Ethical Analysis of the Portrayal of Abortion in American Fiction ( Dreiser, Hemingway, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Brautigan, and Irving)

“The book that results from this original investigation is remarkable. The author takes up, dispassionately yet energetically, the key novels of Dreiser, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Faulkner, Brautigan and Irving. Then, in the final chapter he widens his reach to take in a vast sweep of post-Roe fiction touching on the moral and religious dimensions of abortion. Of course, literary engagement with abortion is very different from the pro and con of legal, philosophical and religious debate found in books and magazines ... Just as cases in law have their precedents, so literary works have their lineage, too. Most of this book deals with the early 20th-century forebears of the abortion fiction of the last thirty years ... In most of these tales, as the author demonstrates, the religious element is sketched in only lightly but it is there all the same, unmistakably present as the setting or backdrop ... Such rhetoric frankly invites the kind of investigation undertaken in this work.… Perhaps it is the absence of enduring love for a woman–the kind of love Yeats writes about when he says, “one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, / And loved the sorrows of your changing face” – that creates the deeply painful void at the heart of this modern fiction about abortion.” – (from the Foreword) Anne Barbeau Gardiner, Professor Emerita, John Jay College, CUNY

“In this work, the author not only addresses an important topic rarely treated in contemporary scholarship but synthesizes ethical and religious perspectives with the tools of literary scholarship. Despite the frequency with which abortions turns up in the major works of American fiction ... literary scholars have seldom thematized its role in their studies. The author’s work not only analyzes the most well-known writers with great sophistication but chronicles the development of this theme and its permutations in a host of lesser-known authors ... The scholarly importance of this volume resides specifically in the typology of approaches that he creates to classify the various ethical stances toward abortion that he has found in twentieth-century American fiction.” – Joseph W. Koterski, Chair, Philosophy Department, Fordham University

“History demonstrates that literary works can significantly influence societal behavior ... This analysis of the treatment of the highly controversial subject of elective abortion in twentieth-century American fiction offers valuable insights that will profit philosophers, theologians, and social scientists, as well as scholars in the communication field ... This thought-provoking analysis of the treatment of abortion in American literature invites further study ... It would be fascinating, for example, to learn from social scientists how influential literature and other media are in molding public opinion regarding the ethics of abortion ...” – Jane Gilroy, Associate Professor, Department of English, Molloy College, Rockville Centre, NY

Foreword
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Review of Six Ethical Aspects in Religious Thinking on Abortion
3. Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925)
4. Ernest Hemmingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927)
5. John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. Trilogy (1938)
6. William Faulkner’s The Wild Palms (1939)
7. Richard Brautigan’s The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966(1971)
8. John Irving’s The Cider House Rules (1985)
9. Other Contemporary Abortion Fiction
10. Conclusion
Appendices A-P
Works Cited
Works Consulted
Index