Briggs, Austin, Jr. “The Damnation of Theron Ware.” The Novels of Harold Frederic. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1969. 97-139.

Carrington, Jr., George C. “Harold Frederic’s Clear Farcical Vision: The Damnation of Theron Ware.” American Literary Realism 19.3 (1987): 3-26.

Dalton, Dale C. “MacEvoy’s Room.” The Frederic Herald 3.2 (1969): 5.

Donaldson, Scott. “The Seduction of Theron Ware.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 29 (1975): 441-52.

Jolliff, William. “The Damnation of Bryan Dalyrimple—and Theron Ware: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Debt to Harold Frederic.” Studies in Short Fiction 35.1 (1998): 85-90.

Jolliff, William. “Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware.” The Explicator 47.2 (1989): 37-38.

Kane, Patricia. “Lest Darkness Come Upon You: An Interpretation of The Damnation of Theron Ware.” Iowa English Bulletin 10 (1965): 55-59.

Luedtke, Luther S. “Harold Frederic’s Satanic Sister Soulsby: Interpretation and Sources.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 30.1 (1975): 82-104.

Michelson, Bruce. “Theron Ware in the Wilderness of Ideas.” American Literary Realism 25.1 (1992): 54-73.

Spangler, George. “Theron Ware and the Perils of Relativism.” Canadian Review of American Studies 5 (1974): 36-46.

Steele, Mildred R. “Ware’s Post-Seattle Career Dept.” Frederic Herald 3.2 (1969): 6.

Stein, Allen F. “Evasions of an American Adam: Structure and Theme in The Damnation of Theron Ware.” American Literary Realism 5 (1972): 23-36.

Suderman, Elmer F. “Modernization as Damnation in The Damnation of Theron Ware.” Ball State University Forum 27.1 (1986): 12-19.

Zimmermann, David H. “Clay Feet, Modernism, and Fundamental Option in Harold Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware.” The American Benedictine Review 45.1 (1994): 33-44.

Zlotnick, Joan. “The Damnation of Theron Ware, with a Backward Glance at Hawthorne.” Markham Review 2 (Feb 1971): 90-92.

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Briggs, Austin, Jr. “The Damnation of Theron Ware.” The Novels of Harold Frederic. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1969. 97-139.

Briggs’ Chapter 5, The Damnation of Theron Ware, examines the themes of damnation and illumination with respect to the title character. Briggs notes that both Everett Carter and John Henry Raleigh argue that Ware is “reformed” at novel’s end: Carter writes of a fall “‘from innocence into knowledge,’” and Raleigh perceives a “‘wiser, if sadder’” Ware, who relocates to Seattle (108). According to Briggs, however, Ware is neither damned nor reformed in the course of his tenure in Octavius; in fact, he remains “pretty much the same old person” (113). Ware’s attitude, as reflected in his reminiscences about his former congregation in Tyre, reveals him to be an ambitious social climber and snob who dreams of “‘ultimate success and distinction’” (120). In light of Ware’s attitude, and other revelations regarding his character in the early pages of the novel, “one wonders,” writes Briggs, “how The Damnation can ever have been taken to be a novel about the transformation of a good man into a bad man” (117). The influence of Dr. Ledsmar, Father Forbes, and Celia Madden often has been judged as the cause of Ware’s fall; however, Briggs questions such judgments. Instead, he suggests that Ware’s fall is not a single event but rather a series of falls in which each new fall is followed by “a new illumination” (121). The fact that Ware fails to learn anything from his “illuminations,” Briggs concludes, suggests that Frederic viewed Ware as a “comic, rather than tragic” figure who is essentially unchanged at novel’s end (139).

Carrington, Jr., George C. “Harold Frederic’s Clear Farcical Vision: The Damnation of Theron Ware.” American Literary Realism 19.3 (1987): 3-26.

