Stereotypical gender roles of “Nature and Nurture” justify plagiarism of female authors.

In numerous interviews, when asked about the composition process of Angle of Repose, Stegner makes virtually identical arguments that insist on creative license: "I used her as a model, but whenever her papers didn't suit me, I changed them, which is why it is a novel and not a biography. If I'd been writing her biography, I couldn't have changed them" (Hepworth 36). Yet, Stegner's view of history as implicitly a man's province suggests why he chose a fictional format for his use of Foote's life. Stegner says that, after reading Foote's letters to Helena Gilder,

I decided, quite frankly, that she wasn't worth a

biography. She wasn't an important enough literary

person, though she was pretty good. And her art

was hard to judge, because she drew so commonly,

particularly in later life, directly onto wood blocks,

so there are no originals ... So I decided against

writing a biography. (Hepworth 69)

When Rodman Paul edited and published Foote's A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West: The Reminiscences of Mary Hallock Foote in 1972, only one year after Angle of Repose was published, Stegner expressed concern Foote would be recognized in his novel. (6) In other words, her obscurity warranted his dramatic incorporation and assimilation of her life into his text; when she becomes somewhat more widely known, he simultaneously opens himself to accusations of plagiarism.

Deeply held assumptions about gender inflect Stegner's assessment of Foote, as we can see in Fair Use's inclusion of what Angle of Repose elides or mocks: the hidden elements of women's history from this period, including early attempts at birth control and the common occurrence of debilitating miscarriages. In its presentation of history, Fair Use reveals history as a construct with ideological functions. For example, Historian plans to speak about Stegner in a scheduled talk on "How Artists Captured the West," and Playwright urges him to "Talk about a woman! We've got to change the way people perceive things! The way things are. Dad! Mary Hallock Foote! Talk about how she captured the West! Her illustrations! Her " (I: 27). Such gendered assumptions likewise shape responses to Stegner, and readings of him as plagiarist challenge the authorized discourses surrounding Stegner as the West's premiere Author. The common definition of plagiarism is intentionally taking the literary property of another without attribution and passing it off as one's own, having failed to add value to the copied material and having reaped from its use an unearned benefit (Stearns 7). In short, it is a form of cheating.

All the apparent evidence, which includes letters and interviews from Stegner regarding the production of the novel, suggests that Stegner knowingly made use of Foote's materials in publicly unacknowledged ways. And, as Fair Use emphasizes, Stegner's act of plagiarism is none too subtly connected to gender as well: would Stegner have felt as entitled to borrow the work of a male writer, albeit a then unknown one? If so, would he have defended that sense of entitlement as persistently, even arrogantly as he defends his use of Foote's papers? (7) As Debora Halbert has argued, in their symbolic roles as nurturer and even Nature, women are historically linked to writing as the origin of ideas voiced by the male author--as the male's muse, or as the site of inspiration. In other words, it has been acceptable to plagiarize from women because it is impossible to do so; "male creativity is dependent upon appropriation, and this appropriation is not recognized as plagiarism" (114). Instead, the male writer rescues those ideas by transforming them into writing and literature. In fact, Stegner claimed to use Foote's writing as "raw material" for his work and that, through the writing and publication of his novel, he "want{ed} her to cast a bigger shadow" through him than she could do on her own (Hepworth 69).