Dilemma And Choice:a Study Of William Gilmore Simms's Colonial Romances

William Gilmore Simms(1806-1870)is one of the most important writers in nineteenth-century America.He is a prolific writer,especially good at creating romance.He is also an active politician and an erudite historian,attaching much importance to the cultivation and moralization of society.Regrettably,he has attracted not enough critical attention in China and till now not a single research paper on his works can be found in any of the major databases at home.The current condition of the Simms studies in the United States indicates that contextualization is a major approach to the author.Researchers often interpret his works by referring to the political and cultural phenomena of his own times.Such an approach is quite understandable for Simms.Even though he is a historical romancer,he always narrated the past to allude to the present,projecting the social reality through the representation of history and betraying his moral and political orientation in his works.This study follows this approach but strives to break some new grounds.Since many critics have found that dilemma and choice are important patterns of manifestation of the theme of Simms's romance,and there are no researchers conducting any comprehensive analysis on this topic,I decide to choose it as the subject of this study,attempting to unveil its implications.This dissertation chooses three of Simms's romances as the object of study.Two of them are Simms's universally acknowledged masterpieces,The Yemassee:A Romance of Carolina(1835)and The Cassique ofKiawah:A Colonial Romance(1859),both of which have aroused numerous critical attention ever since their publication.Vasconselos(1853)is also an important work of Simms.These three books constitute what is normally called Simms's colonial romance series by American critics.So called by Kevin Collins and Mary Ann Wimsatt,these three colonial romances portray the colonizing attempt of the European settlers,English,or Spanish,of the New World,and are all set against the backdrop of the colonial period in the American South.In the romances,the clash of the heterogeneous cultures and values between the white settlers and the Native Americans in this process of colonization is the catalyst of breathtaking dramatic actions that embody Simms's keen perception of history.Dilemmas and choices of the characters in the works are the core of these actions and the key to understanding his colonial romances.The dilemmas and choices of the characters in Simms's colonial romance are closely related to the setting of this genre.The conflicts between the white settlers and the Native Americans have brought about unprecedented dilemmatic situations and difficulty of choice making.They have to weigh and choose between the conflicting options of the dilemmas.These choices not only concern their personal destiny but that of the whole tribe as well.One of the focus of this dissertation is which kind of values or external factors provides the characters with the orientation to make evaluations and choices.The dissertation will also probe into the specific ethical views which are reflected in these choices.I argue that through the representation of these dilemmas and choices,the author sets up moral models for the society,conveys positive ethical values,delivers profound historical and cultural implications,and reflects poignant social issues as well as the author's views toward them.Simms represents social and historical reality through a framework constructed by the characters' dilemmas and choices.Characterization is the major approach for Simms to depict the dilemmas.This dissertation will analyze the dilemmas and choices of the characters in Simms's colonial romances in three chapters.Each chapter will begin with the introduction of the values and the corresponding ethical ideas that the characters draw on to makes choices.The relationship between these orientations and ethical ideas with those of the author's will also be examined.Then the dilemmas and choices will be analyzed in their specific social context in each section.The first chapter deals with the dilemmas and choices of the Portuguese knight Philip Vasconselos in Vasconselos.Generally speaking,these dilemmas and choices are relevant to chivalry and chivalric literature.Philip's dilemmas between love and expedition,justice and loyalty,the identity of Western knight and Indian Warrior all involve the conflicts between the right and the good in the ethical sense.His choices of love,justice and being an Indian warrior reflect his pursuit of the moral goodness.This pursuit of the moral goodness and the forfeit of the right obligation of a knight in war times manifest that the author endeavors to portray Philip as an anti-chivalric knight.Since the planters in the American South imagined themselves as aristocratic knight,such an image of the knight that favors moral goodness and rejects militarism not only provides justification for their maintaining slavery but legitimacy for their capacity as ruling class of the South and all over the country as well.Specifically,the section of"love or expedition" focuses on the representation of the dilemma of love and expedition and the character's choice from the perspective of narrative strategy in the context of the notion of manhood in the mid-nineteenth century America;the section of"justice or loyalty" mainly focuses on the demonstration of the inner tension of the chivalric values of justice and loyalty and the importance of these two chivalric virtues to the knight in light of the war ethics;the section of "the Western knight or Indian warrior",will explore the implications of Philip's identity reconstruction and cross-dressing from the perspective of postcolonialism.The second chapter analyzes the dilemmas and choices of the American Indian characters in The Yemassee.Overall,these dilemmas and choices are all related to the ethos of the American Indians in their conflicts and confrontations with the white men.These dilemmas of the American Indian characters between desire and obligation,insurrection and concession,and life and honor all embody the relativity of morality.Simms constructs a set of ethical value system for the American Indians in The Yemassee that is different from the mainstream culture.The right moral judgement and comprehension of these choices can only be achieved when they are put in their specific ethical value system that is based on their unique culture.The representation of this unique morality is consistent with Simms's compassion for the American Indians.He hoped to help the white men to enhance their understanding of the American Indians and suggested that neither of them should impose their morality and values upon the other.In each section of this chapter,the "desire or obligation",part will analyze the moral depravity of the son of Indian chief,Occonestoga,caused by alcoholism and the subsequent extinction of the whole tribe in the context of the alcoholism of the NativeAmerican in history and the temperance movement and literature in the United States.Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Rush's research on alcoholism will also be mentioned.The "insurrection or concession" part will interpret the conflicts and communication of the Yemassee Indians and the white men from the angle of multiculturalism.The "life or honor" part will examine the construction of the folk morality and religious belief of the Yemassee by Simms,aiming at unravelling the implication of honor preservation and salvation that underlies the paradox of Matiwan,the wife of the chief,killing and saving her son under the influence of the unique ethical and religious values.The third chapter discusses the dilemmas and choices of the white settlers in The Cassique of Kiawah.As a whole,the author has transplanted the Victorian morality to the white settlers in the colonial period in his works.The choices of these white characters when confronted with the dilemmas of privateering(piracy)and reputation,fidelity and infidelity,philanthropy and hostility all embody the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham.Although Simms openly objected to the materialism in utilitarianism,he makes his white characters pursue the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people in his works.Because this kind of pursuit is not only material and egoistic but also spiritual and altruistic.This spiritual pursuit which aims at promoting the welfare of the majority echoes Sinums's aspiration of elevating the moral standards and the ethos of the society.In each section,the "privateering or reputation" part will analyze how Simms expresses his opinions concerning slavery and filibustering and polemicizes with his political enemy in his fiction through Harry's patriotism and smuggling when the protagonist chooses to be a privateer and through the similarity between slavery,filibustering and privateering.The "fidelity or infidelity" part will point out the symbolic meaning of fidelity which is social stability in the context of Victorian America and the renovation of the traditional polarized image of women in American literature of either being totally submissive or absolutely independent by Simms.The "philanthropy or hostility" part will probe into the dilemma of the American government,i.e.,adopting a national policy of cultivating Native American or enforcing dislocation of them.The dramatic portrayal of the moral elevation of the Indian youth in the story after being taught English reflects the assimilation and reformation of the American Indian by the government in antebellum America.The white rulers believed that teaching the Indian youth English instead of their native tongue is key to helping them break away from barbarity and tamelessness.This so-called philanthropism of civilizing the American Indian is a typical manifestation of colonialism.