ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

golliwogs,” and “real Negroes” depicted in ostensibly authentic narratives. He reinforces
the distinction by using “darky,” “Negro impersonator,” or “blackface” when discussing
minstrel puppets and their kin, and Negro or black when speaking of real people, or of
puppets derived from real, or ostensibly real, persons. 141
The twenty-first century scholar might not agree with McPharlin’s dualistic
essence for black representation in puppetry. Foremost, McPharlin declares that the
essence of Topsy is authentic Negro character, while the essence of the minstrel is fiction.
Yet Topsy’s historical essence was more minstrel clown than sympathetic African
American character. Indeed, when she first appears in Stowe’s novel, St. Claire
compares her to Jim Crow. In later decades, minstrel shows featured Topsy as a stock
role, a dancing coquette. McPharlin’s dualistic essence depends on a false impression of
the ostensibly black characters in puppetry. He supposes that certain character types are
authentic while others are not. Yet all these types prove to be exaggerations, fantasies of
greater or lesser extremes.
But McPharlin’s goal is to arrange the great body of activity for historical
understanding and, within his newly arranged categories, promote both low comedy and
high drama. Indeed, in his discussion of the values underpinning the puppetry revival, he
promotes himself as an advocate of puppetry, supporting all activity from puppetry in
education to its use in Maeterlink’s plays. However, he manages to consistently divide it
into constituent categories. He quotes New York editor and educator William Patten;
141 The chapter “Vaudeville Manikins” illustrated this well. Paul McPharlin, The Puppet Theatre
in America: A History 1524-1948 (Boston: Plays, Inc., 1949), 262-303
109