Le Sage, 5 things I lurned

Hawthorne's "unpardonable sin," the violation of the human heart, shows an American resistance or temper. There are lines that we find it difficult to cross, even in literature.


With the above mentioned lesson, an American 'resistance or temper' must stretch literature. Any kind of caution used while writing makes literature an extension of real-life ideals, principles, and rules, which seems true in today's works as well.


The mask(s) of Ben Franklin concentrate the idea of an author's voice, that no matter how honest, a writer is always adopting some kind of a persona, depicting themselves in a certain, intentional light. A 1st person non-fiction piece, with this in mind, does not stray far from a fictional narrator.



Wieland's focus on an ambiguous God puts our own zealots into perspective.



The gothic works we discussed did make me appreciate the angst I love to hate in contemporary pieces.



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• Focusing on religion, I've gotten a nice understanding of the arch faith in America has traced. While I am not religious, the development from Puritan ideals to the humanist, compassionate sense of God found in later writers rounds a sense of history.
  



• The Wilderness was spoken of so much in the first month of class. A contemporary thought of it... Much like religion, the transformation from the Devil's residence to something Americans seem to idealize is compelling. I like camping.
  



• When we discussed Ben Franklin and the Self-Made-Man the first thing to analyze was whether the same principles and virtues hold today. Am I a self-made-man? etc. Will I be? etc. If migrating through society to a desired position, creating something out of nothing, was Franklin's pinnacle, have we changed since then? America still defines its 'Dream' as rising to an occasion, ladder, hierarchy from whatever origin.
  


• What about our City On A Hill? According to some, hurricane Katrina was a wrathful God's judgement on a sinful city (men in dresses deserve to drown?), and should this idea be held against the Puritan goal of a true place for the Second Coming, where is America now? We have zealots, but the desire for one seems to have changed. In this I see an America striving for individual salvation, which brings me to



• Individuality and personal sovereignty, discussed particularly with Thoreau and Emerson, seems to have continued in much the same vein. Refusal to pay taxes seems less common nowadays, but the same sense of personal freedom has developed, even grown in scope.

Le Sage, Dickinson and Whitman

While Whitman’s 3rd chant revels in individuality, calling it a “breed of life,” Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” cautions: “Are you-Nobody- too?/ Then there’s a pair of us?/ Don’t tell! they’d advertise- you know!” The harsher tone of Dickinson does differ from Whitman’s soft writing, but the idea of uniqueness is equally exalted (“How dreary-to be-Somebody!”).

“Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul,” writes Whitman, keeping with the above mentioned exaltation, emphasizing beauty of not only his individuality but that of theirs. Here lies the biggest difference, as Dickinson focuses on “…how dreary it is-to be-somebody.” Concentrating on the dullness of conformity (a somewhat Thoreau-ish idea), a negative tone of Dickinson doesn’t give the best impression of humanity. The darkness mixed with a child’s voice in “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” is odd and contrasts to the lucidity and sweetness of Whitman’s work.

Le Sage, Alcott and Fuller

“This is the fault of man, who is still vain, and wishes to be more important to woman than by right he should be.” The ‘right’ implies a natural ordering that gives females every option and opportunity that males are given, though she does go on to speak of the strengths each gender is geared towards. Fuller writes,

“And knowing that there exists, in the world of men, a tone of feeling towards women as towards slaves, such as is expressed in the common phrase, "Tell that to women and children;" that the infinite soul can only work through them in already ascertained limits; that the prerogative of reason, man's highest portion, is allotted to them in a much lower degree; that it is better for them to be engaged in active labor, which is to be furnished and directed by those better able to think.”

Believing the woman to be the eyes and ears, man to be the back and hands, the separation of both sexes is a slightly less feminist concept than Louisa May Alcott's, which places a woman in the cunning, deceitful literary role so often filled by men. Alcott, simply exchanging a woman for a man, delivers a feminist idea beyond Fuller as she ignores the distinction of strength and weakness, focusing on erasing lines altogether.

Hawthorne & Poe

Professor McCay mentioned a scramble by writers to define an American style or genre. The balance eventually struck in American literature stemmed from the set religious ideals and the progressive nature of writers. Poe and Hawthorne, among the writers sculpting an identity out of the very green American culture, tempered the harsh perspective of humans on God’s earth with sympathy, making naïve clowns out of the hopeless colonists were claimed to be. This sympathy takes shape in Hawthorne’s The Birthmark as Georgiana chances her life on Alymer’s confidence in his science (innocence), or as the desperation built up by Robin’s attempts at finding comfort and stability in the strange town. A hooded figure “dabbled in blood” puts the masquerade attendees in normality, again creating sympathy in Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. The strange, decadent, and ambitious which would be condemned by ‘natural depravity’ is regulated by the two writers as they place something much worse in the position of evil. In this is the balance struck, the American style defined. Abundance tempered with justification, reward with work, etc. The guile is taken out of characters who would have been considered hopeless by 18th/19th century American society and it is exchanged for curiosity, hope, and innocence.