LITR 4232: American Renaissance

Sample Student Research Project, fall 2004

Laura Jones

November 13, 2004

Iunctio

Dictionary.com defines the word belief as a “mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something”.  The belief of connections between people is strongly held in some Renaissance authors. These connections may differ slightly from author to author, but the core belief is still there. Some of these authors are Sojourner Truth, Nathanial Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. These beliefs were held so strongly, that it reverberates throughout their writings or teachings.

According to the website Women In History, Sojourner Truth was born into a slave family. She lived as a slave until she escaped in 1828. After she escaped from slavery, she felt inspired to tell people about God’s Salvation, about slavery and about women’s rights. Sojourner Truth would speak to groups of people that included those who thought that women should not have the right to vote. Many times, these same people also professed to be Christians. So, she started talking about her belief in Christ in order to make a connection with them. Perhaps if people felt connected to her, then they would better understand her and sympathize with her.

Christianity was not the only way that she made connections with others. She also made connections with women. 

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Her speech gives an her undeniable connection with other women. Women who have given birth now are connected to her; women who have worked in the field now feel connected to her. She has even connected herself with men who have been lashed when working in a field.

Nathanial Hawthorne also believed in connections with people. He questioned how these connections could be made and broken. In his short story, “Young Goodman Brown”, he writes about a young man who recently got married and had a good connection with his wife. When he leave Faith one evening, he says,

"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done to-night. But no, no; 't would kill her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven."

He is on his way to meet with someone in the woods and is unknowingly taken to a devil worshipping. When he gets there, he sees many people from his town there, including his new bride. He is completely shocked that these people would be there.

Among them…appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council board of the province… Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor was there…and wives of honored husbands, and widows…all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them…he recognized a score of the church members of Salem Village famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor.

Here he describes some of the people whom he sees. Goodman Brown looked up to these people and tried to emulate them. Because these were the people who taught him and watched him grow up, he feels a connection with them. But, when he saw these people committing such an act against God, he felt that these people had deceived him.

After this incident in the woods, he no longer feels the connection with his wife or with anyone else in the town. His inability to understand that everyone sins, even those who hold office in the church, caused his connections to be broken. This breaking of connections made the rest of his life “stern”, “sad” and “darkly meditative”. He could no longer enjoy worshipping the Lord, loving his wife, or living his life.

            Walt Whitman probably had the greatest need to communicate his belief of connections; it seems to echo throughout most of his writings. He felt that he was connected with everyone, and he wanted everyone to know this connection. In, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”, Whitman writes,

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!

On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;

And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

He wants the people on the ferry with him to know that he sees them and feels connected to them. Even though they are strangers, and will probably never meet, he wants to tell them about their connection.

            He strengthens this connection my making it more personal. At one point in the poem, he writes,

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,

The dark threw patches down upon me also;

The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious;

My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? would not people laugh at me?

He realizes that everyone has dark times in their lives, and chooses this point to make a connection. He also knows that people can feel self-conscious about things they say or think and tells them that he has the same feelings. Both of these examples, dark times and feeling self-conscious, are times when people feel most vulnerable. If he can show people that he too is vulnerable at times, then they are more likely to understand this connection.

            Whitman also wants them to feel connected with each other, and with people who have been on the boat in the past. He writes that “Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore” and that they will also see “the run of the flood-tide”. He makes the world and time seem closer by this connection.

            These authors, Sojourner Truth, Nathanial Hawthorne and Walt Whitman, all held the belief of connections. Sojourner Truth used these connections to help people understand her beliefs about God and about women’s rights. Nathanial Hawthorne used these connections to help people understand the nature of sin, and that people must believe that everyone sins. Walt Whitman used these connections to allow people to feel connected to his writings, to the past and to each other. Whatever the reason to hold this belief, these three people are connected through this belief and this need to communicate connections to others.

Works Cited

Dicionary.com. 10 November 2004. <http://dictionary.reference.com/>

Women in History. Sojourner Truth biography.  Created/Last modified: November 15 2004. Lakewood Public Library. Accessed: November 15 2004. < http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/trut-soj.htm>.