The Satirical Gaze: Nathanael West's Fiction

Nathanael West holds a unique place as one of the major voices of satire in Americanliterary history. He has experienced ups and downs and at last moved from margin tomainstream, and from anonymity to a canonical status. But West's novels as satires, thoughfrequently touched upon, have rarely been systematically studied with sufficient depth orsweep. Throughout the years West has been the subject of vigorous debates among criticsover such issues as his literary status as a satirist.This dissertation attempts to blaze the trail by making a comprehensive and systematicstudy of the very nature of West's satiric vision and the satirical representations of modern lifein his novels against the historical, cultural and aesthetic background of the 1920s and 1930sAmerica. Of central importance to my discussion is my contention that West is a maturesatirist.My dissertation begins with the Introduction, which first deals with the issues central tosatire, and then gives a brief discussion of the special nature of West's satiric vision and theway it functions. The first chapter probes into how West achieved his satiric vision by adetailed study of his life and education. Each of the remaining chapters is structured, in theorder of the publication of West's four novels, around a distinct mode of satire: i. e. surrealhumor(The Dream Life of Balso Snell), black humor(Miss Lonelyhearts), parody (A CoolMillion), and satiric grotesque (The Day of the Locust).In the Conclusion, I underscore West's importance as a mature satirist and as a linkbetween modernism and postmodernism in American literary history.