DOMINATRIX NEWS

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS. Dominatrix News: News as Literature by. Ana Margarita Aguila Reyes. Master of Arts in English. San Diego State University, 2011.
DOMINATRIX NEWS: NEWS AS LITERATURE

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A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University

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In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English

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by Ana Margarita Aguila Reyes Spring 2011

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Copyright © 2011 by Ana Margarita Aguila Reyes All Rights Reserved

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DEDICATION To my mom, dad, and grandmother. Thank you for your love, prayer and support. Thank you, my family.

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Dominatrix News: News as Literature by Ana Margarita Aguila Reyes Master of Arts in English San Diego State University, 2011 “The literary discipline is not simply defined as a term, but as a myriad of terms that grant particular criteria on certain texts, where news can and is classified as literature.” So states Chapter 3, “Quoyle, Literature Versus News,” of this work that explores journalism as literature through the writing of Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx in her novel The Shipping News. The integration of these two disciplines, journalism and literature, underscore ways in which fiction maybe enriched with nonfiction creating fertile news pieces worthy of being called literature. Each chapter in this work reveals a bit of how this form of writing is achieved. In the first chapter, “E. Annie Proulx, the Image of Literature in News,” we look at Proulx’s (as well as authors like James Joyce and John Steinbeck) journalistic background bleeding into fiction writing. The study moves to Chapter 2, “Quoyle, Embodiment of Realism,” which analyzes specific news articles illustrated in The Shipping News. Chapter 3, mentioned above, discusses the controversial matter having to do with literature’s ambiguous definition that often blocks the recognition of news as literature. In the next chapter, titled “Journalists Turn to Fiction,” we explore the trend that exists among journalists, which sees them leaving news and turning toward fiction. And last, Chapter 5, “Conclusion,” we review how my news day around writers and reporters at my workplace (NBC San Diego) fortifies the extensive study presented in earlier chapters.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1

E. ANNIE PROULX, THE IMAGE OF LITERATURE IN NEWS ............................1 

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QUOYLE, EMBODIMENT OF REALISM ...............................................................19 

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QUOYLE, LITERATURE VERSUS NEWS ..............................................................33 

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JOURNALISTS TURN TO FICTION ........................................................................44 

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CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................50 

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................57 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my Thesis Committee, William Anthony Nericcio, Pam Fox Kuhlken, Norma Victoria Iglesias Prieto, who guided me throughout my writing journey. Many thanks to Andy O’Clancy, my wonderful editor who helped me in the last stages of writing this text. A very special acknowledgement to NBC San Diego, who gave me access to their news stories in order to make this work possible.

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CHAPTER 1 E. ANNIE PROULX, THE IMAGE OF LITERATURE IN NEWS In the pages that follow, a careful consideration of the boundaries and subterranean affiliations of literature and journalism will fuel our explorations. In academia, throughout the United States, literature and journalism are often viewed as separate fields--some who work in the literature field may even look down on news. However, to view these two textbased disciplines as independent robs both of their generative power. It would be more fruitful to explore how both branches of learning have cross-pollinated each other. The work of Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx and author of acclaimed novels, Accordion Crimes and The Shipping News introduces us to a realm where the lines between journalism and literature are always blurred. In The Shipping News, Proulx uses the character of Quoyle to explore the intertwining of journalism and literature allowing her journalistic background bleed into fictional articles found in the narrative. Indeed, as her personal history materializes in Quoyle’s news articles, Proulx’s remarkable integration of news and literature underscores ways in which fiction maybe enriched with nonfiction creating fertile news pieces worthy of being called literature, and this chapter will focus on her, as well as authors like James Joyce and John Steinbeck, whose background in news present similar characteristics to Proulx’s prose, enriching fiction with nonfiction. Life’s twists and turns brings Quoyle, who knows nothing about news writing, to the Mockingburg Record, his first journalistic job where he writes several news pieces. The character, a simple man that calls things as he sees them, is of great importance once he

2 begins writing for the Gammy Bird. Rather than maintaining interested in the hard facts of a story, Quoyle privileges the human and emotional side. In fact, this attitude directly brings Steinbeck, who was fired from a newspaper for becoming too emotionally involved with the news pieces, and for his “refusal to remain emotionally separated from his subjects explains his talent for creating sympathetically characters who cross indistinct lines between fact and fiction” (Whitt 49). In Proulx’s novel, Quoyle ultimately reaches this level of writing, slowly becoming the best journalist at the Gammy Bird. However, these accomplishments are not reached before, the main character begins writing the shipping news and car accidents sections (which brings up a connection with James Joyce, who shared a similar forte). Moreover, these experiences anticipate those of Quoyle’s in the accident news section. For instance, in The Shipping News the fictional newspaper, Gammy Bird, exemplifies accidents and deaths by means of its journalists, for “newspapers in literature have a peculiarly unhealthy relationship to accidents” (Donovan 32). One example of this is Quoyle’s wife’s death. Irony, fear and anxiety find Quoyle every time he goes out to report on a car wreck and takes pictures of the scene. The thought of his wife Petal’s broken neck and burnt hair in the car crash that took her life will never leave him. Although Joyce’s representation of journalism remains questionable since he maintained an inconsonant opinion of the field, his experiences with journalism did influence his news and fictional writing. This may be seen in his depiction of train crashes and deaths, which in the 1800s “provided new subjects for journalistic reportage” (Donovan 30). With that in mind, consider Joyce’s 1914 short story, “A Painful Case.” The main themes are newspapers, train accidents, and suicides. Joyce’s short story demonstrates the lonely existence of Duffy, a man surrounded by newspapers depicting tragic accidents. As

3 with Proulx’s Quoyle, Joyce’s Duffy also loses a loved one in an accident. Mrs. Sinico, a close friend, loses her life due to the shock of a train traveling too close to her. The short story appears at a time when an intense desire to increase the national newspaper audience with news pieces related to train travelers was at its peak in Britain. During the 1900s, railway deaths articles were mainstream entertainment due to the modernization of British journalism, which had expanded with the appearance of the telegraph (Donovan 28). As with all new technology, there are many studies made, including psychological ones. For example, according to Wolfgang Schivelbusch, neurological syndromes, such as traumatic neurosis, were experienced by train travelers of the 1900s (Schivelbusch 57-59). Syndromes such as these, caused by new technology and the changing of the times were exploited by newspapers. News stories of ill-fated travelers entertained passengers on their daily commute. Although train accidents were nothing new to fiction writers such as Dickens, Zola, and Tolstoy, “the tone of literary representation of trains and journalism changed” (Donovan 33). The articles depicted more misery and deaths along the railways. Headlines screaming, “TERRIBLE RAILWAY TRAGEGY./GENTLEMAN SHOT DEAD./LADY WOUNDED./EXPECTED SENSATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS” were seen everyday, and slowly journalism began to take a very dark road towards creating a spectacle out of accidents (Cobbe 14). Amy Levy’s “ Ballade of a Special Edition” exemplifies this as she portrays the newspaper seller as an agent of journalism who distributes slaughter, accidents, thefts, and suicide to train travelers: His gloating fancy’s fain to bide Where human-freighted vessels meet, And misdirected trains collide. With Shocking Accidents supplied, He tramps the town from end to end. (New 387) This sort of violent exploitation of humanity represents one of many reasons Joyce is

4 unclear about his perception of newspapers. Joyce employs Duffy to embody his own spitefulness towards newspapers. Under the headline: “DEATH OF A LADY AT SYDNEY PARADE,” shock and rage spread through Duffy’s body as he learns about Mrs. Sinico death and the malicious implications of suicide in the Evening Mail. Even though the official cause of death in the article states heart attack, the tone of the piece connotes that the woman killed herself. Well aware of the exploitative tendencies often found in newspapers articles, Duffy immediately rejects the piece. His irritation with newspapers comes as no surprise, particularly once we consider some of Joyce’s other writings, specifically a 1907 essay entitled “Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages,” where the author’s views on newspapers appear clearly. In the essay Joyce calls journalists the ‘phrase-makers of Fleet Street,’ mirroring Duffy’s chats with Mrs. Sinico about his dislike for reporters as he tells her, “phrasemongers are incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds” (Joyce, 123. 1987). Sentiments such as these may be found throughout Joyce’s career, as journalistic experiences reoccur in his fiction time and again. I will cite it here at length so to demonstrate Joyce’s exasperation with newspapers, which is conveyed in “DEATH OF A LADY AT SYDNEY PARADE”: DEATH OF A LADY AT SYDNEY PARADE A PAINFUL CASE Today at the City of Dublin Hospital the Deputy Coroner (in the absence of Mr Leverett) held an inquest on the body of Mrs Emily Sinico, aged forty-three years, who was killed at Sydney Parade Station yesterday evening. The evidence showed that the deceased lady, while attempting to cross the line, was knocked down by the engine of the ten o'clock slow train from Kingstown, thereby sustaining injuries of the head and right side which led to her death. James Lennon, driver of the engine, stated that he had been in the employment of the railway company for fifteen years. On hearing the guard's whistle he set the

5 train in motion and a second or two afterwards brought it to rest in response to loud cries. The train was going slowly. P. Dunne, railway porter, stated that as the train was about to start he observed a woman attempting to cross the lines. He ran towards her and shouted, but, before he could reach her, she was caught by the buffer of the engine and fell to the ground. A juror. `You saw the lady fall?' Witness. `Yes.' Police-Sergeant Croly deposed that when he arrived he found the deceased lying on the platform apparently dead. He had the body taken to the waiting-room pending the arrival of the ambulance. Constable 57 corroborated. Dr Halpin, assistant house-surgeon of the City of Dublin Hospital, stated that the deceased had two lower ribs fractured and had sustained severe contusions of the right shoulder. The right side of the head had been injured in the fall. The injuries were not sufficient to have caused death in a normal person. Death, in his opinion, had been probably due to shock and sudden failure of the heart's action. Mr H. B. Patterson Finlay, on behalf of the railway company, expressed his deep regret at the accident. The company had always taken every precaution to prevent people crossing the lines except by the bridges, both by placing notices in every station and by the use of patent spring gates at level crossings. The deceased had been in the habit of crossing the lines late at night from platform to platform and, in view of certain other circumstances of the case, he did not think the railway officials were to blame. Captain Sinico, of Leoville, Sydney Parade, husband of the deceased, also gave evidence. He stated that the deceased was his wife. He was not in Dublin at the time of the accident as he had arrived only that morning from Rotterdam. They had been married for twenty-two years and had lived happily until about two years ago, when his wife began to be rather intemperate in her habits. Miss Mary Sinico said that of late her mother had been in the habit of going out at night to buy spirits. She, witness, had often tried to reason with her mother and had induced her to join a League. She was not at home until an hour after the accident. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence and exonerated Lennon from all blame. The Deputy-Coroner said it was a most painful case, and expressed great sympathy with Captain Sinico and his daughter. He urged on the railway

6 company to take strong measures to prevent the possibility of similar accidents in the future. No blame attached to anyone. (Joyce 126-128, 1987) The paragraphs above capture Joyce’s negative view towards news articles of the time that focused on tragedies as a mean of entertainment. That said nevertheless, journalism shaped Joyce’s field of reference even though at the beginning of his career he had an ambivalent attitude towards news (Donovan 26). Moreover, “DEATH OF A LADY AT SYDNEY PARADE” illuminates not only Joyce’s animosity, but also the desire to express his favorable side of journalism. Beginning with the reproduction of an article published in the Illustrated Irish Weekly and Nation, which is believed to be the news source Joyce used to elaborate Mrs. Sinico’s death piece. In the original passage the woman killed by a train is named Mrs. Sarah Bishop and only one testimony is given by a signalman who sates: “During his time at the station witnesses had only known the deceased to cross the line on two occasions” (Joyce 100, 1993). The Nation reported simply that a woman had died. However, Joyce altered the facts with the occurrences of the 1900s surrounding newspapers, train accidents, and entertainment, going so far as to add his own personal experiences. For example, he modeled Duffy, a bank clerk, on himself and Stanislaus (Jackson 100). Clearly, “Joyce’s meticulous imitation of the style of such articles testifies to his particular interest in the ways in which newspapers reported inquests” (Donovan 38). The character of Joyce’s short story and indeed Joyce himself, present a number of complex issues as previously mentioned, his opinion of newspapers and journalism remains not clear. Nevertheless, both the fictional character and the writer share fascinating similarities. For example, consider ironies regarding newspapers: Duffy dislikes newspapers, but newspapers are the only company he has in his life, while Joyce speaks badly of newspapers, but at one point wrote articles, book reviews and even his own stories and poems to the periodical press (Donovan

