means for his mission of taming the city wilderness. My comparison of the two writers’ city narratives reflects on the era’s two dominant trends towards space, i.e., skepticism and respect for the machinery, bringing to the forefront America’s disrespectful treatment of space, where skyscrapers threaten to erase the city’s “pleasant and promiscuous patina of time” (TAS 97).[2] Drawing from Jamesian scholars (T. L. Follini, W. Graham) who focus on James’s treatment of space, the paper argues that “The Jolly Corner” foreshadows America’s overweening technological future by presenting memories as the protagonist’s defense mechanism to salvage a sense of at-homeness in the face of the ever-changing urban grid. In the same vein, Millhauser’s historiographic metafiction exposes American Adam’s “yearning for the exhaustive” (256) through Grand Cosmo’s “architectural gigantism” (MD 256), and by extension, the nation’s blind devotion to vertical “forms of abstraction” (Follini 36) as a way of self-representation. [1] MD: Millhauser, Steven. Martin Dressler: The Tale of the American Dreamer. 2nd ed., Corsair, 2015. [2] TAS: James, Henry. The American Scene. Chapman and Hall, 1907.https://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/ExCentric/article/view/8404urban frontierfin-de-siècle architecturenew york city narrativesthe modern hotelamerican exceptionalismdynamo vs. virgin |
| spellingShingle | Evangelos Magkoutas The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry James Ex-centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media urban frontier fin-de-siècle architecture new york city narratives the modern hotel american exceptionalism dynamo vs. virgin |
| title | The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry James |
| title_full | The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry James |
| title_fullStr | The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry James |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry James |
| title_short | The Battle of “the Dynamo” and “the Virgin” in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Narratives: A Sociohistorical Reading of America’s Urban Frontier in Steven Millhauser and Henry James |
| title_sort | battle of the dynamo and the virgin in turn of the century new york city narratives a sociohistorical reading of america s urban frontier in steven millhauser and henry james |
| topic | urban frontier fin-de-siècle architecture new york city narratives the modern hotel american exceptionalism dynamo vs. virgin |
| url | https://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/ExCentric/article/view/8404 |
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