Carrington’s genre analysis of Frederic’s novel opens with the claim that “Frederic’s America is farcical; it is a world in which behavior and events are basically determined by the need [. . .] for personal stability and security” (3). Thus, Carrington argues in this article, in Frederic’s interpretation of Howellsian realism, nearly all the characters in this farcical novel are knaves: “selfish aggressors” who manipulate “obtuse victims,” the fools (9). Theron Ware is unique in that his character is both knave and fool: the “fool-as-knave” tries to be a manipulator, but is hopelessly foolish, and the “knave-as-fool” blunders about seemingly helpless, provokes others to help him, and emerges relatively unharmed, ready to repeat the cycle (3). Although Carrington examines a number of devices standard to farce, he identifies hoaxing and acting as central to the development of the novel. Most of the hoaxing occurs in Ware’s mind: he deceives himself more effectively than he deceives any of the other characters. The external hoaxing takes on the form of acting—characters playing a role for the purpose of “self-maintenance” or personal stability (7). Seeing the arrival of Theron Ware in Octavius as a potential threat to their stability, most of the other characters in the novel take immediate and aggressive action toward Ware in order to maintain their positions. Of these, Sister Soulsby is deemed “the most perfect knave in the book”: she is deceptive, manipulative, and ruthless (18). Carrington concludes that the question of Theron Ware’s illumination or damnation is irrelevant because, in the farcical world of the novel, nothing significant has changed; and, in the end, it is the reader—not the characters—who is illumined through Frederic’s “‘clear human vision’ of comedy” (24).

Dalton, Dale C. “MacEvoy’s Room.” The Frederic Herald 3.2 (1969): 5.

Dalton’s note examines MacEvoy’s room as a recurring structural device significant to Theron Ware’s fall in The Damnation of Theron Ware. When the Irish-Catholic wheelwright MacEvoy is fatally wounded falling from an elm tree he was ordered to trim on the Madden’s property, he is carried to his house in the outskirts of town. Theron Ware follows the bearers to MacEvoy’s house, the first house Ware visits upon moving to Octavius. MacEvoy’s room, described as “‘dark and ill-smelling,’” might also be called “Theron’s chamber of death,” observes Dalton, “for it holds other agents of Theron’s approaching ‘damnation,’” specifically Celia Madden and Father Forbes. In Chapter 10, when Ware has just returned from a visit to Forbes’ house, he finds his own house “‘bare and squalid’” and the fumes from the kerosene lamp “‘offensive to his nostrils.’” Lying in his room later that night, Ware can hear Madden playing her piano and recalls his first image her in MacEvoy’s room. In Chapter 15, MacEvoy’s room is again recalled: Ware rejects the Methodist Love-Feast as a “low” ceremony, held in the basement of the church; yet only three months earlier, he was mesmerized by the religious rites performed by Forbes in MacEvoy’s room. “MacEvoy’s fall is prophetic of Theron’s moral decline and spiritual death,” argues Dalton, and “MacEvoy’s room is [. . .] the structural device with which Frederic portrays Theron’s first acceptance of the new and rejection of the old” (5).

Donaldson, Scott. “The Seduction of Theron Ware.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 29 (1975): 441-52.

Donaldson’s article is a psychological analysis of the causes of Theron Ware’s downfall. While Donaldson acknowledges that most critics point to the trio of Father Forbes, Dr. Ledsmar, and Celia Madden as the force behind Ware’s destruction, he asserts “the true villain of the piece” is Sister Soulsby, “who plays Mephistopheles” to Ware’s “Faust” (441-42). Donaldson points to characteristics of Sister Soulsby—her “deceptive appearance, commanding manner, and duplicitous methods of operation”—to support his judgment (442). Sister Soulsby is a master confidence artist who employs performance, flattery, and scripture quoted out-of-context to further her scheming manipulation of both Theron Ware and his congregation. After Sister Soulsby absolves Ware of any guilt for his participation in her scheme to cheat Levi Gorringe at the trustees’ meeting, he embraces her philosophy of pragmatism and vows to emulate her example; however, Donaldson concludes, “Theron Ware simply is not cut out for the role of deceiver” (451).

