Seeking the center: The provincials in the novels of W. D. Howells, Theodore Dreiser, and Edith Wharton

The rapid urbanization after the Civil War made the provincial in the city a prevalent character in late-nineteenth century American literature. These outsiders came to the social/financial/cultural centers to better their social status, advance their careers, acquire urbane tastes and seek "self-improvement" in general. The pursuit of personal development, combined with the success story, provided a new model for the American Dream, while the newcomers' wish to put behind them the limitations of the old life and build a new order in a new land calls to mind the pioneer spirit.; Novelists of different socio-geographical origins, most notably William Dean Howells, Theodore Dreiser and Edith Wharton, treat the story of urban migration with sympathies and prejudices specific to their backgrounds, however. Howells, a Midwestern intellect, regards the relocation experience as a moral test for both natives and newcomers. In A Modern Instance and The Rise of Silas Lapham, both classes have their merits and failings, their interrelation abounds with rivalry and misunderstanding, but the morally and intellectually qualified outsider, if patient, may achieve successful assimilation. Dreiser, child of immigrant, destitute parents, records the newcomer's struggle for survival against the forces of society and nature in Sister Carrie. Because of his identification with his characters and his belief in social Darwinism, he sympathizes with their social ambitions and cherishes whatever qualities avail material success. The reward for his newcomers lie not in assimilation but in the ability to renew their hopes and dreams, though. This life force in the newcomer also fascinates Wharton, even if the Old New York in her blood detests the invasion of parvenu vulgarity and materialism. The Custom of the Country satirizes the obsolescence of the old social order as New Money appropriates genteel culture and transforms it into fashion. In result, rural intrusion not only changes the nature of urban society through reverse assimilation but also creates self-made centers which rival the "authentic" center in desire. As the agent and subject of change, the provincial in the city finally came to embody, to the nation passing a cultural turning point, the American psyche in the Progressive Era.