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LITR 4231 Early American Literature |
Final Exam Essays 2014 Sample answers
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Cassandra Rea
4th
May 2014
Women Writers: How they Influenced Literature
When I signed up for Early American Literature, I had no idea as to what would
come along with the class. To my surprise, the amount of Literature of different
time periods that were covered was absolutely astounding. By starting off with
the “creation stories” that looked at different cultures including the Bible and
Native Americans which established a foundation that in America, each culture
has their own version of the creation story. Not only were there a variety of
different texts but also writers that showed how that not only Literature but
the History of this country has evolved over the past few hundred years.
My midterm covered mostly the creation stories as well as the early Founding
Fathers and what went in between such as the Pilgrims. It was extremely
fascinating to see how these stories helped establish a concrete starting point
to America. Since this country is built on many different cultures, we read
Literature from many different cultures. By addressing these different cultures
and stories such as of Christopher Columbus, the question arose of which America
do we teach? (Obj. 4) It was through these early texts specifically Columbus’s
story, that made me do a double take in understanding that there is indeed a
cookie cutter way of explaining the history. This entailed using the “founding
story by the great white fathers” rather than the actual multicultural voices
that built America. It was absolutely shell-shocking that there are so many
missing pieces to the puzzle of America that we are not taught in secondary
school such as the story of Equiano or the captivity narrative of Mary Jemison.
Without this course, I would have never known that the history of Early America
was so diverse and real as opposed to the standard story of
rebelling against the British, winning, and going on to establish this
country. It was through these narratives that spoke volumes of the selected
Literature that we as a society are being taught. We are being made to believe
that at an early age that certain selected pieces of Literature are the truth. I
also began to notice that we were reading a variety of women writers and up to
that point I was under the impression that there were very little. It was
through reading Mary Jemison and Anne Bradstreet that led me to my research
posts of exploring women writers and how they influenced America.
Up to the point of completing the midterm, we had reached and passed the
Renaissance, the Seventeenth Century and had just begun working on the
Enlightenment. Due to the fact that our class was in the Enlightenment period,
the idea of my research posts focused around women writers during the time of
the American Revolution. I specifically chose women (Phillis Wheatley and
Abigail Adams) that came from opposite backgrounds to see the comparison of how
their upbringing reflected their writings during that time period. My first
research post focused on Phillis Wheatley, who was not your stereotypical slave
for her time. She was very gifted and her masters gave her education as well the
support she needed to write. She was very diverse within her writings, which
would include eulogies and poetry about how African Americans were not seen as
equally to the white man. She states in her poem entitled
On Being Brought From Africa to America,
“Some view or sable race with scornful eye / Their color is with diabolic dye”
(Wheatley 4-5). Even though she spoke with such conviction through her poetry,
no one took her seriously because the “white man” believed that no negro could
write with such intelligence. Despite not being taken seriously, she was very
popular and would become the first African American woman to be published in
American History.
Because I wanted my research posts to stay within the same time frame of one
another, my second research post focused on Abigail Adams (the nation’s second
first lady). What drew me into wanting to research about her was that we as a
class discussed the letters that she wrote back and forth to her husband. She
states in one of her letters that, “by the way, in the new code of laws which I
suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the
ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors” (Adams).
Right off the bat, I loved how she was very outspoken and gave her honest
opinion to her husband. Through further research, I discovered that she was
quite the little pistol. Not only did she run her entire household while John
was away in Philadelphia but she also made money of her own by being a merchant.
She also purchased land in John’s name with the thought that it would be a good
investment. Her character was very out of the norm for a housewife during that
time and she had no shame in the way that she was. John and Abigail’s
relationship was mutual and she voiced her opinion about women’s rights, equal
education, and even called for the abolition of slavery. She was ahead of her
time in terms of politically thinking for equality amongst everyone not just
men. Due to the fact that I developed a trend over the semester of being drawn
to women writers, I was extremely thrilled to see that we would read a novel
that was written by a women and it was actually published.
Charlotte Temple was a novel
that was published first in England (1791) the in America (1794). It was so
popular that many editions kept coming through the wood work and can even be
considered a best seller. This novel in particular was very interesting because
it allowed the class to shift from reading a lot of historical documents or
letters to a romantic novel. The romantic novel itself was popular in itself
because it allowed for the emergence of women writers and readers. This novel
can be classified as a “romance” because the story line is emphasized on emotion
rather than intellect such as when Charlotte falls in love with Montraville
after he writes her a love letter. The novel states, “She saw, that the contents
had awakened new emotions in her youthful bosom: she encouraged her hopes,
calmed her fears, and before they parted for the night, it was determined that
she should meet Montraville the ensuing evening” (7.27), Charlotte allows her
decision making to be based on her emotions rather than thinking about it
rationally. Due to her making decisions based on emotions, Charlotte goes
through a chain link of events that determine her life. She eventually travels
with him to America where her life begins to crumble. He falls in love with
Julia and multiple people take advantage of Charlotte that will eventually leave
her alone. The novel eventually ends with Charlotte dying after giving birth but
her father swoops in time to save her daughter. This novel seemed so popular
because it has all the qualities of a romance that even now we like to read such
as love affairs, complications in life, escapes, new adventures, desire, and
loss. These (to me) make a good recipe for an interesting novel that keeps the
reader hooked. To me, it seemed kind of radical for the time period with all the
different story plots of betrayal occurring as well as it was written by a
woman.
Overall, the class had multiple topics of interest to study but ultimately, the
thing that stuck out to me the most was the vast amount of women writers that we
covered throughout the semester. Before this class, I consider myself naďve
because I was unaware of just how many women writers there were in Early
American Literature. It completely changed my point of view of how I saw
Literature from the Early American standpoint. Despite these women coming from
different time periods, they all seemed to address issues that were current and
ahead of their time such as equality for women. I think it was perfect to end
with a novel from a woman just to see that she was just as successful or even
more so then a man. By learning
about these different women writers, I was able to connect to objective 1
because these women paved the way for future women writers and also set the bar
for establishing issues for that time, which is why they still matter now.
Despite Susana Rowson not really addressing an issue head on, she helped
establish the romance novel early on which is still pretty popular today. It is
just absolutely fascinating that these women writers have truly changed the way
I look at Early American Literature because now I know they exist and they truly
had an impact on Literature itself.
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