American Literature Review

Passage Identification and Definitions of Literary Terms

Native American Trickster Tales

• characters possessed magical traits, were anthromorphized, and were clever

• purpose of trickster tales was to teach moral lessons, give instructional education, describe the world around them, or simply give entertainment

• Examples: Turkey makes corn (taught how to plant and grow corn), Cunning Coyote (taught the cunningness of coyotes and explained their eyes), Beaver Steals Fire (explained where fire came from and gave descriptions of geography)

Exploration Narratives

• Apologia - a defense of why an exploration went wrong, cast blame away from author

• Promotional - tries to convince donors to support an exploration to the new world

• Description - tells of resources and possibilities in the New World

• Tragedy - another explanation of why an exploration did not work but blames the leader of the trip and casts author in a good light

• Examples: John Smith, Cabeza De Vaca, De Las Casas

John Smith Excerpts

“The New {resident and Martin, being little loved, being of weak judgement in danger, and less industry in peace, committed the management of all things abroad to Captain Smith: who by his own example, good words, and fair promises set some to mow, others to bind thatch, some to build houses, others to thatch them, himself always bearing the greatest tasks for his own share, so that in short time he provided most of them lodgings, neglecting any for himself”

“Some idle exceptions being muttered about Captain Smith, for not discovering the head of the Chickahominy River, and he being taxed by the consil in being to slow in so worthy an attempt. The next voyage he proceeded so far that with much labor {…} he made his passage, but when his barge could pass no further, he left her in a broad bay out of danger shot, commanding none should go ashore until his return {…} but he was not long absent but his men went ashore, whose want of government gave both occasion and opportunity to the savages to surprise one George Cassen, whom they slew and much failed not to have cut off all the rest”

Cabeza De Vaca excerpt

“It is without a doubt the best land to be found in these Indies and the most fertile and abundant in food supplies. And they plant three crops a year. They have many fruits and lovely rivers, and many other excellent sources of water. There are signs and indications of gold and silver mines. The people of this land have very good dispositions and serve the Christians willingly. In short, this is a land the lacks nothing to make it very good”

William Apess

• an educated mixed race (mostly native American) pastor that challenged the white man to equality

• he criticizes white Americans for claiming Christianity but treating Indians so poorly, exploiting them, abusing them, and paying them far less than they deserve

• wrote an Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man

Samson Occom

• an Indian man raised with no connection to the White European world

• he eventually converted to Christianity, and was educated by Eleazer Wheelock

• their relationship was ruined when Wheelock did not care for Occom’s family while he went away, and because Wheelock used money intended for a school to build his own establishment

• started a school for minority children

The Great Awakening

• Protestant revival in the Americas

• converted people through fear of hell

• led to the Enlightenment, democracy, and three more later awakenings

• Johnathan Edwards was a pastor - known for sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and his Personal Narrative

Johnathan Edwards Personal Narrative

• tells the story of his first personal revival which did not last because he “returned like a dog to his vomit”

• second revival comes when he has a respiratory infection, but again does not last

• reads many biblical and religious texts but they are insufficient for his faith. He then finds god out in the world he experiences

• after finding god in the divineness of the world around him, he wants to live a holy life but relies too much on his own strength. This is bad because people are too sinful to be holy and it is vain

• decides to completely dedicate himself to God. Until he moves to New Haven when he becomes distracted by the world. Gets sick again, finds God, reverts back to old ways again.

• Finally turns his efforts to the glory of Christ

Johnathan Edwards Excerpts

• “And when the discourse was ended, I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my father’s pasture for contemplation. And I was walking there and looking up on the clouds and sky; there came into my mind, a sweet sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I know not how to express. I seemed to see them both in sweet conjunction: majesty and meekness joined together: it was a sweet and gentle and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness, a high, and gentle, and holy greatness”.

