Saunders, Judith P. American Classics: Evolutionary Perspectives. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2018.This month's discussion: Chapter Eleven: "Paternal Confidence in Hurston's 'The Gilded Six-Bits'", pp. 226-245.
Any subjects that connect genetics and human behavior, such as behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology, can evoke opposition because of their potential use by defenders of racism or sexism.
Race may be a social construct, but it is a construct built out of ideas about biological inheritance. Natural selection is by definition the selection of inherited biological characteristics by natural processes. Because of the possible misuse of natural selection by racists, those vigilent against racism may be quick to accuse anyone discussing genetics and behavior of being a racist. One must therefore discuss human genetic and evolutionary issues with great care to avoid either actual racism or even the appearance of racism. Stephen Jay Gould was a popular writer about evolution in part because of the clarity of his reasoning about these issues.
Likewise, sexuality and gender are highly contested topics in our society. On the one hand, Texas has declared gender-affirming medical treatment on minors to be child abuse. On the other hand, some gender progressives advocate that persons with fully functional SRY genes (the gene on the Y chromosome that triggers the body to develop into a male) should be allowed to compete in women's sports. Some commentators have judged Frans de Waal to be brave for writing on this topic with his recent book: Different: Gender through the Eyes of a Primatologist. Considering that natural selection is about reproductive fitness, reproduction, and with it sexuality, are critical to subjects that deal with biological evolution.
Because evolutionary literary criticism is the application of evolutionary psychology to the study of literary texts, practitioners of ELC would do well to trend carefully when dealing with issues that relate to race and sexuality.
Judith Saunders, in earlier essays in this collection, has dealt with a number of aspects of what is sometimes called Sexual Stratgies Theory. For example, in her essay on Edith Wharton, Saunders shows that Wharton's female characters demonstrate mate-guarding tactics, tactics for keeping other women away from their men. In her essay on Walt Whitman, Saunders details the ways in which "Song of Myself" demonstrates a fantasy male sexual strategy, minus competition from other men and the attitudes of potential partners.
The book most cited by Saunders in this volume is David Buss's The Evolution of Desire, which discusses this theory of sexual strategies.
Until this essay, chapter eleven in the book, Saunders did not cover the topic of male fears about paternity, which one can associate with behavior that might be labelled patriarchal, nor did she deal with racial issues. I congratulate her that she has dealt with both topics skillfully in her discussion of Zora Neale Hurston's short story "The Gilded Six-Bits." She shows that the evolutionary analysis reveals important aspects of the story that have been missed by previous discussions.
The basic sexual situation relevant to this story is that, when a child is born, the female can be certain that the child is her genetic offspring, because it literally grew within and sprang out of her body. Conversely, any given male, prior to modern genetic testing, had less confidence that a given child was his genetic offspring. One could argue that much of the motivation behind cultural norms such as female virginity before marriage and female sexual fidelity were constructed in order to give the male partner more confidence in his genetic paternity.
The story "The Gilded Six-Bits" is a story about a young wife, Missie May, who was sexually unfaithful to her husband, Joe. He then behaves in a way that signals his lack of trust in her. She becomes pregnant. Throughout her pregnancy, she signals her feelings of repentance for having violated his trust.
Joe's cold treatment of her continues until the baby is born and his mother declares that the baby looks like him. Saunders points out that it is important that it is his mother who says this. His mother has every bit as much of an evolutionary interest in being certain that the child is his as he does. Once his mother judges that he will be investing in his own genetic offspring, he returns to being a loving and supportive husband.
Other critics, such as Hildegard Hoeller, have dismissed the issue of paternity. As Saunders points out, "Storyline and plot development lose their meaning if readers interpret Joe's parental pride at the story's conclusion as altruism rather than as fitness-enhancing behavior" (Saunders, 239-240).
Evolutionary psychologists focus on behavioral patterns that are universal throughout the human species. Explicit racists typically argue that there are essential differences between people assigned to different racial groups, differences which justify differential treatment. As Saunders shows, at the end of the story, the white storekeeper judges Joe's behavior to be particular to blacks and inferior to his own behavior. That behavior, however, is motivated by a universal male concern over paternity. Hurston quietly underlines the protagonist's common humanity while highlighting the storekeeper's ignorant interpretation of that behavior. As Saunders says, "Adaptationist analysis of the story supports Hurston's point fully, as the characters' behavior is shown to be consistent with 'universal psychological mechanisms.'" (Saunders, 242).
Saunders ends her essay with this observation: "Zora Neale Hurston's narrative accepts genetic self-interest as an inevitable component of our common human nature, a sine qua non that, with luck and a modicum of good will, need not be incompatible with tender and lasting relationships" (Saunders, 245). Well done.
