THERON AND THE EVES OF MODERNISM
THERON AND THE EVES OF MODERNISM

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with the myth of the American Adam as defined in his Master's thesis by R.W.B. Lewis and the forgotten and/or ignored female counterparts of him: the American Eves. Published at the brink of modernism in 1896, Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware or Illumination delineates the awakening or illumination of a Methodist minister in late nineteenth century America. Innocent and ignorant like the mythical American Adam, Theron's ensuing struggle with modernism is intertwined with three women that as the three versions of the American Eve, the "Saint," the "Fallen Woman," and the "Artist" represent the limited categorization of American women at the time. Like the American Adam, Theron must shed his innocence and mature, but he proves unable to do just that. Since maturation means an acceptance of a multifaceted world and a letting go of dichotomies that divide it into black and white / good or bad, Theron's illumination is short lived. All he does is turn around dichotomies, remaining dependent on the woman whom he happens to favor at the time. Trapped in the myth of the American Adam and unable to deal with the changes around him, Theron stands for the American man whose values, in the approach of modernism, fall apart.

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