Jolliff, William. “The Damnation of Bryan Dalyrimple—and Theron Ware: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Debt to Harold Frederic.” Studies in Short Fiction 35.1 (1998): 85-90.

Jolliff combines thematic criticism and character analysis in his note arguing that F. Scott Fitzgerald was influenced by Harold Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware when he wrote “Dalyrimple Goes Wrong.” Jolliff establishes that Fitzgerald knew and admired Frederic’s novel. He states that “Bryan Dalyrimple’s story shares many similarities with Theron Ware’s both in theme and detail” and suggests that Dalyrimple was the prototype of Jay Gatsby (87). “[T]ypically adamic,” both Ware and Dalyrimple initially believe that hard work will lead to success, discover that “‘common sense’ is a code word that sometimes stands for the sacrifice of moral conviction,” and eventually surrender their “traditional ideas of good and evil” in favor of the common sense that will help them to obtain their worldly desires (87-88). As Ware and Dalyrimple abandon their moral codes, each finds that he has become better at his “legitimate work” (88). In addition, both rely upon their rhetorical skills as the key to their future success in politics. Noting that Dalyrimple’s “amoral mentor” and boss is named “Theron G. Macy” (89), Jolliff concludes, Ware and Dalyrimple “present us with examples of what sometimes happens when the American Adam comes of age: a thorough disillusionment resulting not in self-knowledge but in moral degeneracy. [. . .] For if Fitzgerald was the voice of a generation, surely Harold Frederic had prophesied its coming” (89-90).

Jolliff, William. “Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware.” The Explicator 47.2 (1989): 37-38.

Jolliff’s textual approach to Frederic’s novel reveals that one of the working titles for The Damnation of Theron Ware was “Snarl,” a term popularly interpreted as suggesting the tangled relationships of the novel’s characters. Jolliff offers another explanation. In his note, he suggests the title “would direct the reader to consider the beast within Theron Ware” and points to the “abundance of animal imagery” in the novel. Dr. Ledsmar renames one of his lizard specimens “the Rev. Theron Ware,” and “Theron’s name derives from a Greek word meaning ‘wild beast.’” At his lowest point, Theron Ware bemoans to Sister Soulsby, “[I]sn’t there any God at all—but only men who live and die like animals?” (37). Ware likens himself to a “mongrel cur,” one that Sister Soulsby threatens with a “good cuffing” if he does not shape up (38). Jolliff concludes that such an interpretation of the working title “Snarl” must certainly have been deliberate on the part of the author.

Kane, Patricia. “Lest Darkness Come Upon You: An Interpretation of The Damnation of Theron Ware.” Iowa English Bulletin 10 (1965): 55-59.

Kane’s article is a Biblical study of The Damnation of Theron Ware that focuses on Frederic’s use of symbols and images to trace Theron Ware’s fall from the light of innocence into the “darkness of damnation” (55). Theron and Alice Ware’s garden initially evokes not only “the lost agrarian America,” but also “the sterility of life in a small town, which is relieved only by faith in God.” Later, the garden becomes a spiritual symbol associated with Alice Ware, and Theron Ware’s attitudes toward his wife and her garden chart his descent. The image of a garden is also used to describe Theron Ware’s supposed illumination: at one point he vows to “bend all his energies to cultivating his mind till it should blossom like a garden” (56). Yet in the Maddens’ hothouse garden, Michael Madden tells Ware that his face now resembles that of a bar-keeper, not a saint, and asks him to leave. This scene recalls the Archangel Michael’s expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Jesus warns in John 12:35, “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth” (57). Kane also notes Reverend Ware’s ironic use of “Christian language and symbolism of salvation to describe his damnation”: after his evening at Celia Madden’s house, Ware is “a new being” (John 3: 3) and a “child of light” (John 12: 36) (56-57). Ware believes himself to be reborn in lightness; but as Kane observes, he is confused and mistaken in his illumination—he is “becoming a child of darkness” (57). The light imagery turns evil when Ware is rebuffed by Celia Madden: “The horrible notion of killing her spread over the chaos of his mind with the effect of unearthly light,—red and abnormally evil” (59). Although Kane concedes that “the Biblical allusions here are not insistent,” she maintains that “they hover with enough tenacity to become part of a pattern in a story about a fall from innocence” (56).