7 27). The character of Duffy is not as emotional as Quoyle; he is hard and strict in thought and routine. However, just like Quoyle, the news plays a role in his life that he cannot escape, Quoyle does not just read the newspapers, he writes for them; therefore, the experience is different from Duffy because he does not face the actual accident. Quoyle dislikes newspapers because of the violent tone they present, making it much harder and more emotional to write. But slowly, writing the shipping news and car crashes section becomes clearer and easier to describe. So much so, Quoyle creates a canvas of florid words and storylines similar to Joyce’s fictional news article. One of the changes Joyce makes to the reportage in “DEATH OF A LADY AT SYDNEY PARADE” is dialogue. Keeping in mind that news articles rarely have speech illuminated, for it is strongly discouraged that journalists report direct speech (Phillips 37). However, Joyce applies dialogue to capture “all of the exactitudes of language interaction in the social dynamics of speech” (Kershner 20). Moreover, once Quoyle begins literary articles, he uses dialogue in his pieces at the Gammy Bird, this will be further addressed in subsequent chapters. Having explored the dynamic bonds fusing literature and journalism in Joyce, let us now turn to the United States with writer and journalist John Steinbeck, whose life and writings also help to illuminate Quoyle (especially regarding influential journalistic experiences, which, as well, enriched his writing). Unlike Joyce, Steinbeck has journalism well-defined and regards it highly; in fact, he was a journalist. Therefore, between Joyce and Steinbeck, Steinbeck is the most similar to Quoyle. Quoyle commits to his work with passion and is emotionally indebted to his work. Because of the loss of his wife and his interest in human issues, he finds writing a list of ships that come and go from the harbor too placid, lacking human interest, emotion, and purpose. For Quoyle, everyday events, such as lists, accidents and so forth, should be reported with fervor. In a similar vein, in regards to writing news and fiction, Steinbeck “always tried for the human perspective, as much as possible without prejudice” (Steinbeck, America xvii). Moreover, his interest in journalism is often treated as ancillary to writing fiction since he was a journalist at heart (Whitt 41). Steinbeck was a journalist that worked in several newspapers throughout the beginning of his career, most notably in World War II where he wrote on international

8 politics. In his view, journalism “has the greatest virtue and greatest evil. It is the first thing the dictator controls. It is the mother of literature” (Parini 391). Quoyle is the ideal example of Steinbeck’s statement since he utilizes virtue, evil, emotion, and truth in his news articles. For example, in Proulx’s writing simple details of life are articulated for the reason that she lived or observed them, traits that conform Quoyle’s persona. In order for her to have and transmit this mastery, Proulx observed people in their daily tasks and learned to carry them out, which is the foundation for placing her character against the media, a crushing social situation, a rural landscape, and powerful circumstances (Bolick 5). Like Steinbeck and Joyce’s interests in real life problems and composing them into exalted prose, Proulx reveals this yearning for news through Quoyle. Proulx is an author who also shares similar journalistic and writing views to those of Steinbeck, which are reflected in her character, Quoyle. As a journalist, always striving for a fair representation of the outside world, she wrote nonfiction articles for numerous publications. Moreover, she was also the author of several ‘how-to’ books before beginning to write fiction. Her experience in nonfiction exalted her creative writing and developed a passion for the truth. For Joyce, Steinbeck, and Quoyle, “news is more often made than gathered and it is made on the basis of what the journalist thinks important or what the journalist thinks the audience thinks is important or interesting” (Postman and Powers 13). Infusing nonfiction with the lyrical sophistication of fiction fuels the careers of Steinbeck, Joyce, and Proulx. Their depiction of news writing exemplifies the making of literature since it derives from the same root, or as Steinbeck puts it, the mother of literature. All three writers, and the fictional Quoyle, make news in the same style-as literature. The reflection of the reporter on a news story presents a strong case for news being literature since it gives writers the freedom and

9 creativity to express their point of view. In Travels with Charley, for example, “in addition to advocating social and political change, Steinbeck sees no reason to apologize for using an intensely personal point of view” (Whitt 55). The following presents a passage from Travels with Charley, where Steinbeck explains the point of view on journalism and literature; it is cited here at length so as to state the writer’s autonomy and originality that constructs news as literature: I've always admired those reporters who can descend on an area, talk to key people, ask key questions, take samplings of opinions, and then set down an orderly report very like a road map. I envy this technique and at the same time do not trust it as a mirror of reality. I feel that there are too many realities. What I set down here is true until someone else passes that way and rearranges the world in his own style. In literary criticism, the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of attention into something the size and shape of himself. And in this report I do not fool myself into thinking I am dealing with constants. A long time ago I was in the ancient city of Prague and at the same time Joseph Alsop, the justly famous critic of places and events, was there. He talked to informed people, officials, ambassadors; he read reports even the fine print and figures, while I in my slipshod manner roved about with actors, gypsies, vagabonds. Joe and I flew home to America in the same plane, and on the way he told me about Prague, and his Prague had no relation to the city I had seen and heard. It just wasn’t the same place, and yet each of us was honest, neither one a liar, both pretty good observers by any standard, and we brought home two cities, two truths. (Steinbeck Travels 59-60) In these lines, readers come face to face with Steinbeck’s clear attitude with reading and writing in both news and fiction. Varying points of view provides writers with the freedom and creativity to write what they see, as is the case with Proulx and Joyce, who write news from their personal vistas mixing it with imagination, a process of integration that, according to Proulx, “ is the human mind’s central life strategy” (Bolick 5). Continuing with another passage that underscores the point of view of the journalist, Joyce’s “DEATH OF A LADY AT SYDNEY PARADE” depicts the death of a woman, Mrs. Sinico, in a defamatory style, representing the freedom and creativity of the reporter, from a

10 nevertheless derogatory standpoint: Angered by what he sees as the article’s bourgeois or Catholic hypocrisy, Duffy deeply resents what he reads as an ill-informed journalist’s knowing reticence about the suicide of a derelict. Duffy’s pejorative epithets “threadbare,” “inane,” “cautious,” and “vulgar” clearly reveal that in his mind the article’s prose style mirrors the “degraded” Mrs. Sinico who he now views in a frankly misogynistic light. (Donovan 42) These two passages are “simply another way of saying that every news story is a reflection of the reporter who tells the story” (Postman and Powers 14). For instance, B. Beaufield Nutbeem, the foreign news chief, also handles the writing sexual abuse section. Much like Duffy’s and Joyce’s ironies over newspapers, it is ironic that Nutbeem writes for the Bird abuse section, for he was molested as a child. The following passage is a conversation between Nutbeem and Quoley about the assignments they are given by their boss Jack Buggit, the newspaper editor: Have you noticed Jack’s uncanny sense about assignments? He gives you a beat that plays on your private inner fears. Look at you. Your wife was killed in an auto accident. What does Jack as you to cover? Car wrecks, to get the pictures while the upholstery is still on fire and the blood still hot. He gives Billy, who has never married for reasons unknown, the home news, the woman’s interests page, the details of home and hearth-must be exquisitely painful to the old man. And me. I get to cover the wretched sexual assaults. And with each one I relieve my own childhood. I was assaulted at school for three years, first by a miserable geometry teacher, then by older boys who were his cronies. To this day I cannot sleep without wrapping up like a mummy in five or six blankets (Proulx, Shipping 221). Although he does not appreciate the assignments, Nutbeem completes them. Significantly, just as Joyce and Steinbeck use their life experiences, adapting them into the articles or fiction that they write, so too does this victimized journalist. Not all experiences are pleasant, like with Steinbeck’s journalistic background; some are traumatic, but because they are part of the life of the writer, they appear on the pages. Sometimes this maybe

11 beneficial, as in the case of Nutbeem, who writes the assault articles with caution knowing all too personally the suffering of the people he describes. The notion that every news story is a reflection of the reporter who tells the story is valid in relation to literature. However, sometimes pernicious points of view can be used in unscrupulous ways, affecting the veracity of a news article or literary piece. This sort of news fabrication created by the writer’s point of view may be viewed in Proulx’s characterization of the Gammy Bird1. Nutbeem, the foreign news chief at The Gammy Bird “steals every story off the radio and rewrites it in his plummy style” (Proulx, Shipping 58). Nutbeem not only fabricates stories, but will fully add his own experiences to them, twisting “the stories around to suit his mood of the day” (Proulx, Shipping 58). The twists that he makes to the stories are done partly to avoid plagiarism and to satisfy his need to partake in the action as a reporter at the scene. But in reality, the old writer is just sitting at his desk listing to a shortwave radio as foreign voices lay out all the information for him. Stealing the news pieces from the radio and writing them to please his fantasy of being a real journalist is only the tip of the iceberg, for the article goes through another step of fabrication. The next step of modifying an already altered version consists of adding grammatical errors to it. While Nutbeem integrates fake information to real news stories “only to save the newspaper from accusations of plagiarism,” (Proulx, Shipping 59). Ted Card, the managing editor, is planning to rewrite it with typos before it goes to printing. The following is an example of Nutbeem’s article before Card adds typographical mistakes: 1

The Gammy Bird is not a reputable newspaper in Killick-Claw, Newfoundland. It publishes sexual abuse cases, car wrecks and fabricated advertising. But, the paper does sell. The Gammy Bird prides itself for having no journalistic ethics at all.

