LITR 4232 American Renaissance 2010 final exam—Answers to Question 1B

Brittany Fletcher

Crisp Apple Strudels with a Side of Sentimentality—Short Essay

          When I think of something sentimental, the first thing that pops into my mind is a Hallmark card or the catchy annoying song in the Sound of Music sung by Julie Andrews, “My Favorite Things.” But, girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes and snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes are not the only sentimental things, a boxful of bunnies or field full of flowers are also sentimental. Sentimental literature is a highly charged emotional thought that is conveyed by a passage. The writing sales the reader the appeal to emotion, just like a sappy love scene that causes women to cry at the movies. Sentimental literature was a common appeal in women’s writing during the American Renaissance Period. Authors such as Susan B. Warner and Maria Susanna Cummins wrote in a sentimental way that appealed to the readers emotions. While the method of sentimentality deemed effective in many ways, it is difficult to still reach that area of sentimentality in a modern day classroom.

          In women’s writing during the American Renaissance sentimentality was used to bring out sympathy throughout passages. The point of the passage was for the reader to feel the emotion of the writing. Sentimentality is almost harder to convey in a modern classroom simply because the students are a tougher crowd to please. In American Renaissance time, women were more traditional and emotion was more traditional. For example, in Susan B. Warner’s novel The Wide Wide World she writes of Ellen’s emotional reaction, “The moonlight was quietly streaming in through the casement: it looked to her like an old friend. She threw herself down on the floor, close by the glass, and after some tears, which she could not help shedding, she raised her head and looked thoughtfully out.” Ellen’s tears have been a reoccurring emotion throughout the text, almost becoming a character from how much they are written about. Her crying is earned, though, and is used to bring the reader to feel for her. Each tear is different and symbolizes pain that Ellen must deal with throughout the novel. She not only sheds more tears but she shows how intense the emotion of the writing becomes.

          While this emotion is conveyed and used effectively for the reader, the modern day classroom struggles to empathize due to traditional emotion changing throughout time. Emotion in the American Renaissance was defined differently for women in that time. It was easier for the reader to sympathize with each streaming tear. In the classroom today, readers tend to become exhausted from crying. The constant shedding of tears starts to become draining through each chapter. The reader today feels that while a tragic event has happened in the novel, Ellen has cried and moved on to the next event; however, instead of growing, she only cries again. This reaction makes it more difficult for the modern day classroom to effectively relate to the same emotion of sentimentality.

          The same struggle for sentimentality happens in Maria Susanna Cummin’s The Lamplighter when the character of Gerty sees a star in the sky as a sign of hope “. . . but this one, all alone, so large, so bright, and yet so soft and pleasant-looking, seemed to speak to her; to say, ‘Gerty! Gerty! poor little Gerty!’ She thought it seemed like a kind face, such as she had a long time ago seen or dreamt about.” Gerty associates the star with God. She sees the star as a sign that someone above is watching out for her. The sentimentality here is conveyed in the fact that the star comforts Gerty in a way that the modern day classroom does not associate with so easily.

          The modern classroom today feels that Gerty might believe in a child-like way that the star is God. Today’s reader tends to forget the power a star can convey on a young child such as Ellen because the symbolism of a star does not hold the validity that it used to. The reader today does not see the same sentimentality in a star because tradition has changed. In today’s “wide wide world” we need a crazy miracle to happen such as seeing Christ’s face in a grilled cheese instead of a simple innocent star reaching the soul.

          Sentimentality has changed in the classroom today because readers see the text differently. Our emotions are not as so easily reached as they might have been in the American Renaissance. Complications might occur in the process of studying such sentimental text but one might make sure to relay that texts were effective during that time and discuss how sentimentality has changed throughout time. Ask what the students do to simply remember their favorite things so they do not feel so bad after they read the emotionally filled novels.