Luedtke, Luther S. “Harold Frederic’s Satanic Sister Soulsby: Interpretation and Sources.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 30.1 (1975): 82-104.

Luedtke’s thematic, especially moral, approach to The Damnation of Theron Ware identifies Sister Soulsby as “the agent of a damnation that has moral as well as social reality” (82; emphasis Luedtke’s). Luedtke writes in his article, “Frederic intends Sister Soulsby, the materialist, to function as a Mephistophelean tempter of Theron’s soul and a minion of spiritual darkness” (84). Tracing the four parts of the novel, Luedtke states that it is not Theron Ware’s introduction to his new church or town, Father Forbes, Dr. Ledsmar, or Celia Madden in Part I that sets him on the path to damnation, but rather it is his interaction with the Soulsbys in Part II that plants the seeds of his destruction. Sister Soulsby’s remarks about Alice Ware cause Theron Ware first to re-evaluate his marriage and, later, to suspect his wife of infidelity. Her lecture to Ware on the art and uses of performance prompt him to brag about his new perspective to Dr. Ledsmar and Celia Madden, alienating them in the process. Luedtke recites the Soulsbys’ long history of questionable employment and concludes that they are confidence artists for whom religion is “only the latest con game” (92). Ware believes Sister Soulsby when she tells him that she and Soulsby had “both soured on living by fakes” and were now “good frauds” (93). Luedtke notes Frederic’s debt to Nathaniel Hawthorne in the character of Westervelt (The Blithedale Romance), who, like Sister Soulsby, has false teeth and is “stamped with [. . . the] totems of the serpent and the evil eye” (94). Although Luedtke contends that The Damnation of Theron Ware offers ample evidence of Frederic’s “judgments on Sister Soulsby” (98), he concludes his essay by offering two British models for the character of Sister Soulsby: Lucy Helen Muriel Soulsby (1856-1927) and Charles Dickens’ fictional Mrs. Jellyby (Bleak House).

Michelson, Bruce. “Theron Ware in the Wilderness of Ideas.” American Literary Realism 25.1 (1992): 54-73.

Michelson’s article combines thematic and structural criticism in his examination of Theron Ware’s “modern intellectual experience” in The Damnation of Theron Ware (55). First, Michelson focuses on establishing the date for the novel’s action—late 1880s—in an effort to understand Ware’s “culture-crisis at the hands of Father Forbes, Dr. Ledsmar, and Celia Madden.” The trio, argues Michelson, are “intellectual-pretenders” for whom ideas are merely “social weapons, rationalizations, playthings for idle hours” (57). Initially regarding Ware as an acquisition, the poseurs compete in a game of one-upmanship, exhibiting for Ware their intellectual sophistication. When Ware tries to join their game, however, he fails to understand that “sayings and doings require no reconciliation” (60) and “self-interest and the protection of a public mask” are survival skills he has not mastered (61). Sister Soulsby tries to teach Ware this lesson, but he “never hears the right words at the right time” (67), and he “misses obvious signs of duplicity” in the actions of the trio (68). Ultimately, Forbes, Ledsmar, and Madden do not reject Ware for his duplicity, but for his “clumsiness in trying to do what they manage deftly” (70). “Disaster has taught [. . . Theron] little,” insists Michelson, “the consequences of stupidity have not crushed him.” Rather, “[a]s a modernized, incoherent man he may now be on his way to public triumphs, readier for them than ever before” (71). Thus Ware’s story, concludes Michelson, “is ultimately ‘about’ a change in American intellectual and cultural life, [. . .] of a degradation of the intellect” (72).

