Introduction: Reading the American novel, 1920-2010 -- Principles of rhetorical reading -- The Age of Innocence (1920): bildung and the ethics of desire -- The Great Gatsby (1925): character narration, temporal order, and tragedy -- A Farewell to Arms (1929): bildung, tragedy, and the rhetoric of voice -- The Sound and the Fury (1929): portrait narrative as tragedy -- Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937): bildung and the rhetoric and politics of voice -- Invisible Man (1952): bildung, politics, and rhetorical design -- Lolita (1955): the ethics of the telling and the ethics of the told -- The Crying of Lot 49 (1966): mimetic protagonist, thematic-synthetic storyworld -- Beloved (1987): Sethe's choice and Morrison's ethical challenge -- Freedom (2010): realism after postmodernism.
American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism