The Adamic Myth in 19Th Century American Literature

The majorities of nineteenth century novelists were fully aware of the Adamic myth and used the story of Adam and Eve to describe the whole American experience. The Adamic condition included isolation, innocence, dismissal of past sins, and the emergence of new individuals after a fortunate fall.

In "The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden," David W. Noble revealed that American novelists James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville all centered their writings on the concept of the American Adam. However, all three of them denied "that America can become a New World Eden, and they reject the heavenly city on earth as a worthwhile or defensible ideal; they refuse to believe in the perfectibility of man" (Noble 6).

Of what significance is it that our writers have again and again turned our creation myth into a love story? It affirmed that every American had the ability to "rise above his personal weaknesses and the traditions and institutions of his European ancestors because, in the United States, every individual was in close contact with nature; the West was a limitless national reservoir of spiritual strength" (Noble 4).

James Fenimore Cooper noted that "there will never be an American Adam. It is the old, the Eternal Adam and Eve who will populate the frontier" (Noble 6). In his adventure romance "The Spy," Cooper set his novel in the wilderness (outside of society), rather than inside society. In this way, the novel's characters resembled the Adams and Eves of the Old World in their Garden, as they suffered into knowledge. In Cooper's view, the wilderness was boundless and offered possibilities (apeiron) for Adamic rebirth. For instance, France Wharton innocently and selflessly resigned Dunwoodie to Isabella. However, Dunwoodie revealed to Frances that he wanted a gentle independent woman, like her! The majority of Cooper's frontiers Eves were delicately feminine, self-less individuals who loved too much and depended on their frontiers Adams for their wilderness existence. Cooper's Adamic male heroes coped with their situations and stayed two jumps ahead of danger. Like Henry Wharton and Harvey Birch, they hid in the mountains to avoid being captured.

For Nathaniel Hawthorne, he believed that mortal men fooled themselves, denying their own humanity. "They had refused to acknowledge their historical parents, their lineage to the Eternal Adam, and created instead that abstract creature without roots and, therefore, without the quality of mercy---the American Adam" (Noble 25). "In The House of the Seven Gables," the Old World's Adam and Eve again tried to rediscover the world, while being led through their transforming experiences. However, the novel's dark environment (evil, fear, and dark history) changed their Adamic innocence into consciousness. For example, the evil taint from old Clifford's past (Jeffrey Pyncheon) had transformed his innocence into a young impulsive man. In "The flight of the two owls" (Hawthorne 179), Hepzibah and Clifford tried to flee from the scene of Jeffrey Pyncheon murder. However, they returned to town to confess to a murder they did not commit. Here, Hepzibah and Clifford experience a return into time and their fortunate fall. They were able to experience a fall, grow from it, and shed their diseased past. Hawthorne sympathized with Hepzibah and Clifford's impossible situation. Incidentally, he did not believe in heroines or heroes, but the real weaknesses and strengths of ordinary men and women.

Similarly, Phoebe and Holgrave essentially did the same thing. Through a blooming romance between Phoebe and Holgrave, Hawthorne shed the past conflicts of the Pycheons and the Maules. Phoebe's love transformed Holgrave's character into a sympathetic one. In general, Hawthorne believed that something had been lost during the transition of the New World.

Melville denied "that America can become a New World Eden, and they reject the heavenly city on earth as a worthwhile or defensible ideal; they refuse to believe in the perfectibility of man" (Noble 6). Melville's Old World American Adams, Ahab and Ishmael, were both solitary figures who independently traveled the world seeking the truth. However, Ahab and Ishmael represented two different Adams in "Moby Dick." Like a heroic Old World Adam, Ishmael left his physical world toward spiritual depth (toward the sea), suffered into knowledge and spiritual rebirth, returned to the human race, and finally celebrated life with his writings. Similar to an Old World Adam, Ahab (tragic Adam) left his physical world toward spiritual depth (toward the sea), however, he became consumed with rage after his encounter with the evil great white whale. Unlike the heroic Old World Adam (Ishmael), Ahab held on to his past, set his sights for revenge, and emerged as a dead man. Melville enhanced Ahab's unfortunate fall, through the novel's dark elements of evil, fear, and dark history.