Spangler, George. “Theron Ware and the Perils of Relativism.” Canadian Review of American Studies 5 (1974): 36-46.

Spangler’s thematic study critiques the moral values of nineteenth-century America by focusing upon the “economic motives in Theron’s behavior” and the “decisive role of the Soulsbys” in Theron Ware’s moral decline (36). According to Spangler's article, Theron Ware’s interest in money attracted him first to his wife and then to the very wealthy Celia Madden; it also inspired his idea to write a book on Abraham. In fact, Ware anticipates F. Scott Fitzgerald’s James Gatz and Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. Ware’s relationship to the Soulsbys further reveals the morality of the period. His wholesale acceptance of Sister Soulsby’s ethics—wherein the “appearance of virtue is as important as the reality” and the ends justify the means—destroys his moral integrity; and Sister Soulsby’s seemingly casual comment about Alice Ware causes him to conclude that she is no longer worthy to be his wife (43).

Steele, Mildred R. “Ware’s Post-Seattle Career Dept.” Frederic Herald 3.2 (1969): 6.

Steele’s sketch describes Theron Ware’s political career in Seattle and, later, in Washington. This “sequel,” inspired by Steele’s reading of Ralph Rogers’ 1961 dissertation entitled “Harold Frederic: His Development as a Comic Realist,” outlines the major events of Ware’s new career with striking thematic and structural similarities to The Damnation of Theron Ware (6).

Stein, Allen F. “Evasions of an American Adam: Structure and Theme in The Damnation of Theron Ware.” American Literary Realism 5 (1972): 23-36.

Stein’s structural analysis of The Damnation of Theron Ware reveals “a whole series of spurious ‘fresh starts’ for Theron, recurring at virtually equidistant intervals in the plot-line” (23). Steain notes in this artcle that Theron Ware’s character, unlike that in most portrayals of an American Adam, “is ultimately unchanged by his process of initiation,” and the ending of the novel, “looking westward in Springtime, bespeaks [. . .] not affirmation, but damnation [. . .] rendered in mocking, anti-romantic terms criticizing misplaced faith in the powers of spiritual renewal in shallow souls” (24). The novel is divided into four parts, corresponding to the four seasons. Excluding the first three chapters and the last chapter, which are expository in nature, the story is structured in four groups of seven chapters each. The last chapter of each seven-chapter group ends in a supposed “resolution” to Ware’s most recent conflict (25). At the end of Part One, Reverend Ware has met the trio of Father Forbes, Dr. Ledsmar, and Celia Madden and has assumed an attitude of superiority over his wife and congregation. Throughout Part Two, Ware’s contempt for the unillumined grows, along with his suspicions about an illicit affair between his wife and Levi Gorringe. A temporary resolution to Ware’s conflicts is presented in the counsel of Sister Soulsby to be a “good fraud” (31). Part Three traces Ware’s rapid degeneration and alienation from his new, intellectual friends. In Part Four, encouraged by Celia Madden’s kiss, Ware turns his back on the Methodist world in favor of the civilized world represented by the trio. Stein observes, Ware’s “flouting of the conventions of both worlds will literally drive him from both into the western forests for a new start and new dreams” (33). In Chapter 31, rejected and forlorn, Ware turns to Sister Soulsby for consolation, but “Theron’s despair, unfortunately, is not symptomatic of any attempt to face the consequences of his actions in a mature manner” (35). In the final chapter, spring has returned with a new cycle of fresh starts for Theron Ware. Stein concludes, “Presumably Theron will rush blithely onward, an American Adam of the Gilded Age, so unsubstantial that nothing can touch him.” The damnation Ware suffers, according to Stein, is “the most insidious kind not only for him but [also] for his society” because he and others like him are unaware of their damnation (36).

