15. Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

The American Novel Since 1945 (ENGL 291) Professor Hungerford situates Marilynne Robinson s novel Housekeeping (1980) in a tradition of American writing about the individual s relationship to nature that includes the powerful influences of the Bible, Herman Melville, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The loss of identity that Emerson describes as becoming a transparent eyeball in the woods, Robinson brings into the realm of the home, the built environment. The individual voice and its guiding consciousness are