LITR 4326 Early American Literature      Model Assignments

Final Exam Essays 2016 assignment Sample answers for 2d. Most challenging or inspiring idea or content in the course + resolution.

Austin Green

“Is it True? Does it Matter?”

          My biggest “A-ha!” moment in class is one I have written about in both by Midterm and in my first essay for my Final. Looking at the documents that have always been taught to me as historical as pieces of literature has opened my eyes to a world of difference in them. Something so simple and obvious in theory, but it never occurred to me—not in any meaningful way at least. Columbus’s Letters may be boring, but when viewed as literature, as one person writing history about himself, it makes them go from boring to extremely interesting. Suddenly these documents all went from being cold and boring to alive and flexible. Should we even believe what we are reading?

The “A-Ha!” hit me when reading John Smith’s A General History of Virginia. I was not looking forward to this one. I was ready to speed through these the best I could to get to the novels at the end of the semester. I’m reading and see the line “himself always bearing the greatest task for his own share, so that in short time he provided most of them lodgings, neglecting any for himself. [heroic individualism typical of romance]” and chuckled to myself. Casually thinking, of course he would say that, he’s writing it. In the back of my mind however, fireworks were going off. I built a wall up and started to question every aspect of the story. Poor John Smith. He could legitimately be the hero he says he is but I am not believing it for a second. Suddenly, if the person writing the story is involved in the story, it all becomes fiction to me. It should be studied here in a literature class and not in a history class.

I go back a week and re-read Columbus’s Letters. Again, any good I see by him is now clouded in question. Then I think, if I can’t believe one part of this, can I believe any part of this? I was glad I had the moment. I felt like before when these documents are presented, even ones I was not familiar with, I would have taken them at face value as history, as truth. I see the same thing again and again, over and over, in the documents we read over the first half of the semester.

In Of Plymouth Plantation we even get this instructor’s note to remind us not all is as joyous as it may seem: “The Pilgrims’ interpretation of the New World of America as a Promised Land overflowing with blessings thanks to their special relation with God is automatically agreeable to the USA’s evangelical dominant culture. With no disrespect to anyone's scripture or faith, keep in mind how much this interpretation of events blocks any reception of the Indians' catastrophic story resulting from contact with European viruses.” The story we are being told is definitely one-sided. Our writer is always the hero. The one who overcomes the odds. In Cabeza de Vaca’s La Relacion, it is almost comical how heroic he is compared to everyone around him. When telling of his escape from natives, he mentions how his companion is kicked and beat, while no mention is made of what happened to him during this. He only gets mud thrown at him. While this is just a minor detail, events like this happen again and again in all of the documents of this type that we’ve been reading.

Unfortunately, this line of thinking is stopped in its tracks once the word “fiction” becomes involved. Even if it’s based in reality, or is a story that could easily happen, like in Charlotte Temple, if it’s labeled a story then that sort of ends the questioning. The difference here, though, is that these make no claims to be true, or fact. Due to this, the second half of the semester became about something different for me, no longer following this fact vs self-told fiction theme from the first half.  

          All of the writers in these historical documents are storytellers in a place where no one was necessarily looking for storytellers. They took advantage of their place and situation in order to make themselves look better. No harm, no foul right? Wrong. Once your credibility is questioned, it’s almost impossible to regain it. Especially true with documents written hundreds of years ago. Does it matter if it’s true? Yes, it does matter.