LITR 4232 American Renaissance

LITR 4232 2008 final exam

copy of final exam

Essay Answers to Question 7: Redevelop  your midterm to include two writers since the midterm . . .

Adrian Holden

Single-essay Final (after consultation with instructor)

Feeling and Reasoning in Abolitionist Literature

 With the midterm, this writer attempted to use “close reading” to identify and examine examples of different types of subtle and overt devices used to further the abolitionist cause through the literature of the American Renaissance.  Through discussions of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July, the assertion was made and evidence was given to support that the authors of these various texts were able to effect change by appealing to the reason of their respective audiences.  Yet, this assertion, however well-supported, was incomplete in its analysis.  Yes, these authors do appeal to the reason of their audiences, but there are other literary appeals which these authors employ as well.  These are the ethical appeal, the logical appeal, and the emotional appeal.  In addition, these types of appeals seem to vary in accordance to the type of literature into which it can be classified – representative, popular, or classical literature.  Admittedly, there is some overlap between the texts, their classifications, and the types of appeals they use, and this, too, will be addressed.  Incorporating Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl will also prove imperative for a more well-rounded analysis of this subject matter.

James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans was a very popular piece of fiction during its time.  It is considered by many to be a text that satisfies both the requirements as a piece of popular literature and those of classical literature.  As a “classical” literary author, Cooper explored sensitive issues, and added his own historical knowledge and depth to a text which has stood the test of time.  As a piece of popular literature, Cooper’s work appeals to people where they are and confirms their attitudes and values.  This writer believes that literary history does not generally view The Last of the Mohicans as an abolitionist tract and does not intend to declare it as such.  However, the benefits of close reading brought this writer to a particular passage where the author makes an interesting decision.      

After much harrowing activity, Major Heyward is able to restore Colonel Munro to his daughters, Cora and Alice.  Heyward is in love with Alice, the younger sister, and expresses his desire to her father to marry her.  The colonel mistakes his interest in Alice for interest in Cora, and upon being corrected, is initially livid that Heyward would overlook beautiful Cora for beautiful Alice.  Munro then reveals to Heyward that Cora’s late mother was a descendant of West Indian Blacks (this writer is guessing at least a quarter).  This fact had not been mentioned to this point in the text, but Cora is consistently referred to by her “darkness” – dark eyes, dark hair, and complexion.    Munro then calls Heyward to the carpet as being one who was, “born at the South, where these unfortunate beings (Blacks) are considered a race inferior to your own” (Cooper 159).  Now, this revelation, however titillating, does not entirely speak to the matter in which I am referring.  It is in Heyward’s reaction that Cooper’s understated commentary on the issue of slavery/abolition can be seen.  “’Heaven protect me from a prejudice so unworthy of my reason,’ returned Duncan, at the same time conscious of such a feeling, and that as deeply rooted as if it had been engrafted in his nature,” (Cooper 159). 

Now, to assume that an author cannot be detached enough from a particular personal view or from popular ideology to include such an exchange for entertainment purposes solely would be erroneous.  However, this essay chooses to assert that this exchange is included with purpose simply because of the fact that Cooper is under no obligation to incorporate such a scenario in his work, yet he does.  He takes two male figures of import, both soldiers, “great white men,” and forces them to discuss race.  Then he gives a window into Heyward’s inward reflections.  This is significant because this inward reflection can provide the eighteenth and nineteenth century readers with a subtle denunciation of slavery, and it also can give the requisite impetus for these same readers to question their personal views regarding their own relationships to slavery.  In addition, this so-called “subtle” denunciation of slavery came from one white male character to another in the form of an emotional appeal.     Munro refers to Blacks as an “unfortunate class” and as “unfortunate beings,” to which Heyward replies with a very candid strain of ardor.  This device of the emotional appeal would be employed by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; however, her style is markedly different.   

Contrary to Cooper’s Mohicans, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is, without question, a pro-abolitionist work. While the work was immensely popular, only being outsold by the Bible during the latter half of the nineteenth century, this writer believes that to categorize it as popular literature would be somewhat inaccurate.  This work explores the most sensitive issue of the time and is not (intentionally) formulaic in its depictions of characters (modern critics have upbraided Stowe for her use of stereotypes of African Americans), thereby designating it as a piece of classical literature.   Upon reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one can find it easy to drown oneself in the depictions of gross, physical violence, mental and sexual abuse, and torture perpetuated by the slave-master on to the slave.  These depictions are meant to shock and create empathy, thereby connecting the plight of the slave with the reader on personally emotional level.  It stands to reason that the average reader would be shocked by what he or she found in this text.  Since Stowe intended the work to be, in the very least, a shocking commentary on the slave and his condition, it is important to analyze the other ways in which Stowe put forth her message in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  This essay contends that it is when these images are combined with her moments of direct address with the reader that the work begins to exude more gravity.  

