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American
Literature: Romanticism Student Midterm Samples 2015 1. Long Essay |
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Lori Wheeler
The American Dream: Isn’t It Romantic?
Romanticism, according to the second course
objective, is America, that the characteristics of romantic literature are often
the same as those of the American Dream.
It is tempting to try to assimilate all of the texts from the American
Studies courses I have taken into one continuous study of American literature.
Although I hesitate to do so, for fear that it will obscure the greater
qualities found in the literature by simply labeling them “American,” there are
some valuable connections that would result in such a great integration of
literature, such as interpreting America or being American as a romantic idea.
Romanticism as a style or a movement is itself much
like America. As Course Objective
2b points out, Romanticism developed at the same time and with the same ideals
as the United States of America and so they parallel each other in many ways.
Despite the fact that the American Renaissance, or American Romanticism,
came a generation later in time than European Romanticism in no way lessens the
importance of the link between America and Romanticism.
If anything, we can see how romantic themes in literature reflect the
romantic notions of a budding country from across an ocean by a generation later
who experienced and helped shape it themselves.
This literary movement coincides with the building of the nation; it is
easy to see that, like a burgeoning America, Romanticism is a melting pot of
literary trends. American
Romanticism encompasses the gothic, bits of realism, and even precursors to
modernism and romantic ideals, and these themes are evident in genres including
poetry, captivity narratives, essays, and novels.
Romanticism covers much ground because it has to do so; as Americans, we
embrace our identity through our writing, part of which being ideals of
individualism, nature as sublime, an overpowering drive to make things happen,
and a quest for something greater.
These ideals encompass the American Dream.
When we write, in any style, these concepts are identifiable as romantic
and our writing can thus be categorized as such.
Course Objective 1a provides details of the
“Romantic Spirit,” which could easily be supplanted by “American Spirit.”
This objective names the characteristics of the romantic style as those
attitudes of individualism as well as “desire
and loss, rebellion,
nostalgia, idealism,
the gothic,
the sublime, the individual in nature
and/or separate from the masses.”
The objective also highlights the importance of the quest or journey narrative
in order for a character to cross borders physical or otherwise in the pursuit
of a dream and the quest narrative further emphasizes the ability of a character
to seem heroic as well as malleable in order to attain that dream.
Romantic texts and heroes embody these literary qualities that add up to
the American Dream. Even Thoreau
argues for the American Dream through romantic ideology; in “Resistance to Civil
Government,” he takes a firm stand regarding the right of a people to demand not
just a government that says it is for the people, but also the best government
they can get. As examples, he takes
issue with slavery and taxes as contradictory to the intended “machine” of
government and encourages the reader to demand a better machine.
Ultimately, his argument against government in this case reduces to an
argument for the individual.
Thoreau claims that there will never be a better “machine” until the government
“comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which
all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly”
(paragraph 44). In other texts,
both he and Emerson urge a return to nature as the sublime existence for man.
In many ways, these transcendentalists make the case for the American
Dream in the way they encourage individualism and an exploration of nature away
from the masses.
Therefore, it is difficult to read the course texts
and find heroic individuals who venture out into unfamiliar territories, with
the aim of finding a utopian world, without thinking of the American immigrant
narratives that also portray characters with a strong sense of individualism
looking to find a piece of the American Dream in a new country that provided
more hope than that of their home.
For Anzia Yezierska in “Soap and Water,” she expresses heroic individualism in
her six years of hard work and studying in order to make her dream of going to
college a reality, as if thinking it was possible could make it so.
Not only has Anzia physically come to a new land, but she also crosses
social and cognitive boundaries by attending college with students who are
unlike her. The notion that she
deserves equal access to a college education and her determination to make it
happen through force of will exemplify the romantic ideal.
For me, one of the most easily identifiable aspects
of American Romanticism is nostalgia.
In “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving creates a longing for a simpler time; that
is, a past that exists only in the memory of Rip himself when he returns from
his long slumber. However, as
generation after generation reads the story of Rip Van Winkle, readers
experience that nostalgia as well.
By depicting Rip’s experiences both before and after his sleep and his
disorientation upon returning to his village, readers feel the same sense of
nostalgia when they experience change in their own lives because the story
creates the same desire for an ideal and simpler time.
When I think of this kind of obvious nostalgia in literature, almost
every text from a previous course on Los Angeles Literature comes to mind.
It was in novels like Didion’s Where I Was From, Hector Tobar’s
The Tattooed Soldier, and D. J. Waldie’s Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir
that I experience the most nostalgia.
Tobar’s story of Guatemalan immigrants in Los Angeles communicate the
nostalgia both characters felt for their home and a time when both their lives
and cultures were simpler. Didion
and Waldie, who both grew up in California, tell stories that create nostalgia
for what California used to be, a frontier land.
Didion’s California is one handed down to her by earlier generations of
actual frontiersmen, whereas Waldie’s frontier was one of new suburban culture.
However, in all these experiences of nostalgia in these Los Angeles
stories, one theme overwhelmed them all: the American Dream.
The American Dream, despite its many iterations and mutations, has almost
become nostalgia itself as times have changed, but it has managed to remain very
much a romantic dream.
One of the aspects of romanticism that has
surprised me is the nature and purpose of romantic characters as symbols.
Just as the horses in Wright’s “A Blessing” are representations of nature
and the sublime, their embodiment of characters as symbols is worth noting
because modern American novels have carried on this romantic trait.
In Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner uses characters as
representations and symbols; the character of Thomas Sutpen, for example, serves
as a symbol of the South: strong, stubborn, defiant, and even a bit out of touch
with reality. The use of characters
as symbols not only identifies the literature as American in its links to the
culture of America, but it perpetuates and builds that culture by providing
rationalization of and commentary on the culture through these characters.
A romantic story is a more honest rendition of the
American Dream. Not only does
romanticism fulfill parallel aspects of America and the American Dream, it is an
honest portrayal of what happens as the American Dream as it is lived out.
There is always a heroic individual on a quest for something better and
ideal. The hero is usually an
individualist who strives on little more than sheer strength of will and belief
in a higher power that will provide opportunities for success, and he or she is
not afraid to wander into new territories, cross boundaries-real or imagined-and
remove themselves from the society of people.
These heroes are willing to, and often do, experience the gothic in
nightmarish situations in order to achieve their dream.
I appreciate American Romanticism in this light because seeing the
American Dream this way is a reminder that achieving it can be hellish for some,
and worse for those who work hard but never achieve this ultimate desire.
I am not sure that I want to share my romanticized version of the
American Dream with many people, though, for fear that it would discourage them
away from it. Although, my version
my not scare too many people off because, as we know, the American Dream is
supposed to involve obstacles and hard work.
