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MARI SANDOZ: HER USE OF ALLEGORY IN "SLOGUM HOUSE"
Abstract
During her lifetime, Mari Sandoz stated publicly and wrote, in her letters, that her three major novels, Slogum House, Capital City, and The Tom-Walker, were "allegories of the will-to-power." The purpose of this study has been to investigate Slogum House, in particular, in order to determine the nature of the allegory in the book, and to penetrate the reasoning which led the author to her design. Sandoz's correspondence reveals her thoughts about her art, about other writers, about her philosophy, about her attitudes toward editors and publishers. It also tells about her writing, particularly her writing of Slogum House, from its inception through the original version, the revisions, and then her views in retrospect. The letters are especially enlightening as the course of Sandoz's struggle to have her work published continues to the mid-point of the Great Depression. The success of her first published book, Old Jules, brought a flood of correspondence with it, from her reading public, and responses from them elicited insightful commentary to them from her. Through using this primary material, the dissertation traces the evolution of Sandoz's philosophy and the influence which directed her thought in her life and work. Many streams of ideas converged to direct her talent, beginning with the strong personalities of her pioneer mother and father, and their relationships with her. Among the literary figures and philosophers who influenced Sandoz most strongly were H. L. Mencken, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Mann, Joseph Conrad, Niccolo Machiavelli, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and, especially, Friedrich Nietzsche, whose theories of the will to power excited Sandoz's imagination. In addition, her interest in American Indians and their culture motivated her to write about them. Old Jules and Slogum House, however, were the first of her works to reflect her emerging philosophy and art.
Subject Area
American literature
Recommended Citation
MATTERN, CLAIRE, "MARI SANDOZ: HER USE OF ALLEGORY IN "SLOGUM HOUSE"" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8127158.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8127158