• “ My experience had not then taught me, as it has done since, my extreme feebleness and impotence, every manner of way; and the innumerable and bottomless depths of secrete corruption and deceit that was there in my heart”

• :My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me ineffable and infinetely swallowing up all thought and imagination; like an infinite deluge […] I know certainly that I have very little sense of my sinfulness. That my sins appear to me so great, don’t seem to me to be, because I have so much more awareness of my sing than other Christians, but because I am so much worse, and have so much more wickedness to be convinced of”

• “Though it seems to be that in some respects I was a far better Christian, for two or three years after my first conversion, than I am now; and lived in a more constant delight and pleasure: yet of late years, I have had a more full and constant sense of the absolute sovereignty of God, and a delight in that sovereignty, and have had more of a sense of the glory of Christ as a mediator, as revealed in the gospel”

Samson Occom Excerpts

• “I can’t conceive how these gentleman would have my Live. I am ready to forgive their ignorance, and I would wish they had changed circumstances with me but one month, that they may know, by experience what my case really was; but I am now fully convinced, that it was not ignorance, for I believe it can be proved to the world that these same gentlemen gave a young missionary a single man, one hundred pounds for one year, and fifty pounds for an interpreter, and thirty pounds for an introducer; so it cost them on hundred and eighty pounds in one single year, and they sent too where there was no need of a missionary. Now you see what difference they made between me and other missionaries; they gave me 180 pounds for 12 years service, which they gave for one years services in another mission, - in my service (I speak like a fool, but I am constrained” I was my own interpreter. I both a school master and minister to the Indians, year I was their ear, eye, and hand, as well as mouth).”

• “So I am ready to say, they have used me thus because I can’t influence the Indians so well as other missionaries; but I can assure them I have endeavored to teach them as well as I know how; - but I must say ‘ I believe it is because I am a poor Indian.’ I can’t help that God made me so; I did not make myself so”

William Apess Excerpts

• “Having a desire to place a few things before my fellow creatures who are traveling with me to the grace, and to that God who is the maker and pre-sever both of the white man and the Indian, whose abilities are the same, and who are to be judged by one God, who will show no favor to outward appearences, but will judge righteousness. Now I ask if degradation has not been heaped long enough upon the Indian? And if so, can there not be a compromise; is it right to hold and promote prejudices? If not, why not put them all away? I mean here amongst those who are civilized. It may be that many are ignorant of the situations many of my brethren within the limits of New England”

• “I would ask you if you would like to disfranchised from all your rights, merely because your skin is white, and for no other crime? I’ll venture to say, these very characters who hold the skin to be such a barrier in the way, would be the first to cry out, injustice! awful injustice!”

• “But we find that Jesus Christ and his Apostles never looked at the outward appearences. Jesus in particular looked at the hearts, and his Apostles through him being discerners of the spirit, looked at their fruit without any regard to the skin, color or nation”

Bartleby the Scrivener

• a mild-tempered narrator that hires Bartleby

• Bartleby is initially a good, diligent worker but he then stops all work and says “ I would prefer not to”

• the narrator tries to fix and help Bartleby but he refuses all help, money, and aid

• Turkey and Nippers provided eccentric comedic relief

• Ginger nut

• the brick wall Bartleby looks at symbolizes the isolation and feeling of being stuck

• the Dead Letter Office symbolizes Bartleby’s hopeless work life

Life in the Iron Mills

• set in industrial mill town int he 1800’s and follows Hugh and Deborah Wolfe’s life

• Hugh is a good sculptor and uses koral to make sculptures; made a starving woman which symbolizes the workers desires for a better life

• an upper class citizen visits the mills and takes a liking to Hugh’s sculpture but doesn’t help in any way

• Deborah steals money from the visitor and gives it to Hugh. They are soon caught and are imprisoned. Deborah is released before Hugh. hugh eventually dies in prison.

• Deborah ends up living with a Quaker and keeps Hugh’s sculpture

• Kirby mill owner’s son - detached from worker’s suffering

• Dr. May was the visitor

• Mitchell citicizes the way of society but does nothing to help

Edgar Allen Poe Tales

• Tell tale heart

• The Fall of the House of Usher

• wrote gothic fiction - decayed architecture, many psychological issues, themes of death and the supernatural

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

• grew up in West Africa, he and his sister were kidnapped

• he worked in the Caribbean and eventually lived in Virginia

• ended up with a Quaker, Robert King (kept his slaves around by offering better conditions than other masters) , who he bought his own freedom from by raising his own money