These moments of direct address are meant to appeal to a different audience.  They seem to be aimed at those who claim to be indifferent in their views of slavery and those who profit both directly and indirectly from this “peculiar institution.”  For example, Stowe has a moment of direct address with the reader following the scene in which Mr. Shelby, the “benevolent” slave owner discusses business with Mr. Haley, the slave trader.  Shelby comes to the decision to which he has been forced, and realizes that he has to sell three of his favorite slaves, Tom, Eliza, and Harry.  His reluctance to sell and desire to “kick the fellow (Haley) down the steps” reflect his position as one who purveys, “perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery,” (Stowe 1706).  Stowe then continues to directly address the reader reminding them that that those who visit Kentucky (the initial setting of UTC) can be lulled into believing that this mild form of slavery is reflective of “the oft-fabled poetic legend of (this) patriarchal institution,” (Stowe 1706).  She adds, “So long as law considers all these human beings…only as so many things belonging to a master…so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery,” (Stowe 1706).  These are all said directly to the reader by the author, not from a character to another character.  This distinction is important because it shows how Stowe compartmentalizes her message.  She shocks the reader, uses said shock to appeal to those who can be appealed to by their emotions, and then utilizes a logical appeal, in the form of direct address.  The logical appeal relies on the audience’s logical faculties, and it moves the argument from evidence to conclusion.  This type of appeal is usually found in examples of representative literature where it can be combined with the ethical appeal to create a powerful means to effectively communicate.  This will be explored while examining the two remaining aforementioned texts, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. 

Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is quite similar in some ways to Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin – both can be considered abolitionist texts, and they both contain the gross depictions of the wretchedness of slavery with the intent of shocking the reader.    In addition, like Stowe, Jacobs employs the moments of direct address to connect with the reader.  After recounting the incident where her master forbade her to see her lover, a free Black man, threatening her with jail time and physical violence, she pauses and asks “Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I never shall again,” (Jacobs 1814).  These simple statements connect with the reader, and appeal to the reader’s sense of reason, and yet, hers is not specifically an emotional appeal.  As many authors of slave narratives would learn, many readers were skeptical of the truth and validity of such texts.  Because of this, Jacobs and others would resort to what can be identified as the ethical appeal. 

The ethical appeal occurs when a writer attempts to persuade the audience to respect and believe him or her based on a presentation of image of self through the text.  Reputation is sometimes a factor in ethical appeals, but in all cases the aim is to gain the confidence of the audience. 

Another fact relevant to this discussion is found in another way that Jacobs’s and Stowe’s texts differ.  Quite simply, Stowe’s work is fiction and Jacobs’s is not.   As a piece of representative literature, Jacobs’s narrative introduces the reader into the actual mind of a Black female slave, not to what a white author would imagine slavery to be.  As Elizabeth Williams wrote, “The value of this literature lies in its ability to introduce us to cultures beyond the WASP perspective, and especially makes us aware of other cultures’ memories of some events,” (coursesite).  This type of literature requires the audience to make the choice to see beyond its normal scope of sight into that of the author.  A final, powerful example of representative literature can be found in Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. 

Lying at the polar opposite of Cooper’s “subtle denunciation” of slavery in The Last of the Mohicans is Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July - a scathing indictment of the slave trade in which he appeals to the American public to look within its borders and try to justify how it could possibly espouse the tenets of the Declaration of Independence and still support and promote slavery.  On the midterm, this writer asserted that he appeals to the reason of the American public.  Upon re-reading, it becomes obvious that Douglass does make a logical appeal, albeit in an extremely caustic manner.   This is because he cannot fathom as to why “reason” can possibly be applied to the situation of American slavery.  “What then remains to be argued?  Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it…There is blasphemy in the thought…Who can reason on such a proposition?  They that can, may; I cannot,” (Douglass 2142-43).  As the author of several pieces of representative literature, Douglass has lived his text and shows blatant distaste for those who would desire him to modulate his message.  “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse…at a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed…For it is not the light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder,” (Douglass 2141, 2143).  As the logical appeal moves from evidence to conclusion, Douglass remarks, “The feeling of a nation must be quickened; the conscience of a nation must be roused,” (Douglass 2143).

These authors of the American Renaissance were brilliant in the ways that each purveyed his or message concerning the abolition of slavery.  Cooper’s work, for all intents and purposes, is designated as a popular fiction, but his subtle message does not go unheeded by the close reader.  Stowe’s work would serve to divide a nation, yet its emotional appeals to reason seem to work with Providence in its corner.  Harriet Jacobs’s text would be lost for generations, only to be reintroduced as part of a new genre of representative literature, with its goals set on introducing this new generation to texts forgotten or ignored by history.