12 Burmese sawmill owners and the Rangoon Development Corporation met in Tokyo Tuesday to consider a joint approach to marketing tropical hardwoods, both locally and for export (Proulx, Shipping 59). This is Card’s version with the typos: Burnoosed sawbill awnings and the Ranger Development Competition met Wednesday near Tokyo to mark up topical hairwood (Proulx, Shipping 59). Card is similar to Nutbeem in that he enjoys playing with words to avoid plagiarism, however he also rearranges the words for fun. Moreover, the fabrication of news does not bother him, since it is already “stolen fiction in the first place” (Proulx Shipping 59). In view of the fact that the article has been altered first, Card’s assumption that he is dealing with a fabricated story is correct, and he does not care to insert more modifications. Furthermore, his boss, Jack, encourages this sort of laissez-faire attitude saying, “they’re better than a crossword puzzle” (Proulx Shipping 59). Fabrication of the news is also seen in the 1900s during the train deaths period. As explained earlier accidents, death, and suicides were common “fare” in journalism at that time. So much so that writers altered the facts to make an accident look like a suicide and a suicide look like an accident (Donovan 33). The following example, was culled from a 1977 newspaper report: In one case £100 had been paid to a London newspaper to avoid a liable action by a man whose suicide it had reported. The Newspaper World proved that the cutting was actually printed by the man himself on the back of a partly printed newspaper sheet, and sent by him under another name to the newspaper. (Simonis 333-334) Fiction writers distinguished these fabrications immediately and began to include them in their writings. Victorian fiction records such accounts as early as 1861 with stories from Mrs. Henry Wood’s East Lynne, Herbert Cadet’s Adventures of a Journalist in1900, Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1889 The Wrong Box, Henry James’s “The Death of the Lion” in

13 1894, and Alphose Courlander’s Mightier Than the Sword in 1912. In addition, East Lynne Isabel Vane is depicted as reading her own tragic death in a train accident in the Times obituary section. Furthermore, in Adventures of a Journalist, the main character pretends to have been aboard a train when it crashes, for the sole purpose of having a great article (Cadet 180). Some novelists go to the extreme by actually revealing the fabrication of a news story; such is the case with Conan Doyle and his 1908 stories “The Adventures of the BrucePartington Plans” and “The Man with the Watches.” As she weaves these satirical portraits, Proulx explores the inner wordings of newspapers creating a clash of media as the novel exposes the soul of journalism and its downside to the eloquently representation of the truth. Fabrication of news is also seen in extreme cases far beyond train accidents and suicides. During the same era, newspapers were also dealing with lynching events. Reporters modified the truth behind the lynching of African American men. Incessantly, the newspapers stated that black men were lynched due to raping white women, when in fact it was due to racism. The real reasons why black men were lynched and murdered was for something as simple as disagreement, a petty crime, or just for entertainment. Of course, journalists were prohibited from displaying the truth in order for racists to continue to commit violent hate crimes, therefore forcing them to “construct half-truths and suppress whole truths” (Ziff 152-153). Because the gruesome details were hidden from the readers, for many of these fabrications legitimated kinds of injustices. One example of this may be seen in the following reproduction of the coverage of the 1893 torture and murder of Henry Smith, which shows the false accusations that took the life of an innocent African American man: Paris, Tex., Feb 1. – [Special.] – The burning of Henry Smith is upon every lip. When the news came that Smith had been captured and that he would be brought here upon the 12 o’ clock train the people came by train, wagons, on horse, and afoot to see the meting out of punishment. Whiskey shops were closed until the

14 mobs were dispersed; schools were dismissed by proclamation from the Mayor, and everything was done in a businesslike manner. Officers saw the futility of any effort to quell the crowd, so the law was laid aside and the citizens took into their own hands the beast and burned him at the stake. So horrible was the crime that the punishment, so severe, seemed to the people to be infinitesimally small in comparison. (“Negro” 5) Since reporters were not allowed to present the full occurrences of the lynchings, the duty fell on fiction writers to do it justice. Many fiction writers took the truth and wrote them in their short stories and novels with every bit of detail and veracity that had been suppressed in newspapers. In a sense, “lynching can be understood as one of the topics that literature took up when journalism fell short” (Lutes 457). For example, Mark Twain, an eminence of the American reporter-novelist tradition, wrote fiction describing the true horrors of lynching. He spent years as a reporter before turning towards fiction, where he began to explore society’s taboos. In his 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Twain delves into lynching and emphasizing his contempt for hanging mobs. In the novel, the best-known example of his disapproval with such mobs may be seen in the brutally efficient dismissal of Colonel Sherburn. Twain’s hatred towards this violent act comes from “The United States of Lyncherdom,” one of the author’s most emphatic essay on lynching, which presents his agony over racists crimes, as well as view toward lynchers, who he calls assassins (Whitt 461). As illustrated above, Twain exemplifies a courageous nonfiction and fiction writer who has a passion for the truth. Such as Steinbeck, a journalist at heart, that uses his experiences to write both fiction and news, for “he wanted to increase people’s awareness and lead them to action on behalf of others while causing as little damage as possible” (Whitt 43). Moreover, he understood the fluid nature of truth telling as seen in Travels with Charley

15 and in his 1940 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Grapes of Wrath. Fabrication of stories for a man like Steinbeck betrays all principals of journalism and literature. In Proulx’s savvy hands, Quoyle’s character emerges in The Shipping News as a powerful force, fusing news and literature together and presenting them as one. Joyce, Steinbeck, Twain, and Proulx are all reflections of him. In one way or another, Quoyle is bound to these writers by journalism, truth telling, deaths, accidents, fabrication of articles, and most importantly, passion to write. Each of the celebrated authors shares a connection with the fictional character, which makes Quoyle the ideal voice to communicate news as literature. However, before achieving greatness in creating literature at the Gammy Bird, Quoyle works at another news outlet where things do not go as smoothly. At The Mockingburg Record, the thirty-six year-old proves to be a failure at his job; just like his whole childhood had been: “failure to speak clearly; failure to sit up straight; failure to get up in the mornings; failure in attitude; failure in ambition and ability; indeed, in everything” (Proulx Shipping 2). In fact, his only aspiration is to be loved by his wife, Petal. Of course Petal does not reciprocate Quoyle’s love and as a result he lives under extreme sadness and weakness. This manifests as submission at the Record, which in turn causes a strange defense mechanism in him. The creation of headlines in his mind for each daily failure provides a perfect source of creativity that reveals itself once he starts writing for the Gammy Bird. Although the creativity comes from a depressing situation in Quoyle’s life, it still indicates that he is headed to excellence in news and literature. The headlines persist at the Bird as well, but the meaning of the headlines change, for at the new job he begins to grow as a person, leaving Petal and his weakness behind. The subsequent headlines embody Quoyle’s creativity at both

16 newspapers; this extensive list merits citation so as to justify imagination as a source of anxiety liberation: 

Man Dies of Broken Heart (Proulx, Shipping 16). This headline is written up in his mind the day Petal brings home a man to spend the night. But, he deludes himself thinking that, “if he could endure, if he could take it, in the end it would be all right (Proulx, Shipping 17).”



Runaway Mom Abducts Children (Proulx, Shipping 22). Once Petal takes his two daughters for children trafficking, this headline is immediately created from his despair.



Car Disintegrates on Remote Goatpath (Proulx, Shipping 38). In order to calm himself, this headline appears while driving to Newfoundland on a snowed-in road with his two daughters in the car.



Dog Farts Fell Family of Four (Proulx, Shipping 54). A comic headline that derives from a scene where Warren, the dog, has a flatulation incident while Quoyle, the aunt, and the girls are in a cramped hotel room.



Man Imitates Alligator (Proulx, Shipping 79). This is the first headline while working at the Bird. His depressing tone begins to change from this point. The headline is a comic thought generated from the main character’s nervousness about meeting the harbormaster, who clears his throat before speaking to Quoley.



Stupid Man Does wrong Thing Once More (Proulx, Shipping 89). Once at the Bird, his coworkers convince him to buy a boat. However, the boat he buys is not the correct one.



Man Sounds Like Fatuous Fool (Proulx, Shipping 115). This headline refers to his mumbling about his love interest, Wavey Prowse. He finds her attractive, but because of his shyness he cannot express himself correctly.



Reporter Bludgeoned (Proulx, Shipping 143). After he takes the liberty of adding an article about a boat to the shipping news section, he is afraid of being punished by Jack, which leads to the following headlines:



Girl Fears White Dog, Relatives Marvelously Upset (Proulx, Shipping 147). The headline deals with her daughter and his lost and disturbed cousin. This explains Quoyle’s state of mind; he no longer is dueling in the past, but is very lucid in the present.



Newspaper reporter Seems Magnet for Dead Men (Proulx, Shipping 210).

17 After a series of events that place him around mutilated human parts, he finally encounters the dead body from where they came from; he immediately thinks up the headline. Even though the above headlines are never printed, they have the quality of being part of a real newspaper. Furthermore, this exercise in imagination helps Quoyle relax from his fears and failures, a character trait shared by Proulx who states that, “the imagination is an engine of incredible power, both to lift you out of where you are and to impel you into another reality” (Bolick 6). However, while the causes as well as the content for the headlines change dramatically from the previously mentioned examples from Quoyle’s creativity not only stay, but increase due to changes in priorities. Each headline is more complex then the last one, in terms of meaning, diction, and tone. My own day-to-day trials and tribulations working as an editor at KNSD give me first hand access to similar matters. To conclude this chapter, I present the following headlines from KNSD’s newscast to emphasize similarity to those of Quoyle’s, as well as to demonstrate that, because of their “realistic” writing, they are indeed worthy of publishing: 

Toddler Beating Sentence An Escondido man who beat his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son to death will spend the rest of his life in prison (Brockmeyer).



911 Search Dog Dies A local search and rescue dog that helped look for survivors in the September 11th attacks has died of natural cause (Contreras).



CHP Lexus Crash The investigation into a fiery crash that killed a C-H-P officer and three family members has taken a new focus (Brockmeyer).



Death Dog Rescue Cheers in Australia after rescue workers were able to save a dog trapped in cave. “Scooby” who’s deaf, disappeared five days ago (Contreras). The KNSD headlines just listed present similarities to those of Quoyle’s since they

speak of children, car accidents, and dogs; however, they also provide evidence of his

18 creativity. It is safe to say that The Shipping News’s main character is a journalist who expresses ingenuity and truthfulness in his articles by constantly refining his writing to convey emotion, passion, and originality worthy to be called literature. Moreover, the manufacturing of headlines in his mind is a source of relaxation from anxieties that help the enhancement of his writing. In the next chapter, this subject is presented with the inclusion of Quoyle’s full articles.

19

CHAPTER 2 QUOYLE, EMBODIMENT OF REALISM In our last chapter, we were reminded of the strands that bind literature and journalism. Through Joyce, Steinbeck and now, Proulx, we have a more profound understanding of the similarities and differences in these related fields. Having explored the embodiment of Quoyle as a dexterous literary news writer, we now turn to the analysis of specific news articles illustrated in The Shipping News. These articles, published in the fictional newspaper the Gammy Bird, exemplify the richness, emotion, and “reality” of life in Newfoundland. For example, the first article Quoyle writes for the Bird demonstrates Proulx’s fondness for realism in her writing: KILLER YACHT AT KILLICK-CLAW A powerful craft built fifty years ago for Hitler arrived in Killick-Claw Harbor this week. Hitler never set foot on the luxury Botterjacht, Tough Babby, but something of his evil power seems built into the yacht. The current owners, Silver and Bayonet Melville of Long Island, described the vessel’s recent rampage among the pleasure boat and exclusive beach cottages of White Crow Harbor, Maine during Hurricane Bob. “She smashed seventeen boats to matchsticks, pounded twelve beach houses and docks into absolute rubble,” said Melville. (Proulx, Shipping 141-142) The detailed text above illustrates Proulx’s predilection to instill realism into Quoyle’s articles. As the principal character moves away from his original writing assignments at the newspaper, which includes listing the shipping news and taking

20 photographs of car accidents, Quoyle’s desire to write about life’s perspectives and realism being to emerge2. His dissatisfaction becomes apparent after several encounters with the harbormaster. It does not take long for Quoyle to tire of scribing notes of ships’ names, their country of origin, and port departure. This process is extremely unfulfilling and “dull enough” that he decides to write a profile of an appealing boat to accompany the short list (Proulx, Shipping 87). This fruitlessness that Quoyle feels is a reflection of Proulx, who finds no interest in themes unrelated to people, history, and observation, for “her emphasis on direct experience and observation” influences her writing (Scanlon 93). In “KILLER YACHT AT KILLICKCLAW,” Quoyle writes about Tough Baby, a luxury yacht built for Hitler, although never used by him. Quoyle sees the potential of writing about the extraordinary boat at KillickClaw harbor and takes a leap of faith by visiting the vessel and interviewing the owners for a précis on the matter. Interaction with the surroundings is present in the act of going to the actual boat and talking to the owners, indeed it is one of Proulx’s resources to writing, for she states, “the examination of the lives of individuals against the geography and longue duree of events, that is that time and place are major determining factors in a human life” (Proulx, “Biography”). 2

The shipping news is a simple compilation of boats, shown below: SHIPS ARRIVED THIS WEEK Bella (Canadian) from the Fishing Grounds Farewell (Canadian) from Montreal Foxfire (Canadian) from Bay Misery Minatu Maru 54 (Japanese) from the Fishing Grounds Porto Santo (Panamanian) from the High Seas Zhok (Russian) from the Fishing Grounds Ziggurat Zap (U.S.) from the High Seas (Proulx Shipping 87).

