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Literature in English, North America
City University of New York (CUNY)
Capitalism; domestic sphere; fatherhood; Jane Smiley; John Updike; Junot Diaz
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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
On The Threshold: Breadwinning, Capitalism And The Absent/Present Father In The Works Of Three Late 20th-Century U.S. Novelists, Nancy J. Hoch
On The Threshold: Breadwinning, Capitalism And The Absent/Present Father In The Works Of Three Late 20th-Century U.S. Novelists, Nancy J. Hoch
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
As society industrialized in the nineteenth century and jobs moved outside the home, a figure which I call the absent/present father began to make his appearance in American literature. This figure, hovering physically or emotionally on the threshold of family life, never completely present but never completely absent either, has filled the pages of fiction from that time until recently when, as the U.S. becomes postindustrial, depictions of the absent/present father decline.
Bringing a socio-economic as opposed to the usual psychological perspective to my close readings of the fictional family, I explore the cultural work the absent/present father does in …