• Equiano never returned to America

• he became an abolitionist

• considered to be the first author of a slave novel

• clearly intended for a white audience by mentioned how advanced in the arts his homeland was

• temporarily served as a playmate for his widow owner’s son

• describes slave overseers as the worst human character, who cut and mangled slaves for minor inconviences

The Seduction Novel

• The Coquette

• Aspects of The Scarlet Letter

• aspects of Harriet Jacobs (her owner coming on to her)

• a virtuous woman in endangered by a man who wants to sleep with her (a “rake”)

• the woman is rewarded with a good man and marriage if she resists, but dies and is punished if she does sleep with him

realism

• Life int he Iron Mills

• Bartleby the Scrivener

• real means of showing faults in a society

• supernatural and religion doesn’t take over

• uses human dialect

Defamiliarization

• Rip Van Winkle

• familiar to reader, unfamiliar to character

• rip van winkle coming back after the american revolutionary war, notices an american flag flying but doesn’t know what it is.

• notices king george’s portrait has been replaced with George washington

A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson

• “Here Reader, you may see an instance of the soverignty of God, who doth what he will with his own as well as others; and who may say to him ‘what dost thou?’, here you may see an instance of the faith and patience of the saints, under the most heart sinking trials: ere you may see, the promises and breasts full of consolation, when all the world is empty and gives nothing but sorrow”

• “Reader, if thou gettest no good by such declaration as this, the fault must needs by thine own. Read therefore, peruse, ponder, and from thence lay up something from the experience of the another, against thine own term comes": that so thou also through patience and consolation of the scripture mayest have hope”

• “Now id the dreadful hour come, that I have often heard of (in time of war, as it was the case of others), but now mine eyes see it. Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in their blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock us on the head, if we stirred out. Now might we hear mothers and children crying out for themselves, and one another, ‘Lord, what shall we do?’

• “It is a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their blood, some here, and some there, like a company of sheep torn by wolves, all of them stripped naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting, insulting, as if they would have torn our very hearts out; yet the Lord by His almighty power preserved a number of us from death […] I had often before this said that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trail my mind changed; their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit, that I chose rather to go along with those (as I may say) ravenous beasts”

• “I then remembered how careless I ahd been of God’s holy time; how many Sabbaths I had lost and misspent, and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight’ which lay so close unto my spirit, that it was easy for me to see how righteous it was with God to cut of the thread of my life and cast me out of His Prescence forever. yet the Lord still showed mercy to me, and upheld me; and as He wounded me with one hand, so he healed me with the other”

• “I went to take up my dead child in my arms to carry it with me, but they bid me let it alone; there was no resisting, but go I must and leave it. When I had been at my master’s wigwam, I took the first opportunity I could get to go look after my dead child. When I came I asked them what they had done with it; then they told me it was upon the hill. Then they went and showed me where it was, where I saw the ground was newly digged, and there they told me they buried it. There I left that child in the wilderness, and must commit it, and myself also in this wilderness condition, to Him who is above all”

• “Before I knew what affliction meant, I was ready sometimes to wish for it. When I lived in prosperity, having the comforts of the world about me, my relations by me, my heart cheerful, and taking little care for anything, and yet seeing many, whom I preferred before myself, under many trials and afflictions, in sickness, weakness, poverty, losses, crosses, and cares of the world, I should be sometimes jealous least I should have my portion in this life”

• “But now I see the Lord had His time to scourge and chasten me. The portion of some is to have their afflictions by drops, now one drop and then another; but the dregs of the cup, the wine of astonishment, like a sweeping rain that leaventh no food, did the Lord prepare to be my portion. Affliction I wanted, and affliction I had, full measure (I thought), pressed down and running over. Yet I see, when God calls a person to anything, and through never so many difficulties, yet He is fully able to carry them through and make them see”

• “If trouble from smaller matters begin to arise in me, I have something at hand to check myself with, and say why am I troubled? It was but the other say that if I had had the world, I would have given it for my freedom, or to have been a servant to a Christian. I have learned to look beyond present and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them”

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

• “These libraries have improved the general conversations of the Americans, made the common tradesman and farmers as intelligent as the most gentleman from other countries, and perhaps have contributed to some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges”

• “I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time”