Faron Samford

Essay Question 7:

            Gothic and Sublime Elements in Romantic American Literature

            The works written during the period of American romanticism in the early half of the nineteenth century frequently use gothic and sublime element to create the romantic theme.  While the gothic style tends to use creepy old castles and haunted houses as the setting for the story, most of the new American writers had to look elsewhere to recreate the gothic feel in a country that was too young to have any old castles or houses old enough to be haunted.  Writers such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and James Fennimore Cooper transferred their spooky settings to the forests of the new America, while Edgar Allan Poe continued more in the European gothic tradition of using a creepy old house as his setting.  The concept of the sublime creates an image that is intended to awe the reader or give them the sense that it was inspired by something higher and nobler than they are.  Cooper uses elements of the sublime, but Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature is a great example of the sublime in use in American Romanticism.

            In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving turns the forests around Sleepy Hollow into the creepy old castle full of supernatural beings.  One of the better examples of the gothic in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is where Ichabod encounters Major Andre’s tree.  Irving describes the tree as “vast, gnarled, and fantastic, twisting down almost to the earth” (981).  The images of “gnarled” and “twisted” really create a darker picture of the tree and tying it in with the story of Major Andre creates a haunted feel to it.  The effect on Ichabod creates fear in him, causing his heart to thump and his imagination to start fearing ghosts and goblins which he imagines out of the sights and sounds of the area.  This is comparable to European romanticism in which the creepy sounds creating fear are the creakings of old houses or the noises the wind makes passing through and old castle.    

            Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown continues this translation of the gothic from the ancient castles and houses of Europe to the forests of America and the unknown that can lie in them.  Brown’s trip into the forest at night, down a “dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest” is a very similar example to that used by Irving when Ichabod meets the infamous headless horseman.  The dark of the forest and the gothic element of the unknown is further extended by Brown’s statement, “there may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” representing the fear of the unknown and the mystery that lies just beyond the safety of light that is characteristic of the gothic.  Furthermore, the mysterious nature of Brown’s companion and the staff he carries which plays tricks on Brown’s mind, appearing as a “black snake” and other visual tricks to add to the feeling of uneasiness.  The forest and areas that they come to along their walk down the path are often referred to in terms of “the depth of the gloom” and the “deepening gloom.”  This darkness and fear are further exemplified after he has seen that his “Faith” is gone over to the other side and the path he runs down vanishes, leaving him in “the heart of the dark wilderness.”  The area at this time is described as full of “frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts.” 

            Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher takes a more traditional European gothic approach with an old house that has had its better days in the past and ties it in neatly with the end of the family line as the collapse of the two remaining members of the line meet their deaths moments before the “death” of the house itself.  Poe uses the gothic to create a psychological fear in the characters.  The air of mystery that surrounds the house is reinforced by Usher’s fear that his sister has been entombed alive and that he can hear her movements such as “the rending of the coffin,” and “the heavy and horrible beating of her heart.”  After the deaths of the last members of the house of Usher, as the narrator is running away, he looks back to see the “blood-red moon,” as it seems to cause the house to split in two and be swallowed up by the earth below.  This supernatural element and the interplay between the blood-red and the darkness of the other descriptions of the story really further emphasize the gothic feel of the text.

In Last of the Mohicans, Cooper uses the forest as a gothic setting much the same way that Irving does, but he also pulls elements of the sublime to have the setting of the forest be a scary environment that is dark and dangerous as well as an awe-inspiring thing of beauty.  As a sample from the 2004 midterms explain; “One of the strongest points of this was when Hawkeye and his party climbed the mountain and observed the nature below them.  Although they went through hell to reach that point, Cooper really illustrated through his words how beautiful the area was around them” (par 3).  This interplay of the gothic and sublime really pulls the reader into the feel of the forest where the mind alternates between fear and awe.

            While Cooper used the sublime and the gothic in his American forest, Emerson leans heavily on the sublime to create the inspirational feel of Nature. Emerson uses the beauty of nature to help a person find the beauty that is within themselves.  “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are always inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression when the mind is open to their influence” (1111). Emerson calls for people to take in the beauty of nature as a higher power and something above them to elevate and inspire themselves to be better people.

            The intermingling of the gothic and sublime in the period known as the American Renaissance allowed writers to incorporate and adapt old styles to a new country and culture.  Whether used to create an aura of mystery and excitement where anything can happen or used to inspire people to pull out the higher power from within, these elements are key pieces of American Romanticism.