21 Exemplifying her feelings about writing through Quoyle is the reason for the character’s interest beyond the shipping news; furthermore, it demonstrates the answer to his dissatisfaction. Quoyle’s interest in working on stories that detail occurrences about the ships brings him satisfaction because they are providing history and realism to the citizens of Killick-Claw. This curiosity that surfaces is Proulx’s longing to denote “what one should write about,” which in her case is realism (Bolick 4). “KILLER YACHT AT KILLICK-CLAW” is one of two articles that cause conflict between Quoyle and managing editor Tert Card, since it deals with writing about his fascination with observation and reality. As mentioned earlier, the Hitler boat news piece was not assigned to Quoyle, but appears from his need to explore his surroundings, and therefore, causes disapproval and envy. As retaliation, Card decides to print the profile without Jack Buggit’s knowledge in hope of Quoyle’s dismissal from the paper; Card’s answer to Quoyle’s profile request is described below: You didn’t do the one Jack wanted you to do and you did one he don’t know you did. Hell, of course we’ll just run it. Proper thing. I haven’t seen Jack in a flaming fit for a long time. Not since his fishing boot fell onto the hot plate and roasted. Tell you what, you better leave you motor running when you come in tomorrow morning (Proulx, Shipping 142). While the matter is resolved once Jack Buggit, the managing editor, approves the yacht profile and adds a special column for boats arriving at the harbor. The latter quote supplies facts that become crucial in the next article to both Quoyle and Proulx’s writing methods. But before delving into Proulx’s writing methods, I will supply Quoyle’s next article, which deals with the already established animosity between Card and the principal character as well as deliver realism to the story. I now provide in full-length Quoyle’s oil tanker news piece:

22 NOBODY HANGS A PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER There is a 1904 photograph on the wall of the Killick-Claw Public Library. It shows eight schooners in Omaloor Bay heading out to the fishing grounds, their sails spread like white wings. They are beautiful beyond compare. It took great skill and sea knowledge to sail them. Today the most common sight on the marine horizon is the low black profile of an oil tanker. Oil, in crude and refined forms, is-bar none-the number one commodity in international trade. Another common sight is black oil scum along miles of landwash, like the shoreline along Cape Despond this week. Hundreds of people watch Monday morning as 14, 000 metric tons of crude washed onshore from a ruptured tank of the Golden Goose. Thousands of seabirds and fish struggled in the oil, fishing boats and nets were fouled. “This is the end of this place,” said Jack Eye, 87, of little Despond, who as a young man, was a dory fisherman with the schooner fleet. Our world runs on oil. More than 3,000 tankers prowl the world’s seas. Among them are the largest moving objects ever made by man, the Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs, up to 400 meters in length and over 200,000 deadweight tons. Many of these ships are single hull vessels. Some are old and corroded, structurally weak. One thing is sure. There will be more oil spills, and some will be horrendous. Nobody hangs a picture of an oil tanker on their wall. (Proulx, Shipping 201202) The passage just referenced reflects Proulx’s activism on contentious matters that have always attracted the author. In both non-fiction and fiction Proulx presents a definitive tone when it comes to controversial issues3. In “NOBODY HANGS A PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER,” Quoyle mirrors the author’s determination for righteousness against big oil corporations that endanger and corrupt the city.

3

In an interview Proulx states, “I was writing about the United States, and I was writing about immigrants; violence is a fact of life in our country and in immigrants lives” (Bolick 6). Moreover, this activism, projected into Quoyle’s concern for environmental issues in Newfoundland’s small and colorful city, should be considered when reading the character’s actions.

23 The oil tanker story allows us to pursue other key ideas near and dear to Proulx’s heart. Specifically, note how the quarrel between Quoyle and Tert Card regarding the petroleum behemoth ship exposes a late 20th century truism--how corporate faceless monsters devour natural resources in order to selfishly profit. This echoes her 1996 novel Accordion Crimes, where she explores immigration and the violence immigrants face while living in a new country, she indicates her knowledge of the cruel reality of immigrant life by stating that “the situation of the immigrant in a new culture is savage and dangerous, full of violence.” Likewise, in the oil tanker article Quoyle exposes the hazardous and heartbreaking truth of the destruction of an ecosystem by stating that nobody wants a picture of an oil tanker on their wall (Bolick 6). After reading the article, Tert Card confronts Quoyle and expresses his opposition to his writing: Keep your bloody American pinko Greenpeace liberalism out of it. Who the hell are you to say this? Oh, yes, Mr. Quoyle’s bloody precious column! It’s against our whole effort of development and economic progress. (Proulx, Shipping 202) Unfortunately, the dispute does not end with Tert Card’s spiteful words. The angered managing editor takes matters into his own hands and rewrites Quoyle’s tanker story to express his favorable views on oil and tankers. Tert Card’s revised version is as follows: PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER More than 3,000 tankers proudly ride the world’s seas. These giant tankers, even the biggest, take advantage of the Newfoundland’s deep-water ports and refineries. Oil and Newfoundland go together like ham and eggs, and like ham and eggs they’ll nourish us all in the coming years. (Proulx, Shipping 203) Tert Card’s article underscores propaganda for oil companies and awful writing at its best. The story presents no passion and no soul; it proves a simple rant for vengeance with painful imagery that compares oil to breakfast. Quoyle’s beautiful depiction of oil washing

24 up on the shore, effectively annihilates nature which is reduced to a shameful comparison of ham and eggs. His feelings on oil tankers when he writes, “nobody hangs a picture of an oil tanker on their wall,” encasing the meaning of the piece with a strong and resonant voice, Quoyle by passes comparisons, elegantly illustrating his passion for truth. However, that resonant voice goes silent once the new oil vessel piece appears. As Quoyle reads Tert Card’s altered article, he loathes the changes made and confronts the culprit, for his interest, passion, and accomplishment have been taken away. Card stands no chance against an angered writer who, for the first time in his life, fights for his art: “You cut the guts out of this peace! You made it into rotten cheap propaganda for the oil industry” (Proulx, Shipping 203). The explosion of words coming out of Quoyle’s mouth is a pivotal moment in the character’s life, since it presents him as a writer. That is, for the first time in his life, he recognizes himself as a writer, just as Proulx decided late in her life to become a fiction writer. As the proceeding passage demonstrates, Quoyle has given himself to writing: “This is a column,” bellowed Quoyle. “You can’t change somebody’s column, for Christ’s sake, because you don’t like it! Jack told me to write a column about boats and shipping. That means my opinion and description as I see it. This” – he shook the paper against the slab cheeks – “isn’t my opinion, isn’t what I see.” (Proulx, Shipping 203) The paragraph echoes Proulx’s decision, after years of writing non-fiction and journalistic pieces, to dedicate herself to fiction and become a fiction writer. She says on the matter, “for most of my life I simply didn’t think of myself as a writer” (Bolick 3). Proulx’s life reflects as Quoyle finds his persona and ultimately gets his original oil tanker article published. Having concluded analyzing the oil tanker story, we will now examine Proulx’s writing methods by turning our lens toward the following article: “FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP ME”

25 Everybody has seen the Plimsoll lines or loading marks on vessels. They mark the safe load each ship can carry. These loading marks came about because of a single concerned individual, Samuel Plimsoll, elected MP from Derby in 1868. Plimsoll fought for the safety of seamen in a time when unscrupulous shipowners deliberately sent overloaded old ships to sea. Plimsoll’s little book, Our Seamen, described bad vessels so heavily laden with coal or iron their decks were awash. The owners knew the ships would sink. They knew the crews would drown. They did it for the insurance. Overloading was the major cause of thousands of wrecks each year. Plimsoll begged for a painted load line on all ships, begged that no ship be allowed, under any circumstances, to leave port unless the line was distinctly visible. He wrote directly to his readers. “Do you doubt these statements? Then, for God’s sake-oh, for God’s sake, help me to get a Royal Commission to inquire into their truth!” Powerful shipping interests fought him every inch of the way. (Proulx, Shipping 207) Once again, we are reminded of Proulx’s roots as a non-fiction writer. The latter article communicates her love for the back-to-the-land movement where she explored communes, gardening, and architecture. Just as the articles reflect her “inborn curiosity about life,” so do Quoyle’s, which are expressed in “FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP ME” (Bolick 2). His curiosity about life in Killick-Claw is essential to his writing; moreover, his dedication to observe small details ignored by its citizens giving the piece weight as literature. In addition, the article contains careful use of language that includes well-turned phrases, elegant syntax, and rhyme, aesthetic choices vividly painting for readers. At this point, Quoyle is a certified writer who writes news as literature. He prepared for this news article just like an author prepares to write fiction, that is by doing research. Beyond his keen observations and the background research he uses for the story, he has his typewriter and “a stack of books on nineteenth-century shipping regulations and abuses,” from where he made notes and “started on the first draft, banging the keys, swearing when his fingers jammed between them, writing about Samuel Plimsoll and his line” (Proulx, Shipping 207). Again, Proulx’s shadow and

26 writing methods present themselves in Quoyle, since the Pulitzer Price winner always researches before she writes. For example on this she states: Before I started writing non-fiction, I was working on my doctorate in history. During those years in graduate school I was immersed in academic research, and the research habit is one that does not go away. It became second nature to me to explore how and where things were done. But I’m not only research oriented: I’m naturally curious about how things work and how people are (Bolick 2). The discipline of Proulx’s curiosity and academic research is what makes Quoyle’s writing significant; the author’s background in journalism reflects vibrantly in her novel through Quoyle as he goes to a public library and checks out books that will aid him in his article writing. As Proulx mentions in the paragraph above, her literary research supports her non-fiction and fiction writing not only with evidence, but also with knowledge and experiences come across by others, which enrich her pieces. The vibrant and stylish phrases utilized in Quoyle’s last article in The Shipping News reproduces Proulx’s writing methods and surpasses all of his previous writing, making it his masterpiece. Here now is Quoyle’s masterwork: GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT There are some days it just doesn’t pay to get up. Harold Nightingale of Port Anguish knows this better than anyone. It’s been a disastrous fishing season for Port Anguish fishermen. Harold Nightingale has caught exactly nine cod all year long. “Two years ago,” he said, “we took 170,000 pounds of cod off Bumpy Banks. This year-less than zero. I dunno what I’m going to do. Take in washing, maybe.” To get the nine cod Mr. Nightingale spent $423 on gas, $2, 150 on licenses, $4,670 on boat repair and refit, $1,200 on new nets. To make matters worse, he has suffered the worst case of sea-pups in his 31 years of fishing. “Wrists swelled up to my elbows,” he said. Last Friday Harold Nightingale had enough. He told his wife he was going out to haul his traps for the last time. He wrote out an advertisement for his boat and gear and asked her to place it in the Gammy Bird.

