Blurring the lines: Richard M. Nixon and historical/fictive boundaries

Abstract

During the 1992 election year reality and fiction merged as political candidates drew fictional television characters into discussions of "real life" problems. This blurring is not confined to popular culture, however; literary representations of historical figures pervade the fiction of most generations. Since the postmodernist revisions of notions of history and fiction, the nature of those representations has changed. In novels which include Richard Nixon, however, the "rules" authors used to follow get broken, just as the boundaries which used to separate history and fiction blur together. A study of the representations of Richard Nixon in contemporary fiction will help to demonstrate exactly how the boundaries between history and fiction have blurred. These representations offer a way of delving into the epistemological or ethical (ideological) motives that inform the author's art. Chapter One examines how concepts of history have changed and the implications of this change for fiction, as well as the notion of a moral purpose for literature. Chapter Two locates each of the authors in the study--Robert Coover, Kurt Vonnegut, and Philip Roth--in their own historical contexts in order to examine the possible reasons for their representations of Richard Nixon, as well as a brief examination of the genre of political fiction and the literary forms of satire and parody. Chapters Three through Five are devoted to examinations of the novels which reveal that Nixon becomes the site where a theory of potential meaninglessness (postmodernism) clashes with a genre which, by definition, implies judgment, therefore meaning. While postmodernism calls interpretation into question, thee novels provoke the reader to construct meaning. In particular, they make us re-examine Nixon's role in history and what Nixon has to teach us about the power of politicians to control and shape our lives. Representations of Richard Nixon demonstrate that when an author "plays" with the facts of history, a new dimension is added to the history/fiction debate--the treatment of Nixon in literature is inextricably linked to his treatment in history--and even in our consciousness.