Imagining the Primitive in Naturalist and Modernist Literature

Focusing on works by Jack London, Frank Norris, Eugene O'Neill, Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Nella Larsen, the author argues that primitive literary characters are more than just memorable. She explores how the working class and racial and ethnic minorities came to occupy the position of ""primitives"".