The new democratic protagonist: American novels and women main characters, 1960-1966

Abstract

During the years 1960 to 1966, contrary to theories of exhaustion, entropy, parody, and nihilism, a new democratic protagonist emerges in the American novel. Twelve novels with female protagonists, Joan Didion's Run River, H. D.'s Bid Me to Live, Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Larry McMurtry's Leaving Cheyenne, Anais Nin's Seduction of the Minotaur, Joyce Carol Oates' With Shuddering Fall, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, James Purdy's The Nephew, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey and Wallace Stegner's A Shooting Star contain an excitement, full of fear and curiosity that resembles that of the American frontier tradition. The protagonists heroically push themselves into challenges and untried paths of action, with varying outcomes. Through a growing understanding of the past, the protagonists yearn to create a future, which may or may not include the traditional family structure, but which always includes a quest for identity distinct from convention. They desire power over their own life only, avoiding the sensationalism of victimizing others or of violence. Consciously, they learn to make decisions in areas previously barred to them. Just as earlier Americans, these protagonists make incorrect decisions but rarely do they fail, for with incorrect choice they learn of a wider world and of their own ability to survive. Implicit in the active life of these protagonists is the belief in the individual; the characters are fully drawn, with no reliance on female stereotypes. The novels generally use a quest motif as an apt means of capturing the characters' journey to find themselves. Reflecting the women's search for their future, the novels are experimental, in style, plot, and theme, as well as in the characterization of these democratic protagonists.