LITR 4232:
American Renaissance
University
of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2002
Student Presentation Summary
Thursday,
11 April: Hawthorne, from Abraham
Lincoln 2378-79.
Reader:
Diana Ellis-Smith
Discussion notes recorder: Robin P. Stone
Hawthorne’s from Abraham Lincoln sheds new light on one of our
nations most popular and renowned presidents.
We all have learned about the sixteenth president since grade school, we
heard stories depicting how great a man he was and the great things he did for
our country. He appears lofty, on a
pedestal, untouchable – an almost godlike figure – in no way common.
When considering his physical appearance, a well refined and impeccable
man is the image that comes to mind and in no way resembles the man Hawthorne
describes. To illustrate these
points I will discuss the elements found in Hawthorne’s piece concerning
objectives 1 and 3.
Objective 1 deals with elements of popular
literature. Hawthorne adds a
comical view with regards to Lincoln’s physical attributes being similar to
that of the stock characters represented in both Irving’s Ichabod Crane and
Cooper’s David Gamut.
Reading
selections for Objective 1:
p. 2378 – “By and by there was a little
stir on the staircase and in the passage-way, and in lounged a tall,
loose-jointed figure, of an
exaggerated Yankee port and demeanor whom (as being about the homeliest man I ever saw, yet by no means
repulsive or disagreeable) it was impossible not to recognize as Uncle Abe”.
p. 2378 – “There is no describing his lengthy
awkwardness, nor the uncouthness
of his movement…”
p. 2379 – “…he has thick
black eyebrows and an impending
brow; his nose is large,
and the lines about his mouth are very
strongly defined”.
These passages are so striking because even the
photographs taken of Lincoln do not capture the strangeness of his physique.
In them Lincoln seems ominous, dark, and serious, but there is never a
hint of anything comical.
Objective 3 deals with using literature as a
basis for discussing representative problems and subjects of American culture.
The emphasis will be on the individual and the community. Hawthorne describes Lincoln in terms of him being a common
man who represents all men, and yet at the same time being an extraordinary
person. This correlates with
Whitman’s idea of dualism, which we became familiar with in his poem “The
Song of Myself”.
Reading
selections for Objective 3:
p. 2378 – Hawthorne refers to Lincoln as “Uncle
Abe”. Hawthorne
immediately removes Lincoln from his pedestal and places him within your family.
Making him a appear more approachable and someone you can relate to.
p. 2378 – Beginning with
“Unquestionably…Lincoln is the essential representative of all Yankees…all
the way through to where he throws “his legs on the council table, and tell
the Cabinet Ministers a story”.
p. 2379 – “I had been in the habit of
seeing him daily, and shaken hands with him a thousand times in some village
street; so true was he to the aspect
of the pattern American, though with a certain extravagance which,
possibly, I exaggerated…
p. 2379 – “If put to guess his calling and
livelihood, I should have taken him
for a country schoolmaster as soon as anything else.
This is due in part to the way he did not take great pains with his
outward appearance. Worn out
clothes, unkempt hair, and shabby slippers.
p. 2379 – “A great deal of native sense; no
bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet,
in some sort, sly, - at least, endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are
akin to craft, and would impel him, I think, to take a antagonist in flank,
rather than to make a bull run at him right in front”.
Once again, Hawthorne portrays Lincoln in a way
that removes the myth of loftiness and gives him a more common air.
The fact that he did not dress impeccably and that he was more street
smart than college educated, placed him closer to the common man and helped in
his ability to relate to the public.
Questions:
Michael: I think he
does it to help the reader kind of relate to the fact that he was a normal
person, like I am. He did so many
great things and yet he was a normal person – gives you a little hope for
yourself.
White: Lincoln was sort
of a common man, but he was the last president that lived in a log cabin, so
there’s that theme that any person can rise as an individual.
Diana: He was the
essential representative of all Yankees that we discussed.
Student: It’s the
stock character—he’s every American.
White: Yeah
good…I’ve never really seen Ichabod there before.
I really appreciated your pointing that out, but it’s obvious now.
Lynn: Has the little
thing about the schoolmaster like Ichabod Crane.
White: Yeah.
Like David Gamut would have been. There
is one other figure we talked about who is based on the same Yankee figure as
Ichabod and David Gamut – Uncle Sam! The
drawings and figures of Uncle Sam in the draft and “Uncle Sam Wants You”,
that’s also based on that idea of the Yankee as this tall, skinny,
long-legged, awkward, or ungainly figure.
Val: I’m not great
with history, but I’m looking at this and thinking, could this have been to
present a different side of the man than what the political views might have
been at the time. To make him more
humanistic in the situation so people could maybe relate to him and perhaps
instead of taking opposition to things he wanted to have happen, see him as a
man they can relate to?
White: The only awkward
thing about that is that if you’ll look at the dates…the dates don’t
match…this is after his death.
Val: But a lot of
things happened during his life that were not accepted at the time and maybe
this was a way of seeing him differently.
White: And there was a
lot of deification of Lincoln, and Diana’s response to that was when we see
Lincoln now, we see him as a god-like figure.
Diana: I thought it was
very interesting that Hawthorne addressed him as Uncle Abe, not President
Lincoln. Did he know him
personally?
Terry: I wonder if it
has anything to do with Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
White: I think it was
just a familiar usage for Abe just like a good old southern word…
Brenda: The way he does
that in the book makes you want to jump in his lap…he is just the same as us.
Student: I didn’t get
that…I think he looks like an extremely stern man.
White: That is fair.
Again, with great men, great people like this, they’re gonna show you
different aspects.
Diana: He was a great
man but at the same time he was a common man.
He related to the community and the community related to him.
They weren’t fearful of him and Hawthorne’s piece really captured
that image of a very approachable man. Someone
you could just sit and chat with.
White: Lincoln was a
very funny man. He was a great
storyteller; you know he was known for this.
That’s one of the ways he charmed audiences.
He would remind them of stories that happened to him and all.
He was a comic, a very funny storyteller.
One thing about comics is that they are often tortured people.
Comedians are not happy people, they want you to love them and so on, but
just the fact that they want it so bad means they need it.
If you are really happy you just kind of sit around, but if you’re not,
you try to be. The other thing
that’s really outstanding about your presentation is this linkage to Whitman
and what he’s doing in terms of dualism.
In other words, in America all people are equal but all people are
individuals. And with your first
reading you really got that nicely in terms of he’s the representative of all
Yankees and yet at the same time he has a definite strangeness…a certain
extravagance, sort of exaggerated. So
he’s normal and at the same time more than normal.
I’m not saying we are all equal to Lincoln and all, but that is one of
the ways we think of ourselves, that we share a common plate of humanity.
Are there any responses to what Diana was saying about changing the take
on Lincoln? Humanizes him perhaps?
Diana: It really
brought him down to a human level, not such a god-like figure.
Let’s you know he wasn’t perfect.
White: Yeah, yeah, and
you can’t expect this of people. You
can say Lincoln was a great man…
Student: One thing I
noticed was the movement. I don’t
think about him walking, but a still figure.
Photographs always show him sitting.
White: Which a
photograph doesn’t catch. Lincoln
was no more somber than any other photograph you’ll see of that period.
People just aren’t smiling at the camera at this point.
Did anyone see the Joy Luck Club? There’s
a moment where one of the characters sends her picture from the United States to
her mother in China, and her mother writes back, “in your pictures, why are
you always laughing”?