27 He and his four-man crew spent the morning hauling traps (all were empty) and were on their way back in when wind increased slightly. A moderate sea built up and several waves broke over the aft deck. Just outside the entrance of Port Anguish harbor the boat heeled over to starboard and did not recover. Skipper Nightingale and the crew managed to scramble into the dories and abandon the skinning boat. The vessel disappeared beneath the waves and they headed for shore. The boat was not insured. “The worst of it is that she sank under the weight of empty traps. I would have taken a little more comfort if it had been a load of fish.” On his arrival at home Mr. Nightingale canceled his classified ad (Proulx, Shipping 219-220). In “GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT” Quoyle’s literary writing expresses magnificent prose as he continues to focus on life, people, realism, and research. Moreover, his careful use of language makes the piece seem like a short story, similar to Steinbeck’s war columns that “were like pieces of short stories, rich in dialogue and description, and a slight undertow of plot (Steinbeck, America 274). The sadness of events made the writing of the piece difficult for Quoyle, but in order to be faithful to his interest he had to dive into the subject’s feelings and explore the harsh truth of life. Furthermore, his writings contributed to the citizens of Newfoundland by exposing controversial issues that illustrated hopelessness, despair, and astonishment; all topics touched upon by Proulx’s methods. As previously done with the oil tanker story, Tert Card tries to ruin Quoyle’s achievements, imprudently commenting, “Ha-ha. I remember him calling up about that ad” (Proulx Shipping 220). Following this statement, Quoyle slumps at his desk, thinking of Harold Nightingale standing in the rain, telling him how his lifework ended, a dramatic moment mocked by Card, who treats treating it as a stupid joke. He keeps quiet and lets Card enjoy his mockery, for Quoyle knows Card’s laughing is not because of the ad call, but because the man is oblivious to reality, observation, and writing. As the best writer at the Gammy Bird, Quoyle’s writings become literature and opens an infinite possibility of interaction with the readers, which

28 brings them an irreplaceable sensation of the world, its beautifulness and meaning (Todorov 3). We turn now to a close analysis of Proulx’s fictionalized pieces of journalism, particularly where literary criticism concerns itself with the foundations of news and reporters’ search for the facts. As mentioned earlier, Proulx wrote articles for several newspapers before becoming a fiction writer. Her reportages feature themes close to her heart, expressed elegantly throughout the pages. However, unlike literature, writing news must include six elements in order to make an article rich in content. In fact, in 1895 theorist Ernest Phillips wrote the journalistic guidelines called, How to Become a Journalist, which describes the rules a reporter must follow when writing a story. It includes inquest reporting, accurate transcriptions, quoting witnesses, and the six elements known as the Ws and H. These six elements, still found in every news article, reinforce news pieces as literature since it “utilizes narrative form in order to give readers a word portrait of the incident the reporter is dealing with” (Phillips 41). Prouxl’s fictionalized articles follow these guidelines, enriching the text with the author’s unique perspective of the outside world. Each writer applies the six elements differently to their articles, as in the case with Proulx where, projecting herself through Quoyle, she takes Newfoundland’s fictitious occurrences to a deeper journey, reflecting her passions. The articles in question are “NOBODY HANGS A PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER,” “FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP ME,” and “GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT,” where controversial issues, touching stories of survival, and the acceptance of faith describe Proulx’s foundational techniques of news and her fervor for valuable subject matters.

29 The six elements found in the articles mentioned above are called the five Ws and the H, which stand for who, what, when, where, why, and how. Moreover, every article applying these elements contains a different meaning pertaining to its story (Wilson 107). Beginning with “NOBODY HANGS A PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER,”4 Proulx focuses on the oil tanker named the Golden Goose, including its oil spills and its unethical moneymaking that cause animal deaths and unemployment in the city of Killick-Claw. Prouxl carefully chose her elements for this story since it deals with controversial issues that affect citizens favoring and opposing oil tankers. The tanker’s irresponsibility for the oil spills illustrated by the following quote, “14,000 metric tons of crude washed onshore from a ruptured tank of the Golden Goose5. Thousands of seabirds and fish struggle in the oil, fishing boats and nets were fouled” paints a strong image in the readers’ minds creating a helpless feeling and an urge to save the animals. The six elements in this piece are placed by Proulx to provoke a reaction in the reader; she uses them as instruments to get her message of urgency across and to fuel anger into people for the destruction of the natural world. Her vivid language in each article, fused with the foundational elements of news provides Proulx an outlet to express her sentiments through fiction. In “FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP ME,” the author offers a short story of tragic events that ends with thousands of lives being saved6. In this article she goes back to her years in graduate school when research was her craze. By writing the story of the Plimsoll lines she highlights a bit of Newfoundland

4

All quotes are from pages 201-202 of The Shipping News

5

The six elements for this article are as follows: Who, Golden Goose. What, oil spills. When, Monday morning. Where, Cape Despond. Why, unethical moneymaking. How, refraining from hanging a picture of an oil tanker. 6

All quotes are from page 207 (Proulx, Shipping).

30 history that eventually lead to the mandatory weight rules for every ship in the world. 7 Her unique description of the facts and the use of the Ws and H create a new form of telling a story. 8 Proulx’s favoritism on writing about misfortune is displayed in “GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT,” where she presents to her reader the cruelty of life. 9 By mixing the six elements into her writing, she demonstrates that life changes constantly. Moreover, her integration of the Ws and H bequeaths advice on handling oneself in dire situations. 10 Proulx’s use of the six elements reinforces her fiction writing by giving the readers a canvas of daily occurrences, problems, and suggestions that arguably enrich both her text and the readers’ life. The author’s love for the outside world and its many troubling issues becomes Prouxl’s way of applying the six elements and therefore contributing to the proposition of news being literature. This combination of literature and news elements also occurs in the news world. Such is the case of Greg Bledsoe, a KNSD reporter. His article, “GIVE 7 XMAS IN OCTOBER,” applies the six elements to his writing with the purpose of giving people hope. Like Proulx, his determination transmits helpful messages to the readers. The following presents Bledsoe’s article in its entirety: GIVE 7 XMAS IN OCTOBER 7

In 1868 Samuel Plimsoll was elected MP and published a small book called Our Seamen, which describes the faults in overloaded ships. The Plimsoll lines were actual lines painted on ships that would indicate the weight of a vessel. Therefore avoiding overload and potential sinking. 8

The six elements for this article are as follows: What, Plimsoll lines or loading marks on vessels. Who, Samuel Plimsoll. When, 1868. Why, saving lives. Where, Newfoundland. How, getting the lines painted on the ships. 9

All quotes for this article are found in pages 219-220 of The Shipping News.

10

The six elements for this article are as follows: Who, Harold Nightingale. Where, Port Anguish harbor. When, present year. What, he’s retiring. Why, bad fishing season. How, selling his boat.

31 “Hello.” If Emerald Randolph ever knocks on your door, don’t worry she’s not selling anything. She may just be giving something away. “We’ve seen a lot of houses where people need help.” Every year, for the past 13 years, Emerald has been choosing a handful of homeowners in Chula Vista who could use a helping hand. Then she helps provide the hands. “Astonishment, because they’ve never seen so many people around their house at one time.” She calls it Christmas in October. “It always makes a huge difference.” Nancy and Sean Vanderziel call it a miracle. “Ok, want me to help you.” No matter what month it is. “I feel like I have a whole bunch of new best friends.” The program assists those who meet low-income guidelines. And like so many other families, these are not easy times for the Vabderziels. “We struggle to make ends meet. My wife Nancy works graveyard shift. I work during the day. We just try to put all the pieces together.” This is about more than paint or planting flowers. These volunteers are planting seeds. “With people like you, it makes the world a better place.” And that’s what Emerald Randolph brings door to door. (Bledsoe) As previously pointed out, the articles analyzed earlier all enhance the same journalistic characteristics that include the five Ws and the H. Moreover, they also present a literary style of writing, which distinguishes them as literature. Although they are fiction, they have been extracted from the root of journalism in order to feature the strength of literary journalism. Being an actual news article, “GIVE 7 XMAS IN OCTOBER” features a literary style and contains the journalistic traits similar to Proulx’s experiences as a nonfiction writer where she took the essence of people to write the fiction pieces in her novel. 11 The article exemplifies a metaphoric tone that exalts the emotion of the piece. With phrases such as, “Emerald has been choosing a handful of homeowners in Chula Vista who could use a helping hand. Then she helps provide the hands,” and “this is about more than paint or planting flowers. These volunteers are planting seeds.” This news article shares

11

The six elements for this article are as follows: Who, Emerald Randolph. What, helping people in need. When, October. Where, Chula Vista. Why, good intentions. How, gathering willing people.

32 aspects of both literature and journalism area, since it reads “elegantly” and satisfies the six news elements. As the latter article and Proulx’s fictional pieces show, the integration of news elements into literary criticism proves fruitful when writing literature. Each writer adds to his or her feature by exemplifying their unique causes, making the text rich in language and ideology.

33

CHAPTER 3 QUOYLE, LITERATURE VERSUS NEWS In the last chapter we concern ourselves with Quoyle’s embodiment of Proulx’s writing methods as well as exploring the main character’s articles in order to present journalism’s techniques. Having considered the comparison between writer and character, we now turn to the creativity and imagination placed in each article, which further support the notion of news as literature. However, before I investigate these subjects, I will present a controversial matter having to do with literature’s ambiguous definition, often blocking the recognition of news as literature. Many theorists throughout the literature field regard journalism and literature as separate from each other; however, to view these two text-base disciplines as independent robs both of their generative power. Proulx integrates creativity and imagination in her writings in order to united both fields and demonstrate the cross-pollination between them. Let us now turn to the norms literature provides that blocks news from literature’s realm. Critics on the matter present rules that dictate literature; these rules are called literary canons that consist of general regulations, principles, and standards of what literature should be, however, one sole canon does not exist, for each theorist adds or subtracts factors to their definitions creating different checklists of items to be accomplished in order for a text to be accepted as literature. Proulx takes advantage of this disagreement and uses her creativity and imagination to fulfill many of the lists circulating the discipline by incorporating some of the factors listed and decorating them with her unique methods of writing.

34 As explained in the paragraph above, there are many definitions of literature, which try to blockade certain texts into the literary discipline, one of those being news. The first description of literature excludes news from the field by stating that only fictional works are to be considered literature, which deals with the term being “narrowed down to what we today call imaginative literature that only includes the poem, the tale, the play in particular” (Wellek, 19). By selecting these genres, literature merely qualifies as fictional work, and “excludes information or even rhetorical persuasion, didactic argumentation or historical narration from the definition on literature” all which are utilized by Proulx (Wellek, 20). As clarified in the last chapter, Proulx has a journalistic background, which exposes her attraction to realism, informational, and historical commentary that is present in her writings in general, as wells as in the fictitious Quoyle articles. The news articles come into literary question because they are not poems or tales, but products of news proving accounts of recent occurrences in the city of Killick-Claw, Newfoundland. However, the imagination and creation Proulx implants in the articles makes them a part of literature. I will like to remark that other informative texts have been excluded from the field because of their failure to execute the steps described, such works as Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, which shares a similarity with the articles in The Shipping News. In writing “KILLER YACHT AT KILLICK-CLAW,” “NOBODY HANGS A PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER,” “FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP ME,” and “GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT” Proulx dictates the interrelationships between scenery and character, which “stress on the impact of the landscape and characters’ ability to adapt,” themes also dealt within The Origin of Species (Scanlon 102). Proulx’s text shares the trajectory of the forces of determination as crystallized in Darwin’s 1859 book, which states:

35 Darwin’s conviction that everything is interconnected, even if the connections may at times not be apparent, provides the basis for the constant imbrication of place, persona, and plot in realistic fiction. What is more, in Darwin’s account of evolution, environment is the decisive trigger of action insofar as it impels individuals to change – or condemns them to extinction if the necessary process cannot be accomplished. (Furst 176) As acknowledged in the quote above, Proulx’s articles in The Shipping News have an interconnection between surroundings and people. For example, the first news pieces detailing Hitler’s boat and the importance of it being docked at the Newfoundland harbor illustrates an overlapping of Killick-Claw and Germany through a yacht that disembarked at the harbor. The same correlation can be made with all of the articles, such as the oil tanker story that presses on environmental issues, demanding or heralding a call to action. As stated in an earlier chapter, the oil spill story urges people to change how the world is run by protesting against oil industries by ignoring photographs of oil tankers, however, it also castigates those individuals who do not feel the need to change through promising a stalled ocean filled with oil and death. The final article describing the loading lines puts Newfoundlanders in contact with their past. Moreover, it presents adaptation to changing situations for skipper Nightingale and his tragic loss of economy. Proulx has successfully presented realism in her articles, but has also decorated them with the genres established by one of the canon’s guidelines, for the author’s creativity and imagination surrounds her every thought and saturates the pieces with meticulous observation methods, affection for specific locations, and her desire for realism. Proulx says: I am something of a geographic determinist, believing that regional landscapes, climate and topography dictate local cultural traditions and kinds of work, and thereby the events on which my stories are built (Proulx, MacMurtry and Ossana 129). Each of the articles in the novel provide an elegant and proficient language which may be found in any poem, tale, or play. Furthermore her news pieces reflect an air of short

