Damnation of Theron Ware

The Damnation of Theron Ware

The Damnation of Theron Ware is a stunning novel, perfectly suited for my treatment of American naturalism as both a literary movement and as the expression of the interaction of key philosophical movements at the end of the 19th century. The central figure is a naïve Methodist minister, Theron Ware, who is praised for his preaching but whose faith is shattered by the first intimations of the 19th century German research which dismantled the traditional claims to the veracity of the Bible. Once cut adrift from his Methodist fundamentalism, Ware is pulled in various directions by the figures around him, each of whom pull him in the direction of one established philosophical movement with important consequences for naturalism. Those figures are the Methodist debt-raiser Sister Soulsby, the Catholic Priest Father Forbes, the scientist Dr. Ledsamar, and the Irish artist Celia Madden.

The editor of my edition has provided an endnote which encapsulates these figures and their import quite briefly and usefully: “Father FOrbers here introduces Theron to what was called the “Higher Criticism” of the Bible, and attempt to establish authorship and historical credibility rather than simply to establish what the text said.
This passage is the first of four sections referring to late-nineteenth century intellectual movements that destroy Theron’s faith. The others are the scientific rationalism and evolutionary theories of Dr. Ledsmar, Celia Madden’s interpretation of of the Aesthetic movement in art and music, and Sister Soulsby’s American Pragmaticsm.” (332)

Personally, I found Sister Soulsby to be eminently pragmatic, but whether or not she is “Pragamatist” did not seem immediately apparent. Most interesting to be are Celia Madden and Dr. Ledsmar. Celia and Ledsmar represent what I often think of as two strands of naturalism, but in this book their views and personalities are presented as diametrically opposed. Celia demonstrates Aestheticism’s connection to naturalism when she declares that her life as a “Greek” requires her to follow her whims. Replace whims with impulses, and Celia is the perfect naturalist; furthermore, she makes a case for upper-class naturalism: it is her wealth that gives her impulses free rein.
Dr. Ledsmar, by contrast, is a naturalist in the more scientific vein: he is interested exclusively in rational explanations for things, and renames one of his lizards after Theron to demonstrate Theron’s animal nature (215-216). He sounds perfectly like Max Nordau when he diagnoses Celia’s Aestheticism as “egotism.”

Both Celia and Dr. Ledsmar agree on something, cementing the connection to Nordau: Theron, influenced by these new ideas has become “degenerate” (306, 315). But Frederic does not fall back on the simple conservatism I initially suspected him of (represented by Celia’s brother Michael (284)). Instead, he gives Theron a “happy” ending – he lights off for the territories, determined to succeed in business and, possibly, politics, where talking, his one skill, is all that matters. Truly an American rewriting of naturalism’s inevitable catastrophe – catastrophe is replaced with a blind and inevitable groping for success, out in the less settled land of Seattle.

Finally, a brief note on the naturalism of its text, in terms of temperament, environment, and circumstances. Alice, Theron’s wife, declares that his degenerate behavior was out of character, and brought about purely by the environment of Octavius. Sister Soulsby disagrees; Octavius did its work, but only could because there was “a screw loose somewhere” in Theron’s mind (323). Elsewhere, Frederic uses terms like mechanism and machinery to describe Theron’s mind – a truly naturalist portrait, where the simple machine that was Theron’s temperamental makeup responded to the new environment and ideas.