Relative Intimacy: Fathers, Adolescent Daughters, and Postwar American Culture (review)

In Relative Intimacy: Fathers, Adolescent Daughters and Postwar American Culture Rachel Devlin, an associate professor of history at Tulane, investigates "the unprecedented scale of interest in the father–adolescent daughter relationship during the war and postwar era, the sexual themes that informed its representation, and the decline in any detectable caution, particularly on the part of psychoanalysis, in espousing the benefits of the female adolescent's Oedipal attachment to her father" (2). Devlin's interest is in the culture rather than the conduct of father–adolescent daughter relationships. Thus, rather than rely on documentary sources (sources that might provide insights into how fathers and daughters behaved on a daily basis), she primarily draws from "imaginative literature" such as plays, films, and novels.

Included among the works she examines—and this is but a sample—are Junior Miss (a 1941 play), Kiss and Tell (a 1943 play and a 1945 film), Janie (a 1942 play and a 1944 film), Member of the Wedding (a 1950 novel, a 1950 play, and a 1952 film), Father of the Bride (a 1948 novel and a 1950 film), Lie Down in Darkness (a 1951 novel), Rebel without a Cause (a 1955 film), The Wild One (a 1955 film), Imitation of Life (a 1959 film), Peyton Place (a 1956 novel and a 1957 film), and Lolita (a 1955 novel, published in the United States in 1958). Every now and then Devlin introduces other literatures (for example, articles from Seventeen Magazine and Ebony), but mostly and unabashedly she focuses on fictional works. "It is perhaps telling," she notes, "that the more traditional sources on fatherhood and family life . . . had less to say about fathers and daughters than did playwrights and novelists" (14).

The central thesis of Relative Intimacy is that, contrary to the belief that the 1940s and 1950s were decades when adolescents tried to distance themselves from their parents and the perception that the era was a time when social and sexual conservatism went unchallenged, the culture of parenthood during and after the war actually "fostered a father-daughter relationship characterized by new forms of psychological intimacy and tinged with eroticism" (back cover). That is, if we look at popular fictional texts at the time, we discover that "seductive exchanges" between fathers and their teenage daughters were a recurring theme. Lolita, of course, is a well-known example, but who would have guessed that a Broadway play with the innocuous title Junior Miss would be seething with sexual tension? Devlin walks us through the play's script—a script she says "inaugurated the father-daughter dynamic that would become ubiquitous in the 1940s and 1950s" (84)—and demonstrates how the story of a thirteen year old's coming of age (symbolized, in part, by getting her first high heels) and a father's role in that process (her dad is the one who bestows the gift, over his wife's objections) reflected the preoccupation that playwrights and other artists had with father-daughter intimacy. What's especially interesting is the contrast in how father-daughter and mother-son relationships were culturally represented in the wake of the war. Whereas an emotional attachment between a mother and son often was condemned (too close a connection was viewed as "maternal overprotectiveness" and as the root cause behind a boy becoming a "sissy"), an emotional attachment between a father and daughter was celebrated.

Why was there a preoccupation with father-daughter intimacy at this historical moment? Devlin highlights four factors. The first, she says, had to do with the war and its aftermath. The absence of men who were called to serve overseas and the difficulties associated with their return renewed a discussion about the role of men in America's families. Often the question was asked, What special contribution do fathers make to family life? The answer that the experts arrived at—one that combined "sex role sociology" with "Freudian ideas...