36 story telling, as clearly seen in “GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT,” where dialogue, description, and plot are carefully mixed with journalism techniques. However, since there are many canons each supplying different requirements for what literature should be considered worthy, the term itself becomes ambiguous and generates many possibilities for writings to enter the literary genre, as with the articles of The Shipping News. The previously described literary requirements or checklists, present an explanation of what every written work must satisfy in order to be considered literature. However, this has proven to be very limited and problematic in that it not only provides the creation of more lists, it also forces many writings into oblivion or into a limbo where they simply cannot be classified. Let me state right now that because of these many competing and often contradictory views imparted by theorists, news can and is classified as literature. Therefore, Proulx’s articles in The Shipping News are literature. The reason for discarding news from literature lies in the premise established several centuries back, such as the 14th century, where “in antiquity and in the Renaissance, literature or letters were understood to include all writing of quality with pretense to permanence” (Wellek 20). The latter definition of literature expresses another description of the term, which is vague and can be applied to any text as long as it shows durability; journalistic articles qualify for this classification since they are solid writings and will challenge the test of time, that is, they are eternal. Pressing on the issue of news as literature and those who question it, news articles’ short structure is not welcomed by academics in the literary arena because its “length is drastically cut; pace is speeded up, and words reassert their importance” (Dayan and Katz 407). Theorists believe that news cannot integrate in a column the “careful use of language, and being written in a literary genre (poetry, prose, fiction, or drama)” and therefore cannot

37 be called literature (Meyer 1). As already established in the paragraphs above, news articles do have careful language, and do incorporate literary genres for the public to read aesthetically; however, to fully eliminate the notion of length as a disadvantage, let’s delve into the early beginnings of Quoyle’s journalistic career. Quoyle’s first job was writing for The Mockingburg Record and it was not easy. He had to learn from scratch how to write news articles, which included shorting a news piece in order to comply with techniques of journalism that brings us back to the Ws and H already discussed in the last chapter. His first assignment on a planning board meeting exceeded the normal length of an article and had to be shortened. In order to address the issue of extensive versus brief writing, I will supply the following passage from Quoyle’s article at The Mockingburg Record: Last night the Pine Eye Planning Commission voted by a large margin to revise earlier recommendations for amendments to the municipal zoning code that would increase the minimum plot size of residential properties in all but downtown areas to seven acres. (Proulx, Shipping 7) The previous paragraph is only the introduction of an eleven-page article Quoyle wrote on a planning board meeting, however, the article does not comply with the construction of news since the where, why, and how are missing from the Ws and H format. A coworker helps him shorten the piece and place the missing information. The following is the rewritten article by his coworker, containing the full five Ws and the H: Pine Eye Planning Commission member Janice Foxley resigned during an angry late-night Tuesday meeting. “I’m not going to sit here and watch the poor people of this town get sold down the river,” Foxley said. A few minutes before Foxley’s resignation the commission approved a new zoning law by a vote 9 to 1. The new law limits minimum residential property sizes acres. (Proulx, Shipping 7) As presented in the latter chapter, I will briefly explore the Ws and the H as means to present news articles in The Shipping News as literature and eliminate the theorists’ concept

38 of short texts as an unvalued element of literature. Beginning with the article in question, last night is the when because that is when the meeting took place; Janice Foxley is the who since she is the person who resigned. Resigned is the what, for the story focuses on her and not the plot sizes as Quoyle previously had written. The town getting sold down the river is the why because it is the reason that she resigned. The where is loosely explained to be here, meaning the town of Mockingburg. And finally the how is angry since the woman got upset as she resigned. The editing of Quoyle’s first article shows him how to construct news by following the canon of journalism, which includes shortening techniques by the use of Ws and H. However, it does not tell him how to write, for that comes from the writer’s soul. As with Quoyle’s prose in the novel, he chooses what to write because it is what interests him, which has also been shown to reflect Proulx’s writing methods. Moreover, and most importantly, the articles provide careful use of language that includes well-turned phrases, elegant syntax and rhyme, which paint the story in the readers’ mind. Proulx’s complex approach towards writing news articles supports the value of literature’s canon, since it is utilizing imaginative ways to portray prose, just as a writer would write poems, tales, and short stories. Her imagination expresses literature due to the fact that her style of writing incorporates art in order to capture realisms and fuse it with rich symbols and metaphors worthy of any canon’s approval. With respect to the matter of imagination and fusion of literary techniques, the following puts forward Proulx’s artistic view as she paints with watercolors the locations of her new text as inspiration: It makes you look at the landscape very hard for 20 minutes or half and hour and if you sat there with paper and pen and tried to write it in prose, what you were seeing, it’s not the same thing. You look in a different way at the landscape when

39 you’re trying to reproduce it. And it’s very very hard to do this and get it accurately (Proulx, “Biography”). Proulx’s powerful and creative research before writing resembles nothing less than literature, for it is art in the making, just as plays and poems. However, other than the rigid literature definitions I presented, there are also flexible ones that offer adaptable meanings, which include news into the literature discipline. Therefore, it falls into the hands of individual theorists to bend and modify strict canons. For example, the following paragraph presents theorist George McFadden’s definition of literature, which changes the branch of learning’s direction into a more ample arena: I should say, then that literature is a canon which consists of those works in language by which a community defines itself through the course of its history. It includes works primary artistic and also those who aesthetic qualities are only secondary. The self-defining activity of the community is conducted in the light of the works, as its members have come to read them. (McFadden 1978:56) The ample arena that McFadden offers applies directly to Proulx and Quoyle’s articles in that a community defines itself through the course of history and that it includes artistic qualities, for all of the news articles from The Shipping News have these characteristics. For example, in “NOBODY HANGS A PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER,” the desperation of the citizens of Newfoundland is described as oil spills reach their community, killing animals, poisoning the waters, and ultimately leaving residents without work or food. The powerful and controversial writing takes into consideration the community of Killick-Claw, Newfondland by expressing concern towards its people, one of McFadden’s criteria in his definition. Moreover, in “FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP ME,” the history of the city runs through the lines of the article as the story of Samuel Plimsoll lightens the community with accounts from 1868 and the struggle to implement loading lines on ships in order to save people’s lives. The recounting of the Plimsoll lines recalls painful memories of

40 death, lies, and riches from an era where vessel regulation did not exist. Furthermore, the exposure of a corrupt government and the creation of ship guidelines proved fruitful history to readers of the society. In a manner similar to McFadden’s flexible definition of literature explored above, other theorists have adaptable canons for the term literature. In Tzvetan Todorov personal essay, “What is Literature For?” the theorist disagrees with the closed canon-checklist approach and presents a more broad-based perspective of literature which, like McFadden, includes community, history, humanity, and emotions: The texts that I was reading-personal narratives, memoirs, historical works, testimonies, reflections, letters, anonymous texts from folklore-did not have, like literary works, the status of literature, because they directly described lived experience. However, like literary works, they let me discover unknown dimensions of the world, they moved me profoundly, and they made me think. (Todorov 3) Todorov’s vision of literature is remarkably equal to that of Proulx, for personal narratives, memoirs, historical works, testimonies, and folklore express her addiction to lived experiences. In “GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT,” Proulx illustrates a man’s tragedy by employing testimony and personal narrative in the retelling of the misfortune of captain Harold Nightingale. For example, the article actively uses Nightingale’s quotes about his sunken ship saying, “the worst of it is that she sank under the weight of empty traps. I would have taken a little more comfort if it had been a load of fish.” Of course he is referring to the bad economy the harbor was going through, but according to Todorov, the fact that the skipper’s voice is included makes wonderful literature, for the article transmits the accounts of a man in a city with fishing drought and financial problems. Another article that fits into the notion of a flexible breathing canon is “KILLER YACHT AT KILLICK-CLAW,” which conveys history, testimonies, and memoirs by explaining the history of a yacht called, Tough

41 Baby. This article recounts the tale of one of Hitler’s boat and its adventures across the sea. According to the theorist, this article functions as literature because it lets readers discover unknown dimensions of the world, moves them profoundly, and enables them to open their mind. Todovor says, “literature can do a lot,” and Proulx accepts this statement as she reflects on writing from lived experiences that provoke emotions in her readers (Todorov 7). The proceeding expresses Proulx’s thought on writing efficiently, including her notion of how writers incite emotion and realism: This business of how you look at a place, how you get inside a place is tricky and it’s beyond tourism by a long shot. It’s not just, you know, staring at something and writing about the shadows of the grass as they fall on the roadway or something like that. But an intense absorption of everything that’s going on: the sound of the wind, the movement of the clouds, the temperature of the air, footprints in the dust, what vehicles people drive and what’s in those vehicles besides the people themselves. (Proulx, “Biography”) The last quote poses Proulx orientation on philosophical theory that manifests in her stress on direct experience, observation, and her journalistic background. Moreover, it presents her news article writing as literature. Having surveyed recent theoretical findings with regard to the nature of literature (especially with respect to journalism) we can conclude that the literary discipline is not simply defined as a term, but as a myriad of terms that grant particular criteria on certain texts. While the criteria changes depending on theorists’ points of view, the discipline may or may not include news as literature; however, since there is ambiguity on the actual meaning of the word, literature should be opened up to include it. In the news articles in The Shipping News, where we have witnessed a bending of literary rules that state every piece of writing has to conform to meet every item on a checklist. Therefore, Quoyle’s stories have met bendable norms that embrace news as literature.

42 To conclude this chapter, I will provide a taste of one of Proulx’s articles so as to present her writings as literary news. The following is an analysis of “Inspiration? Head Down the Back Road, and Stop for the Yard Sales,” which presents a similarity to the articles in The Shipping News. The article “Inspiration? Head Down the Back Road, and Stop for the Yard Sales,” deals, ironically enough, with how Proulx gets her information to write a story. This piece resonates with the fictional story of the skipper who lost his boat since both employ personal narrative and testimony. Proulx writes, “I am an inveterate buyer of useful books on all possible subjects,” which gives the reader an inside look into her life. Moreover, the article also echoes the controversial piece of the oil tanker, since the author again writes about contentious themes, this time dealing with the death of bookstores and the rise of electronic books. “But bookstores are changing,” she laments (Proulx). “Recently I rattled the latch of a favorite in Denver before I saw the sign announcing that it was forever closed, but the inventory could be ‘accessed’ on the Internet” (Proulx).This last statement relates to her method of writing about interests, which in the article in question is all about her interest in finding her inspiration in books, trips, and life. Furthermore, it reads like a short story as she describes the places that she drives through. For instance, she states, “I was driving through Maine when a hubbub on the sidewalk caught my eye,” and “I found the wonderful second edition unabridged Webster's New International Dictionary with its rich definitions and hundreds of fine small illustrations” (Proulx). These quotes also mirror the article of the skipper, while the latter one exemplifies the author’s academic research method that never disappeared after studying for a Ph.D. She also includes funny anecdotes, like the mountain lion incident, to release the tension of the piece before continuing with her journalistic

43 background as she utilizes newspapers to write thoughts. Furthermore, she refers to her attraction to observation and interaction with people and the landscape. The article provides a fruitful inside into the life of writer Proulx as well as presents her news writings to be literature.