• “The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a reader reception and less contradiction; i had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be int he right”

• “In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride; disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive and will every now and then peep out and show itself [,,,] For For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility”

• “I long regretted bitterly, and still regret, that I have not given smallpox to him by incoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it - my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen”

The Coquette by Hannah Webster Foster

• “Happiness is in a great measure the result of our own dispositions and actions. Let us conduct uprightly and justly; with propriety and steadiness; not servily cringing for favor, nor arrogantly claiming more attention and respect than our due; let us bear with fortitude the provincial, and unavoidable evils of life, and we shall spend our days with respectability and contentment at least”

• “My fancy leads me for happiness to the festive haunts of fashionable life. I am at present, and know not but I ever shall be, too volatile for a confinement to domestic, and sedentary pleasures. I dare not, therefore, place myself in a situation where these must be indisposable. Mr. Boyer’s person, and character are agreeable. I really esteem the man. My reason and judgement, as I have observed before, declare for a connection with him, as a state of tranquility and rational happiness. But the idea of relinquishing those delightful amusements and flattering attention, which wealth and equipage bestow, is painful. Why were not the virtues of the one, and the graces and affluence of the other combine? I should then have been happy indeed”

• “How natural, and how easy the transition from one stage of life to another! Not long since I was a gay, volatile girl; seeking satisfaction in fashionable circles and amusements; but now I am thoroughly domesticated. All my happiness is centered within the limits of my own walls; and I grudge every moment that calls me from the pleasing scenes of domestic life. Not that i am so selfish as to exclude my friends from my affection of society. I feel interested in their concerns, and enjoy their company. I must own, however, that conjugal and parental love are the main springs of my life”

• “Alas! Sir, said I , Eliza Wharton is not now what she once was! I labor under depression of spirits, which must render my company rather painful than pleasing to my friends. The idea of what I had been, contrasted with what I then was, touched my sensibility; And I could not restrain the two officious tear from stealing down my cheek”

• “often should we be impelled to a compliance with this custom, could we foresee the future incidents of their lives. I think, at least, that the uncertainty of their conduct and condition in more advanced age, may reconcile us to their removal to a happier state, before they are capable of tasting the bitterness of woe”

• “ I need not inculcate the lessons which may be drawn from this woe fraught tale; but for the sake of my sex in general, I wish it engraved upon every heart, that virtue alone, independent of the trappings of wealth, the parade of equipage, and the adulation of gallantry, can secure lasting felicity. From the melancholy story of Eliza Wharton, let the American fair learn to reject with disdain every insinuation deogatory to their true dignity and honor. Let them despise, and forever banish the man, who can glory in the seduction of innocence and ruin the reputation. To associate, is to approve, to approve, it to be betrayed”

Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas, A Slave

• “This battel with Mr. Covey was the turning point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived with me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self confidence, and inspired me again with a determination to be free”

• “It is sometimes said that we slaves do not love and confide in each other. To answer this assertion, I can say, I never loved any or confided in any people more than my fellow-slaves [...] I believe we would have died for each other” (80-81) “Our confidence in each other was unshaken. We were resolved to succeed or fail together, after the calamity had befallen us as much as before. We were now prepared for anything” (86).
  “I had a number of warm-hearted friends in Baltimore,—friends that I loved almost as a I did my life--and the thought of being separated from them forever was painful beyond expression. It is my opinion that thousands would escape from slavery, who now remain, but for the strong cords of affection that bind them to their friends” (100).

• “I had somehow imbibed the opinion that, in the absence of slaves, there could be no wealth and very little refinement [...] when I reached New Bedford [...] I found myself surrounded by the strongest proofs of wealth” (104). “I found many, who had not been seven years out of their chains, living in finer houses, and evidently enjoying more of the comforts of life, than the average slaveholders in Maryland” (105).

• I found [them] much more spirited than I had supposed they would be. I found among them a determination to protect each other from the blood-thirsty kidnapper, at all hazards” (106)

• “I assert that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid
  crimes [...] Were I again to be again reduced to the chains of slavery [...] I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me” (77)

• “between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked” (109)

Incidents in the the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs

• “But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely! If slavery had been abolished, I, also, could have married the man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws; and I should have been spared the painful task of confessing what I am now about to relate; but all my prospects had been blighted by slavery” (83-84)”

• “I cannot say, with truth, that the news of my old master’s death softened my feelings towards him. There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury. The man was odious to me while he lived, and his memory is odious now” (294).”

