American Literature: Romanticism Sample Final Exam Essays 2015 final exam assignment #1: Desire & Loss

Hanna Mak

The Relevance of Desire and Loss

As the monk Thanissaro Bhikku once said, “Everything we think, say, or do — every experience — comes from desire. Even we come from desire. Consciously or not, our desires keep redefining our sense of who we are.” Desire and loss are recurrent themes in the romance narrative and Romanticism as a whole largely because they are some of the most fundamental elements of human nature—they ultimately have the ability to give characters a valid reason to act, think or feel in ways that the audience is able to find meaningful and relatable, ostensibly because they have experienced the inevitable pangs of desire and loss throughout their own lives. In order for the protagonist to truly be a hero in a romance narrative, the character must have a sympathetic audience, and this sympathy is often most readily established through the cycle of desire and loss. Suffering is necessary for growth, and so is desire, because without some initiative spark of desire, there is no motivator for action. Due to the universality of these themes, they long predate Romanticism, though its popularization within the tradition is significant. The tradition exalts the individual and celebrates the range of emotions, which situates the cycle of desire and loss at its forefront.

Desire and loss are thoroughly entrenched in public consciousness in large part due to their emergence as themes in religious or historical texts that long predate the Romantic tradition. For instance, the theme is central to the Christian mythology, as is demonstrable in the book of Genesis. When the serpent persuaded Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, she was filled with a desire for knowledge and a privilege that had been denied her, ultimately precipitating the fall of man from the paradise of Eden: “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” In the Christian understanding, desire and loss is fundamental to the origin of man as we know it today—while in most cases, the presence of these themes exist primarily as an appeal to the natural impulses and emotions of the reader, this example also functions almost as an explanation of those same impulses through the story of its first inception. In this instance, the unique aims of the narrative are to both to establish an origin story, as well as to prove morally instructive for its followers.

These themes have not only been reinforced via texts of a religious nature, however, but also can be found in dealing with figures who were instrumental in the deliberate shaping of American history. In terms of a distinct influence on the American popular consciousness, the myth of Columbus, justified or not, has often been as widely taught in early education as the tale of young Washington’s cherry tree. However, unlike Washington, whose myth principally derived from the minds of others, Columbus’ own letters helped to lay the framework for the man that would continuously receive credit for the discovery of the America. In his letters back to Spain, Columbus’ own desire for power and glory is implicit in his vigorous appeal to the desires of the crown, “their Highnesses will see that I can give them as much gold as they desire, if they will give me a little assistance, spices, cotton, as much as their Highnesses may command to be shipped, and mastic…and as many slaves as they choose to send for.” Throughout these letters, Columbus constructs a bountiful, dream-like new world, modelled uncannily after the desires of his benefactors, all in the course of his own journey to attain what power and prestige he yearns for. Later, the reader bears witness to Columbus’ eventual wretchedness in old age and the loss of all which motivated him in his youth: “…now I have not a hair on my body that is not grey, and my body is infirm, and whatever remained to me from those years of service has been spent and taken away from me and sold. Alone in my trouble, sick, in daily expectation of death…Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth and justice.” All of these self-conscious reflections on the part of Columbus complete the arc of desire and loss, serving to humanize a man with a prominent yet highly contentious legacy in American history.

Within the Romantic tradition itself, however, it is highly telling that some of its most enduring and popular authors deal heavily with the narrative aspects of desire and loss. The fact that Edgar Allan Poe is so widely taught in high school literature classes may in large part be due to the morbid appeal and general accessibility that is facilitated through his use of desire and loss, as well as his employment of the gothic and of symbolic character types. In Poe’s Ligeia, the narrator pines desperately after his lost love, a woman who he exalts to almost godlike perfection in her absence: “a majesty so divine!—the skin rivalling the purest ivory…the teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling, every ray of the holy light which fell upon them in her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of all smiles.” This liberal use of superlatives, while in many ways highly descriptive, effectively describes an impossible woman, and ultimately, the impossibility of such a description does more to represent the concept of a woman than any actual woman. In presenting Ligeia as the highly symbolic type of a dark, desirable lady, Poe effectively distills her into a set of images and associations which are firmly rooted in the collective cultural consciousness, thereby widening the appeal of an already popularized trope. By distilling the object of his desire and loss to a universalized symbol, the impact of the narrator’s struggle is at once more approachable.