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CHAPTER 4 JOURNALISTS TURN TO FICTION As established in the last chapter, there are many definitions of literature that invite journalism into the discipline and that furthermore make the distinction between both symbiotic fields erroneous. However, it must be stated that a trend exists among journalists that sees them leaving news and turning toward fiction. Joyce, Steinbeck, Twain, and Proulx started their careers as working journalist but later on became fiction writers, some appreciating the roots where they blossomed, others turning their backs on it. In the first chapter we saw Steinbeck embracing news reporting and Joyce repelling it, although both men wrote what could be called literary journalism. The reason for this move lies in how the truth is told and expressed through fiction. For example, with the fictional writings of lynching, writers demonstrated the hangings to be brutal assassinations, contrary to what news articles presented, creating a special niche not found in the fabricating, violent newspapers of the time. Nevertheless, this does not demerit news as literature since it deals with the retelling of facts and not the process of creation. Proulx admits moving to fiction “for intellectual stimulation” after writing articles that interests her on back-to-the-land movement with pieces on gardening, communes, architecture, and the difficulty of maintaining a long, dirty roadway (Bolick 2-3). But Proulx never denies her past, in fact, with regard to her experiential themes, she says, “not only could I solve some of those problems in real life and observe what people were doing to make things work in rural situations, I could write about them” (Bolick 3).

45 This chapter deals with journalists moving into fiction in order to express the realities that surround them on a daily basis with an exceptional description of truth not detailed in nonfiction pieces. Theodore Dreiser, a realist fiction writer who states that fiction is the perfect platform for illustrating the truth, serves as an example of reporter turned novel author. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser provides a critique of journalism unlike any other writer has expressed, singling it out as a failure. The novel argues journalism and newspapers are a disappointment to reality, since they withhold the “truth” from its readers, a statement highly regarded by Dreiser who, before turning to fiction, worked at the Chicago Herald, Chicago Daily Globe, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and Ev’ry Month (Canada 228). The turn to sensationalist fabrication by mainstream newspaper during the train and lynching area incited creative writers to integrate “reality” into their “fiction;” these authors explored journalism to its maximum in order to fill their fictional pages with bona fide events. Dreiser criticizes news in Sister Carrie by adding his own perspective on news, stating that it is a failed medium due to its incomplete recounts of events and unsatisfying delivery of current incidences. Moreover, he establishes other forms of communication in fiction as more efficient than journalism, declaring human conversations and personal letters to be better equipped to supply information (Canada 228). Dreiser’s reformed idea on news narrows down to lived experiences, similar to Proulx’s observation writing methods. However, instead of enriching his fictional text with his journalistic knowledge, he diminishes it with fakery. As opposed to Proulx, who masters literary realism capturing an everyday life that fuels her writing in The Shipping News, Dreiser depicts journalism with uncertainness and disillusionment in the pages of Sister Carrie, rejecting the rhetorical fruitfulness of his earlier

46 career. During his reporting period, Dreiser participated several times in the alteration of reality by writing invented articles for the sole purpose of having an appealing news piece. For example, while working at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat he made up interviews and even wrote reviews of plays he did not bother to see (Fishkin 88-96). Furthermore, Dreiser would continue his swindle by adding fictitious incidents to real reports, such as a neighborhood fight in New York that earned him much praise from a city editor (Newspaper Days, 643-644). However, the writer blames the journalistic field for these lies, stating that they were part of the job, a vocation he later rejected and denounced by abandoning journalism and revealing his truth through fiction. But Dreiser fabricated stories and did not mind the recognition he got from his inventive texts, a contradictory side of the author considering that in Sister Carrie he penalizes reporters for not following journalist ethics. The critic Canada finds a simple explanation for his actions: “Dreiser was simply a hypocrite, one who was capable of criticizing transgressions that he had committed” (Canada 236). This statement applies primarily to Dreiser since, Joyce’s negativity towards journalism comes from its violent exploitation of humanity, Steinbeck’s praise for journalism appear from human perspective and tolerance, and Proulx’s obsession with reportage derive from curiosity and concern for the outside world. The latter authors provide an enriched use of the integration of journalism and fiction; reflecting their individual backgrounds in their writings while never showing hypocrisy- a matter that Dreiser displays persistently. Contradiction and hypocrisy encapsulate Dreiser’s representation of the truth since, he distrusts journalism and he manipulates the facts. In Sister Carrie, his solution for truthful events lie in other forms of communication, such as personal letters and conversations, and he leaves journalism behind. Moreover, the novel never delves into Dreiser’s experiences as

47 a journalist, but merely diminishes news articles by presenting them as unreliable. For example, Hurstwood, the main character in the novel, says, “you can’t go by what the papers say” (Dreiser, Sister Carrie 287). Furthermore, Dreiser suggests conversation and letters are journalism’s replacement. He addresses the issue of conversation being more efficient than news by revealing Hurstwood’s theft to Carrie within a chat. Her friend asks her, “you knew he took the ten thousand dollars with him when he left, didn’t you?” Carrie’s surprised answer, “of course I didn’t,” indicates that the truth is once again proven by means other than journalism (Dreiser Sister Carrie 336-337). The novel continues the display of truths with letters, such as the letter Hurstwood receives from his wife informing him on her plans of divorce and another letter describing his manager’s reaction to the stolen money (Dreiser, Sister Carrie 169, 203). Dreiser’s negative impulses regarding journalism flows throughout the book, not once crediting his background for helping him write his fiction. Proulx, on the other hand, acknowledges her reporting career by saying, “it’s invaluable training for novelwriting and it set my approach to fiction forever” (“Biography”). Indeed, Proulx finds her journalistic past life invaluable, for without it The Shipping News would not present such lyrical news passages that not only critique news, but reveal it as literature. As Proulx balances her views on news, Dreiser only focuses on a negative aspect, which seems to have derived from his unpleasant experience at work. My own experiences in television news places me at odds with Dreiser’s one-sided view of journalism, since news offers a myriad of subjects that are hard-fact-truths that I personally work with each day. Recent examples include: the murders of Amber Dubois and Chelsea King, the stranded Carnival Cruise ship off the coast of San Diego; and the President’s trip to Asia. Journalism reports the truth everyday; therefore, Dreiser’s nouveau truth theory of

48 communication replacing journalism is incorrect. The author portrays cynical writing that resembles a scorned employee looking for vengeance against his fellow coworkers. Prior to his novel Dreiser wrote an article featured in the Ev’ry Month magazine where he blasted New York newspapers and the way they “poke their editorial snouts in stagnant cesspools” (15-17). Featuring an angry and displeased tone with Journalism (Dreiser, Ev’ry Month 1517). Perhaps “personal malice may have been partly responsible for his attacks.” Moreover, it provides an inside into the harsh critique of journalism in Sister Carrie (Canada 234). Expanding on Dreiser’s personal attacks on journalism he found great disillusionment while writing for newspapers since his childhood vision of reporting did not materialize as an adult. As a young man, Dreiser had a fascination with newspapers. He loved to read the columns of the Chicago Daily News dreaming that one day he would grow up to be a famous journalist. However, as many people discover in adulthood, childhood fantasies do not necessarily occur as planned, and we accept them and accommodate ourselves to that harsh reality an aspect of growing up that the author never achieved successfully while working in the field. Dreiser’s dream reporter job was a fantasy where “newspapers were always dealing with signs of wonder-great functions, great commercial schemes, great tragedies and pleasures,” (Dreiser, Newspaper Days 640-642). However, in no way does Dreiser achieve fame as a reporter since he became a critic columnist, never having a chance to write hardfact articles. Dreiser’s hostility towards news derives from his frustration and disappointment with a reality that did not catch up with his imagination. For example, Dreiser says, “I began to conceive newspapers as wonderlands in which all concerned were prosperous and happy,” creating a fictional representation of news that lacked veracity. Furthermore, he states that he,

49 “painted reporters and newspapermen generally as receiving fabulous salaries, being sent on the most urgent, interesting and distingue missions.” This clarifies Dreiser’s misconception of reality, and therefore the truth (Dreiser, Newspaper Days 647-653). Truth is what sparked Dreiser to moved into fiction writing, declaring it the only form dignified to represent it. However, as mentioned in the paragraph above, truth was not clear for him since he was a young man. His disappointment with being a critic writer affected him to the point where he hated journalism, one reason why he does not incorporate any prolific experiences into Sister Carrie and in turn creates his own communication rules for dispersing the truth. As with Proulx and other writers, the choice to write fiction is personal. Authors decide to spread the truth by using lived or observed experiences in their texts. However, Dreiser disregards the fusion of reality into fiction, and contrary to Proulx, does not accept news as literature. Ultimately, his confusion with the truth affects his awareness that news and literature are one in the same.

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CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION Through this work, we learned that creativity, imagination, and realism make news part of the literary discipline. News as literature is a matter close to my heart, since I am a news editor always surrounded by the topics of the day. Moreover, it pains me to work on stories that beautifully depict the return of a soldier’s body to his family and have pundits say they are not worthy to classify as literature. I would like to take the time in this conclusion to illustrate how my news day around writers and reporters fortifies the extensive study presented in earlier chapters, all of which include both strict and flexible definitions as formerly explained. Besides the ambiguous meaning of literature, just as Joyce’s conflicting views on journalism in the 1800s due to its violent nature, theorists still all too often describe news as a conglomeration of negative and unfortunate events that “speak of accidents, of disruption.” Subjects that Proulx does not ignore, but confronts in The Shipping News through her portrayal of the Gammy Bird as a newspaper specializing in car wrecks and sexual abuse cases (Dayan and Katz 406). Proulx directly addresses the issue by describing reporters’ decisions regarding upcoming gruesome stories to be published at the Gammy Bird. In the following example, Proulx presents the violent and unfortunate events theorists portray as news: Here’s a depraved lad of twenty-nine went around to the Goldenvale Rest Home and persuaded a seventy-one-year-old lady to come along in his truck for a visit to the shopping mall in Misky Bay. Drove straightaway to the shrubbery and raped her so badly she needed surgery. (Proulx, Shipping 217)

51 The discussion provided above demonstrates Proulx’s knowledge of news from her journalistic period, however, by disclosing news as sometimes brutal she accepts reality, for realism constitutes one of the author’s objectives when writing. As stated in previous chapters, Proulx’s loyalty to realism when writing creates the basis for most of her observational research. But as I have shown through the articles analyzed in this study, every news piece composes literature in view of the fact that violent topics are dealt with delicacy, passion, and emotion. This is the proper moment to shift gears a little and turn to some compelling news writing lifted from my place of employment. The elegant writing here, is that of NBC 7/39’s Emmy Winning writer Greg Bledsoe. His well-crafted elegy allows us to extend our discussion on violence in the news and how it comprises literature: SOLDIER’S BODY RETURNS Despite the weather, this is the kind of day that makes you appreciate where we live. The kind of day most military families can't stop thinking about. This is a day for a homecoming. But here there are no signs. No celebrations. No words. Here, their silence speaks for itself. Because this is a day this military family never wanted to think about. "He was supposed to come back in November.” 36-year-old Army specialist Rafael Martinez is coming home early. "He loved this country so much." Martinez waited until age 33 to join the army. In 2007 he was injured in a bomb blast in Iraq, earning a purple heart, only to recover and redeploy this time to Afghanistan. "I thought he was indestructible." It was an improvised explosive device that killed Martinez and two other soldiers on patrol in Northern Afghanistan, and shattered a family more than seven thousand miles away. "I still don't 100% believe that he's not here (pause). I guess I keep hoping that it's a mistake.” Martinez leaves behind a wife, a three-year-old daughter, and a ten-month-old son. "We're just going to have to work hard to raise them to be what I know my brother would have wanted them to be." This is a day where military families come together. "I'm in real pain. This is my only son." This is the kind of day that makes you appreciate... the cost of living here. "All our memories. How much I loved him. He knew how much I loved him." (Bledsoe)