• “I told her I really was [her mother]; that during all the long time she had not seen me, I had loved her most tenderly; and that now she was going away, I wanted to see her and talk with her, that she might remember me” (211).”

• ““I had my secret hopes; but I must fight my battle alone. I had a woman’s pride, and a mother’s love for my children; and I resolved that out of the darkness of this hour a brighter dawn should arise for them. My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will. There is might in each” (144).”

• “The more my mind had become enlightened, the more difficult it was to consider myself an article of property; and to pay money to those who had so grievously oppressed me seemed like taking from my sufferings the glory of triumph” (299).”

• “So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York! The bill of sale is on record, and future generations will learn from it that women were articles of traffic in New York, late in the nineteenth century of the Christian religion” (300)”

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

• “Believe me, Hester, there are few things,—whether in this outward
  world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought,—few
  things hidden from the man, who devotes himself earnestly and
  unreservedly to the solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover up they
  secret from the prying multitude [...] But, as for me, I come to the
  inquest with other senses than they possess. I shall seek this man, as I
  have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a
  sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I
  shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unaware. Sooner or later, he
  must needs be mine!” (70-71)”

• “[H]er handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion [...] Her
  needlework was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on
  their scarfs, and the minister on his band; it decked the baby’s little cap; it
  was shut up, to be mildewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the
  dead” (77)”

• “It now and then appeared to Hester--if altogether fancy, it was
  nevertheless too potent to be resisted—she felt or fancied, then, that the
  scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to
  believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic
  knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts” (80)”

• “But Pearl, who was a dauntless child , after frowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence—the scarlet fever, or some half-fledged angel of judgment-–whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation” (95)”

• “Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf, stole softly towards him, and, taking his hand in the grasp of bother her own, laid her check against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive that her mother, who looking on, asked herself—“Is that my Pearl?” Yet she knew that there was love in the child’s heart, although it mostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly twice in her lifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now [...] the minister looked round, laid his hand on the child’s head, hesitated and instant, and then kissed her brow. Little Pearl’s unwonted mood of sentiment lasted no longer; she laughed, and went capering down the hall, so airily, that old Mr. Wilson raised a question whether even her tiptoes touched the floor”(107)”

• “Their [the church fathers] voices came down, afar and indistinctly, from the upper heights where they habitually dwelt [...] To their high mountain-peaks of faith and sanctity [Dimmesdale] would have climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which it was his doom to totter. It kept him down, on a level with the lowest; him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might else have listened to and answered! But this very burden it was, that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind; so that his heart vibrated in unison with theirs, and received their pain into itself” (132)”

• “The minister felt for the child’s other hand and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. The three formed and electric chain” (141)”

• “the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet [...] had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look” (156)”

• “In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office. This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself, for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analyzed and gloated over. “The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne’s bosom. Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly to her” (156-157)”

• “Dost thou remember me, Hester, as I was nine years agone? Even then, I was in the autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the advancement of human welfare. No life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine; few lives so rich with benefits conferred. Dost thou remember me? Was I not, though you might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others, craving little for himself—kind, true, just, and of constant, if not warm affections? Was I not all this? [...] And what am I now? [...] A fiend! Who made me so?’”

• “It is not granted me to pardon. I have no such power as thou tellest me of. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all that we do, and all we suffer. By thy first step awry, thou didst plant the germ of evil; but, since that moment, it has all been a dark necessity. Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a typical kind of illusion; neither am I
  fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend’s office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may!” (160-161)”

• “So strangely did they meet, in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering in mutual dread [...] Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost” (176-177) “Without a word spoken—neither he nor she assuming the guidance, but with an unexpressed consent—they glided back into the shadows of the woods [...] and sat down on the heap of moss” (177)

• “The wretched minister! He had made a bargain very like it! Tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself with deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin. And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. It had stupefied all blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones” (207)”