In a similar discussion of mass appeal, James Fenimore Cooper’s work may also be considered. Cooper’s achievement of tremendous commercial success, in tandem with his use of the romantic narrative’s elements of desire and loss, is significant. Although his use of the themes are in service of markedly different ends than those of Poe, the similarities that do exist between the two popular works are quite telling. Arguably the most memorable scene to be found in Cooper’s tale is the dramatic portrayal of needless loss and noble sacrifice in the death of Cora and Uncas. Like Ligeia, Cora and Uncas are symbolic representations of character types—the dark lady and the noble savage. Additionally, in Cooper’s world, it was necessary for both of them to die. The inherently noble quality of Uncas’ character, combined with his status as the last of the Mohicans, is ultimately structured to induce a desire for his success and survival in the reader, and therefore heighten their own sense of loss in reaction to his defeat. In the chapter that directly follows the death of Cora and Uncas, the author almost seems to revel in this sorrow, striving to provide the richest possible description of the funeral and emphasize depth of the mourners’ loss: “a pall of Indian robes, supported all that now remained of the ardent, high-souled, and generous Cora. … Seated, as in life, with his form and limbs arranged in grave and decent composure, Uncas appeared, arrayed in the most gorgeous ornaments that the wealth of the tribe could furnish.” Through this highly detailed display of mourning for the last of a line, Cooper strives to awaken nostalgic feelings of loss in the reader; not just for the loss of a noble savage, but also for the way of life and the “uncrossed” legacy which he symbolized.

With the consideration of Cooper’s financial success in connection with popular romantic themes, it is unsurprising that the advent of highly popular domestic literature, such as Maria Susanna Cummins’ The Lamplighter, should perpetuate themes of desire and loss through its romance narratives as well. However, Cummins’ work, as an example of domestic literature, makes use of these narrative elements to much different ends than those of Cooper and Poe. Cummins structures Gerty’s entire character and storyline around elements of desire and loss, but does so in order to elicit sentimental feelings of outrage and pity in the reader. In a similar effect to Poe’s use of superlatives, the extremes that Cummins takes in communicating the simultaneous virtues and misfortunes of her story’s heroine almost approach dehumanization via caricature: “Many people were passing, but no one noticed the little girl, for no one in the world cared for her. She was clad in the poorest of garments. Had she had a mother (which, alas! she had not), those friendly eyes would have found something in her to praise. But the poor little thing was told, a dozen times a-day, that she was the worst-looking child in the world, and the worst-behaved.” In spite of this risk, this hyperbolic sentimentality also seems to serve a distinct purpose. This blatant appeal to the reader’s sympathy and sensibility paved the way for the reader’s reception of instruction on the part of the author, both morally and domestically. True, the lamplighter, although old, destitute and nearly a stranger, not only displays great charity, but also serves as a model for one’s actions in the depths of his feeling and compassion: “Tears are in Trueman Flint's eyes; he lays his great head on the pillow and draws Gerty's little face close to his; at the same time smoothing her long, uncombed hair with his hand.” In this manner, desire and loss in the character histories of Gerty and Truman—both kind-hearted orphans—serve as the foundation upon which a culturally pervasive example of moral instruction could be built.

Ultimately, the versatility of purpose inherent in the arc of desire and loss is as crucial to its proliferation as its universal appeal to human emotion and experience. The marked variance of each author’s creative goal can account for this versatility, while the work’s enduring popular appeal seems to affirm the universality of these themes. The inextricable link of desire and loss to other favored patterns within Romanticism are also likely to have bolstered its use within works of the movement; in order for an individual to rise in a meaningful way, oftentimes it is necessary that first they must suffer.