52 The death, violence, and pain, addressed in Mr. Bledsoe’s article impart powerful prose on war casualties, one of the most sensitive and violent issues in history. Just as in a short story, the article integrates dialogue from the family of the deceased soldier to accompany the description of the events. Aside from expressing realism through keen observation, the language the writer uses slowly moves towards the purpose of the story, featuring a deceased solider, while elegantly giving the reader a pleasant image of a gray and wet city by beginning the article showcasing a rainy day in San Diego. In addition, he continues by writing about life and how lucky we are to enjoy it. As he progresses, instead employing the word ‘homecoming’ as a metaphor to describe the soldier’s death. The writer never mentions the man’s death until the middle of the article, he denotes small phrases, such as, “there are no signs. No celebrations. No words,” to alert the reader the news piece embarks on tragic waters. Moreover, these hints work to hide from the reader the heart of the story, serving as allegories that resemble a poem. In fact, the whole piece invites the reader for an aesthetic reading to comprehend what the story is about. Furthermore, Bledsoe closes the article once again with the enjoyment of living, when he states, “this is the kind of day that makes you appreciate... the cost of living here,” which represents the circle of life since one person dies, while others continue. I work with Mr. Bledsoe and have edited news stories for him, which is why I can say that this man, in his early thirties, is a journalistic poet. No story for him just tells an occurrence of the day that can simply be done by a quick introduction, body, and conclusion; for him an everyday event represents a poem that must be written as such for its reader. An article such as the above likewise focuses on community and history since an American man

53 from the city of San Diego was killed in battle and now, through journalism, will always be remembered as a hero that died for his country. There are also other writers at the station where I work that follow Proulx’s observational method to write their articles. For example, writer and reporter Alicia Dean’s writings are solely based on observation and interaction with her surroundings. Because this study takes place very close to the Marine Corp Base Camp Pendleton in the city of San Diego, California, Dean’s assignments focus on the lives of marines. Her prose describes compassion, emotion, frustration, fear, and patriotism as she spends days with platoons in tanks, helicopters, and recognizance exercises at the camp. Dean carries out Proulx’s method on environmental immersion everyday in order to write her pieces. I will not present an article from her because I believe, as Proulx describes in her quotes, that conversations between colleagues are fruitful when writing due to the extensive dialogues that portray realism which later can be integrated into the text. Instead, I will supply an experience I had with Dean as I edited one of her Marine stories. Like any other day, the reporter, Alicia Dean, sits in my office to watch her edited story on one of the monitors. The article deals with a platoon practicing humvee driving at the beach in Camp Pendleton. The story shows the stress each marine goes through as part of his or her daily routine. However, as I look at Dean to comment on the piece, she has tears in her eyes, and just before I can say anything, her voice cracks and says, “all of the platoon is dead.” My mouth gets dry and I feel a shiver run all over my body. Immediately she breaks down in tears and says that her stay with the men during that exercise was done only one week ago. I thought, “in only one week, sixteen men stationed in San Diego were flown to Afghanistan and killed by enemy fire.” This is relevant to how news is written, as not only

54 did the writer have to rewrite the article to reflect the deaths of the young men, but the interactions Dean had with the marines influenced her writing with anger, passion, pride, and sadness. I will now turn to the future and discuss a topic that Proulx dislikes: the Internet. In The New York Times, the author says, “I rarely use the Internet for research, as I find the process cumbersome and detestable,” for she prefers books and newspapers where she can doodle and fold pages (“Inspiration?”). Many writers and theorists think along the lines of Proulx saying, “the rise of the Internet, which has made the daily newspaper look slow and unresponsive; has created a palpable sense of doom” (Alterman). I don’t share the view of blaming a supposed death of journalism on cyberspace, since I see it thriving in the future. Saying that journalism will die is similar to saying literature will die, an impossible event due the fact that both have survived for eras. Change does not imply elimination of the written form, it only suggest new ways of receiving our daily dose of prose. As new mediums hit the market, news and literature will remain. For example, smart-phones, iPods, Kindles, and iPads have made news and literature available to many people in the world within seconds; no more waiting for a book to arrive or lost time driving to the nearest bookstore or library. Information, being fiction or news, has never been so popular because of this new technology. In fact, I believe that new technologies with access to the Internet have increased readership, for it is now very simple to acquire news and books online, most of them for free. The following is an excerpt from an article called “NEWSPAPERS ARE TOAST, BUT JOURNALISM IS THRIVING” by Alan Mutter that shows the popularity of reading: Journalism is thriving as never before, despite (or, perhaps, because of) the implosion of the businesses that traditionally have supported the press. The challenge for those who are, or who aim to be, journalists is to find a way to

55 afford to do what you ought to do, what you want to do and what society desperately needs you to do. It won’t be easy... For all the fear and frustration among journalists today, however, the vision of next-generation journalism is beginning to materialize beyond the smoking ruins of the once-invincible business models that supported a vigorous and independent press in the decades since World War II...(Mutter) As an example of thriving journalism in new forms, the following is an example of the news and books I read through my iPod: For news, I have applications for The New Yorker newspaper from the United States, the Telegraph from the United Kingdom, Le Monde from France and El Universal from Mexico. In addition to the newspaper apps, I also have the Associated Press and Reuters, which also provide news, but in a more concentrated structure. All of the newspapers are automatically digitized to fit my device displaying the same articles and columns as in the printed version. In addition, there are theorists who agree with me saying, “thirty-nine per cent of individuals under the age of thirty-five told researchers that they expected to use the Internet in the future for news purposes” (Alterman). Newspapers will never cease to be, for the existence of mediums is technologically infinite. The reason for the announcements of the death of newspapers has nothing to do with the prose, it has to do with the declining economy, but not with the writing itself as columnist Andrew Johnson explains in his essay “It's not the Business Model--it's the debt”: It is servicing debt that represents one of the largest costs for many publishers. A Moody’s analysis of six large operators in November found all but Gannett had debts above four times their earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. In Tribune’s case, the multiple was 12.3. “A number of these newspaper companies are still reasonably good businesses but the problem is they took on too much debt,” says Mr. Mutter (Johnson). Regarding the accuracy of the Internet articles, Proulx says, “the information gained is often untrustworthy.” I call attention to the word often, for I know for a fact that news

56 sources on my digital device are trustworthy, since they are the same as the printed material (Proulx, “Inspiration”). Moreover, my iPod also has books raging form Homer to Shakespeare. Here is a list of the books in my virtual shelf: Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, The War of Art by Sun Tzu, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and Hamlet by William Shakespeare, just to name a few. Literature and news will never disappear, they will only change media, and therefore, we can look forward to more fruitful and beautiful texts in the near future.

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REFERENCES Alterman, Eric. “Out of Print: The Death and Life of the American Newspaper.” The New Yorker. Condé Nast Digital, 31 Mar. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2010. . Bledsoe, Greg. “Give 7 Xmas in October.” NBC San Diego 10 Oct. 2009. Print. ---. “Soldier’s Body Returns.” NBC San Diego 23 Oct. 2010. Print. Bolick, Katie. “Imagination is Everything.” Atlantic Unbound. The Atlantic Monthly Group, 12 November 1997. Web. 13 Oct. 2010. Brockmeyer, Keith. “CHP Lexus Crash.” NBC San Diego 10 Sept. 2009. Print. ---. “Toddler Beating Sentence.” NBC San Diego 10 Sept. 2009. Print. Cadet, Herbert. Adventures of A Journalist. London: Sands, 1900. Print. Canada, Mark. “The Critic of Journalism in Sister Carrie.” American Literary Realism, 42.3 (2010): 227-242. Print. Cobbe, Frances Power. The Age of Science: A Newspaper of the Twentieth Century. London: Ward, Lock, & Tyler, 1877. Print. Contreras, Claudine. “Death Dog Rescue.” NBC San Diego 10 Sept. 2009. Print. ---. “911 Search Dog Dies.” NBC San Diego 10 Sept. 2009. Print. Dayan, Daniel and Elihu Katz. Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992. Print. Donovan, Stephen. “Dead Men’s News: Joyce’s ‘A Painful Case’ and the Modern Press.” Journal of Modern Literature 24.1 (2000): 25-45. Print. Dreiser, Theodore. Newspaper Days: An Autobiography. New York: Black Sparrow Press, 2000. Print. ---. Theodore Dreiser's Ev'ry Month. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Print. ---. Sister Carrie. New York: Random House, 1982. Print. Fishkin, J. S. Beyond Subjective Morality: Ethical Reasoning and Political Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. Print.

58 Furst, Lilian R. All is True: The Claims and Strategies of Realist Fiction. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. Print. Johnson, Andrew. “It’s not the Business Model—it’s the Debt.” Financial Times. The Financial Times Ltd. 12 Feb. 2009. Web. 1 Nov. 2010 Joyce, James. Dubliners. London: Paladin, 1987. Print. Joyce, James. James Joyce’s “Dubliners”. Ed. John W. Jackson. London: Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd., 1993. Print. Kershner, R.B. Joyce, Bakhtin, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Print. Lutes, M. Jean. “Lynching Coverage and the American Reporter-Novelist.” American Literary History 19.2. (2007): 456-481. Print. McFadden, George. “‘Literature’: A Many-Sided Process” What Is Literature? Ed. Paul Hernadi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. 49-51. Print. Meyer, Jim. “What is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes.” Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics 41. (1997): 52-61. Print. Mutter, Alan. “Newspapers are Toast, but Journalism is Thriving.” Reflections of a Newsosaur. Blogspot. 17 Mar. 2009. Web. 1 Nov. 2010. “Negro Burned at the Stake.” Chicago Tribune. 2 February 1893. Print. New, Merlyn. The Complete Novels and Selected Writings of Amy Levy 1861-1889, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993. Print. Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A Biography. New York: Holt, 1996. Phillips, Ernest. How to Become a Journalist: A Practical Guide to Newspaper Work. London: S. Low, Marston & Co., Ltd, 1895. Print. Postman, Neil and Steven Powers. How to Watch TV News. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print. Proulx, Annie, E. “Biography.” annieproulx.com. N.p., 20 Dec. 2005. Web. 6 Feb. 2008. . ---.“Inspiration? Head Down the Back Road, and Stop for the Yard Sales.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company. 10 May 1999. Web. 12 Oct. 2010. . ---. The Shipping News. London: Fourth Estate, 1994. Print.

59 Proulx, Annie E., Larry MacMurtry, and Diana Ossana. Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. New York: Scriber, 2005. Scanlon, Julie. “Why Do We Still Want to Believe? The Case of Annie Proulx.” Journal of Narrative Theory 38.1. (2008): 86-110. Print. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century. Berkley: University of California Press, 1986. Print. Simonis, Henry. The Street of Ink: An Intimate History of Journalism. London: Cassell, 1917. Print. Steinbeck, John. America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction. Eds. Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson. New York: Viking, 2002. Print. ---. Travels with Charley in Search of America. New York: Penguin, 1997. Print. Todorov, Tzvetan. “What is Literature for?” New Literary History 38.1 (2007): 13-22. Wellek, René. “What is Literature?” Theory of Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1978. 12-28. Print. Wilson, John. Understanding Journalism: A Guide to Issues. London: Routledge, 1996. Print. Whitt, Jan. “To Do Some Good and No Harm: The Literary Journalism of John Steinbeck.” Steinbeck Review 3.2 (2006): 41-62. Ziff, Larzer. The American 1890s: Life and Times of a Generation. New York: Viking, 1966. Print.

WORKS CONSULTED Hernadi, Paul, What Is Literature? Ed. Hernadi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Print. Hirsch, E. D. "What Isn't Literature?" in Ed. Paul Hernadi,. What Is Literature? Bloomington: Indiana University. Press 1978. Print.