Melville hardly portrayed women at all, much less the American Eve. Since most of his novels took place at sea or on board a ship, Melville's women were auxiliary characters and remained on dry land. For instance, Captain Bildad's sister, Aunt Charity, was briefly mentioned bringing items to her brother on board the ship. Melville also associated Mrs. Hussey with the boarding home, children, and the home. I would venture to say that Melville held an Old World view, as far as women were concerned.

Henry James was disillusioned with the idea of the New World Garden. His novel "The American" revealed a man who "defines the American Adam as a fraudulent figure but whose heart is at a loss to find a meaning in life to replace that represented fallen idol" (Noble 81). According to James, an individuals must fall in order to pass out of childhood. Additionally, they must encounter evil, in order to mature. Furthermore, maturation is possible through the destruction of the ego. Apparently, James believed that Adam had problems with moral salvation and not self-maturation. James questioned whether Christopher Newman represented the American Adam, which he had announced himself to be (Noble 81)! Christopher Newman was portrayed as a solitary figure with very few family connections. He believed that Madame de Centre would marry him, because she preferred his "perfect innocence" (Noble 82) over her family's corruption. However, Newman retreated to America, once Claire rejected his marriage proposal. His innocence was struck down by evil. James noted how Newman's delusion of common sense and pride contributed to his fall. James identified America's New World as good and European's Old World as evil. He had placed Newman in America's New World and Claire in European's Old World. James felt that Newman had separated himself from reality and humanity. Like Cooper, Hawthorne, and Melville, James eventually came to the conclusion that "the human condition continued to prevail in the New World as in the Old, there was no American Eden and no American Adam".

On the other hand, Frank Norris (naturalist) thought that society needed to undergo a great spiritual change, before a New World Adam and Eve could emerge. He believed that the redemption and salvation of the American Adam and Eve (New World) depended on their rejection of culture and their acceptance of nature. In this way, nature could protect their natural goodness (innocence), while irradiating their evil cultural influences.

"In his first two novels, "Vandover and the Brute" and "McTeague," Norris seems to be asking whether one could properly continue to talk about innocence at all if man was indeed cursed by hereditary evil" (Noble 105). In "McTeague," the American Adam (McTeague) and Eve (Trina) seemed to reflect the Old World, as they plunged into sin (lust and bestiality). Like the original Adam and Eve, they fell into sin through temptation. Frank Norris noted that the character McTeague was "Below the fine fabric of all that was good in him ran the foul stream of hereditary evil, like a sewer" (Noble 108). They certainly lived further away from God and nature, unlike the American Adam and Eve of the New World.

Ultimately, James shared Cooper's, Hawthorne's, and Melville's conclusion that "the human condition continued to prevail in the New World as in the Old, there was no American Eden and no American Adam". Additionally, Frank Norris thought that society needed to undergo a great spiritual change, before a New World Adam and Eve could emerge.

Works Cited:

Lewis, R.W.B. The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: the U of Chicago P, 1955.
Noble, David W. The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden: The Central Myth in the American Novel Since 1830. New York: George Braziller, 1968.

*Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis (November 1, 1917- June 13, 2002) was an American literary scholar and critic.Lewis' first major work, The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (1955), explored De Crèvecoeur's idea of the American as a "new man" - an innocent Adam in a bright new world dissociating himself from the historic past. Lewis portrayed this preoccupation as a pervasive, transforming ingredient of the American mind that shaped the consciousness of lesser thinkers as fully as it shaped the giants of the age.

The book traces the Adamic theme in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Henry James, and others, and in an Epilogue, Lewis exposes its continuing spirit in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, J. D. Salinger, and Saul Bellow.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 2230