SOURCE: "Edna Ferber and the 'Theatricalization' of American Mythology," in Midwestern Miscellany, Vol. VII, 1980, pp. 82-93.

In the following essay, Uffen explores the mythical aspects of Ferber's novels, focusing on her use of "larger-than-life" characters, the differences between her heroes and heroines, and the ways in which she uses American geography to reflect the essence of her protagonists.

The enormous popularity of Edna Ferber's novels lay in her ability to create a consistent fictional universe based in popularly known and accepted American mythology: plucky, self-reliant boys and girls gain success and fame in colorful settings ranging from the old Wild West to the new wilds of Alaska. All aspects of Ferber's work—plot, character, setting, style—partake of the myth. Other writers, of course, have also used myth, but more narrowly, as allusion, as metaphor, as extended literary motif and, often, as thematic contrast to the reality of...