LITR 4326 Early American Literature Research Posts 2016 (research post assignment) Research Post 2

Tom Britt

4 March 2016

The Founding of Our Nation: Apocalypse or Evolution?

          In our correspondence involved in another class I am taking with Dr. White, we struck upon a topic that might as well have been gift-wrapped. In a course called Literature of the Future, we have been examining and comparing the themes of literature as they present themselves as creation and apocalypse or evolution narratives. As I attend Early American Literature just a day prior to the meeting of the Literature of the Future course, the concepts discussed in both classes are always fresh in my mind. Dr. White posed a question to me in an email pertaining to our Future course as to “whether USA was founded as a Christian nation or a secular republic parallels creation-apocalypse v. evolution”. I think I am going to take that idea and run with it.

          For one, it is unavoidable that one will compare the discovery of the New World to the Garden of Eden, which parallels the creation narrative. With the abundant natural resources at hand in America virtually untouched by the hand of human progress, it is no wonder that the early European immigrants believed they had rediscovered the Tree of Life, uprooted from Eden and planted again on American soil. This ideology would parallel the Christian creation myth in presenting a sense of “order of human unity with [the] divine” and make apparent why the “Founders” would think of themselves “as ‘godly men’” (Future Narratives Compared). With any good Creation story, however, there must be a fall from grace. According to author Shelley Ross, the Original Sin of the American nation, including the enslavement of African Americans and the displacement of the Native American peoples, is “an American tradition! Political misdeeds are older than the republic” and the country was doomed to be cast out of God’s garden from the moment they arrived.

          On the other hand, some claim that the cultural diversity and proclaimed beauty it entails, that America is so known for, is a direct result of an evolutionary narrative. No one would argue that this is a country that is constantly changing, shifting, and metamorphosing. Paul Ohler, in the book America’s Darwin: Darwinian Theory and U.S. Literary Culture, writes that there are countless “depictions of human culture that developed in tandem with biological evolution.” Likewise, American literature, open-ended in its development like an evolutionary narrative, allowing for progress and regress simultaneously, takes a similar path as American political and historical culture. Using the story of Pocahontas as an example, Robert S. Tilton notes that “from the time of its first appearance, the story of Pocahontas has provided the terms of a flexible discourse that has been put to multiple, and at times contradictory, uses.” Both sides of the story have seem to be able to twist the theme and message of the tale to suit their own fancy, showing a moral latitude that travels both directions like an evolutionary narrative.

          Looking back on this research process, I may have bitten off more than I could chew. I considered at times abandoning this obscure topic altogether and taking a crack at something more middle-of-the-road, but I am not a quitter. While there is not a mass of information available that directly answers my question as to whether the storyline of the American nation more closely resembles that of creation/apocalypse or evolution, I did my best to piece together what smatterings I could into some line of cohesive thought. By the end of it, though, I feel there can be no other answer than to classify this country as constantly evolving, if for no other reason than that we have not yet met a catastrophic and apocalyptic end.

Works Cited

Ohler, Paul. “Darwinism and the “stored Beauty” of Culture in Edith Wharton’s Writing”. America's Darwin: Darwinian Theory and U.S. Literary Culture. Ed. Tina Gianquitto and Lydia Fisher. University of Georgia Press, 2014. 104–126.

Ross, Shelley. Fall From Grace: Sex, Scandal, and Corruption in American Politics from 1702 to the Present. N.p.: Ballantine, 1998. Print.

Tilton, Robert S. Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative. N.p.: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.

White, Craig. "Future Narratives Compared." Craig White's Literature Courses. Craig White, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.