Suderman, Elmer F. “Modernization as Damnation in The Damnation of Theron Ware.” Ball State University Forum 27.1 (1986): 12-19.

Suderman’s thematic consideration of The Damnation of Theron Ware focuses upon the way in which modernism causes “man” to think “differently about the nature of man, of the universe, of God,” and of “the different way in which he relates to himself and others, to the community and its institutions, and to God” (12). According to Suderman's article, modern attitudes have already damned Celia Madden, Sister Soulsby, Dr. Ledsmar, and Father Forbes when they are introduced to the reader. Furthermore, technological advancement and urbanization lead to the “damnation of community, a church, and a minister who discovers that his substitution of modern personality traits for traditional ones does not help him cope with an intractable world” (18). Suderman concludes that Theron Ware has no place in either modern or traditional society.

Zimmermann, David H. “Clay Feet, Modernism, and Fundamental Option in Harold Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware.” The American Benedictine Review 45.1 (1994): 33-44.

Zimmermann’s thematic and psychological approach to The Damnation of Theron Ware focuses upon Frederic’s “careful study of Methodism and Catholicism.” Zimmermann argues in his article that the novel “records an important shift in religious thought within modern Christianity” (34). “[T]he theologies of Forbes and Soulsby,” notes Zimmermann, “include many tenets adopted by twentieth-century Christian theologians” (35). Father Forbes tells Reverend Ware, “The Church is always compromising” (37). This perspective reflects Forbes’ “positivist view of history that forms the basis of his theologies and biblical interpretations” (38); however, “[o]nce Forbes has altered Theron’s understanding of history, he has altered Theron’s understanding of religion [. . . without providing] him with any basis on which to begin reconstructing his understanding of the world” (39). Zimmermann suggests that, within the context of modern theology, Sister Soulsby has undergone a conversion because she and Soulsby have “both soured on living by fakes” (42). Sister Soulsby’s theology embraces a belief in “humanity’s essential goodness,” and she “provides Theron with the forgiveness and direction necessary to begin the redemptive process” (42-43). Zimmermann asserts that, unlike many critics who blame Father Forbes and Sister Soulsby for Ware’s damnation, he does not find fault with either of them. In fact, he does not consider Ware damned. According to Zimmermann, “damnation occurs only after death,” when the option of free choice can no longer be exercised. Thus, “Sister Soulsby is correct when she points out that the sheep and the goats will not be separated until judgment day” (44). Theron Ware’s future, in light of Zimmermann’s interpretation of Sister Soulsby’s and Father Forbes’ theologies, remains ambiguous.

Zlotnick, Joan. “The Damnation of Theron Ware, with a Backward Glance at Hawthorne.” Markham Review 2 (Feb 1971): 90-92.

Zlotnick’s genre study examines possible literary sources for The Damnation of Theron Ware. She notes in her article that Frederic considered Nathaniel Hawthorne one of his “literary parents” and compares Frederic’s novel to The Scarlet Letter, “Young Goodman Brown,” “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (90). Reverend Ware is likened to the “sinning minister” Dimmesdale and Young Goodman Brown, Celia Madden to Hester Prynne, and Dr. Ledsmar to Rappaccini and Chillingworth. Zlotnick argues that The Damnation of Theron Ware and “Young Goodman Brown” have the same theme, the loss of innocence. In addition, Frederic employs light and dark imagery to develop “the Hawthornian theme of reality versus appearance and even offers his own version of Hawthorne’s ocular deception.” Other imagery common to The Damnation of Theron Ware and “Young Goodman Brown” includes the forest scene and ribbons (in Celia Madden’s hair and on the maypole). Like many of Hawthorne’s characters, argues Zlotnick, Ware is not guilty of the sin of passion; instead, he is guilty of the sin of pride, “a sin which results in the separation of so many Hawthornian characters from the ‘magic circle of humanity’” (91).