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LITR 4231 Early American Literature |
Final Exam Essays 2014 Sample answers
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Carmen Rosella Halbison
Early American Literature: A Window of Opportunity
As I look over the course, I find that although it
challenged my learning style, I probably retained more information than I
thought I would have. I took a class previously from Dr. White and I found it to
be well structured and organized, and I was able to walk away having a sense of
really learning something. It’s a beautiful thing to gain knowledge from
something that you don’t find interesting going in, but coming out you find that
you gain more than you expected. I must say that with course set up, I was
distracted by the student presentations. The first three to five minutes was my
window of opportunity and was all I could handle before the discussion was
interrupted with verbal jargon that didn’t have much to do with the subject at
hand.
What I really appreciate is Dr. White’s ability to
keep even the most challenging of subject matter interesting. I found that the
most of what I retained from the class came through Dr. White’ lecture. He knows
how to keep us on track and going in a direction that completes a thought or
sequence of events.
I did a student presentation on Olaudah Equiano,
written in 1789, and declared the first slave narrative, and I could identify
with the fact that it was written by a slave who mastered his own account of
what slavery was to him. However in my research post, I was left unclear about
the African Americans who were supposedly the first to arrive in Jamestown. As I
stated then, “It makes me wonder if there is any accurate account of the first
Africans arriving at Jamestown, since the information that I was able to get
only is recounts of what someone else has stated.” There was nowhere that I
could find data to substantiate my research and really know if Africans were
indeed living in Jamestown before 1619. I was able to find that the courts
ordered Africans to serve as slaves in 1640, so that suggested to me that
Olaudah was one of many slaves through that span of a hundred years plus.
Another thing that I found interesting during this course was the exposure I
gained by learning about the arts, particularly through paintings and the music.
I never knew the impact of how light and dark played in a painting and how each
era brought such an intensity in its works. I did find enjoyment in the music
presentations done my fellow classmates. I got a thorough appreciation of the
different genres. It was identifying with the music that I could relate to
Horace on Literature when he said it is “to instruct and entertain”. To look at
a painting like the “Death of Sardanapalus” painted in 1827, I would have had no
thought of its detail. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see much when I saw it. But
when Stephanie was explaining the individual depiction of different segments of
it, I could see what Eugene Delacroix saw. I could see the chaos and learning
that Sardanapalus burned himself with his mistress, gave the painting meaning to
me.
Gothic was not forte, but it too intrigued me in Edgar Huntly. I found the
material hard to read, however the discussion was surprisingly clear. Batman is
probably the closest I’ve been to all things gothic, but I learned that aside
from the caves, darkness/night, blood and scary sounds, which are all external;
gothic is also very internal. Within the recesses of our minds, sometimes we
conjure up feelings that describe what we are thinking, which may not be true
accounts of what is really going on. Edgar Huntly was convinced that Clithero
had murdered Waldegrave and so in some moments, Edgar is not sure if what he is
thinking is real or fabrication. The confusion and back and forth
indecisiveness, causes Edgar to hang in a state of not knowing fact or fiction.
I found several terms fascinating, but the one that sticks out in my mind is the
sublime. It means beauty mixed with terror or threat. The reading gave an
example, but I thought about one of my favorite fictional Disney movies: “The
Beauty and the Beast”; cartoon version. The majority of the movie is sublime. It
also contains gothic and romanticism. It instructs and entertains.
With everything good there is most often not all good. What I did not find
interesting at all was the baroque material. I know what the baroque is, I am
just not sure how it fits in. It just seemed like something that was just thrown
in.
Overall, I had a very enlightened time in this course and I would recommend it
to others. I would love to take the course following this one, but it is not
offered in the fall. The likeliness of it being offered while I am still at UHCL
is unknown. I really enjoyed this semester. This course was my window of
opportunity into knowing literature on a personal level.
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