Stafford introduces the rich interpretive possibilities in a contextual analysis of literature. He finds in <3>Moby Dick<1>, <3>The Wings of the Dove<1>, and <3>Absalom, Absalom!<1> three symbolic Americas linked through images of whiteness that are collectively prophetic. Three novels of the 1920s (by Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald) are linked by themes of innocence; three of the 1970s (by Bellows, Malamud, and Updike), by black-white pairs. His flexible method also examines film.

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