Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2025
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities
Abstract
In the composition of Angle of Repose (1971) Wallace Stegner drew heavily from the unpublished writings of Mary Hallock Foote (1847-1938)—a practice that shapes the novel in more ways than one. Stegner seems to have felt that the wholesale use of another’s writings is legitimate provided that appropriated text is worked into something original. Hence the strenuous originality of this tale of a Quaker woman whose incongruous marriage, following a loveless engagement, leads to an illicit dalliance which in turn leads directly to the death of her child. Relating a series of events that exists nowhere but in the pages of the novel itself, the author demonstrates that he is not a borrower but a creator. In this case, however, an investment in singularity and the exploitation of what Stegner called “raw material” are two sides of the same coin. The new, and arguably strained, uses to which the author puts text appropriated from Mary Hallock Foote cannot erase the reality that it was appropriated.
Rights
© 2025 Stewart Justman
Recommended Citation
Justman, Stewart, "Angle of Repose: Mine and Thine" (2025). Global Humanities and Religions Faculty Publications. 29.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/libstudies_pubs/29