Intercultural Studes II
Intercultural Studes II
Intercultural Studes II
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Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
Predid
[step 1
fright
Discuss these questions with a partner.
terror terrified
1 Do you enjoy being alone, or do you prefer
being around other people? Why?
apparition fancy
ehe s10n
2 How would you feel if you were stranded on hide
a desert island? fled
strange
surprise
[step 2 terrible
Look at the key words from the passage from
Robinson Crusoe. With a partner, discuss the
meaning of the words. Based on the words,
predict the main ideas of the passage.
Background at ion
obinson Crusoe is one of the earliest examples of begins to build a new home. He is able to return to the
R a realistic novel in the English language. it tells
- =story of a young man, Robinson Crusoe, who gets
ship several times and bring back supplies to the
island. Soon, he has a very comfortable place to live-
::-<:.'lded on a desert island. Crusoe leaves his home complete with livestock and crops.
~ a young man to go to sea, against his family's
One day, Crusoe encounters people on the island. He
:;-as. After several smaller misadventures, he ends discovers that they are cannibals with some prisoners.
_: ~ Brazil with a sugar plantation. Soon, he decides He helps one of the prisoners escape, a man he
-: :;a to Africa to buy some slaves for his plantation . names Friday. Soon, he and Friday are close friends.
--:; •s when he runs into trouble. After some time, a ship of Europeans comes to the
- ·~ s1ip encounters a storm, and the ship crashes into island. Crusoe and Friday make a deal with the captain
- =-xks near an island. Everyone jumps overboard to of the ship and he takes them back to Europe. Crusoe
save themselves. Crusoe, however, is the only
-::1 ::: had lived on the island for 28 years.
:r.= :J survive. He makes it to the island, where he
11
Lusten & Read
20 Listen to and read the passage from
Robinson Crusoe. First, read for general
understanding. Then, reread the passage.
As you read the second time, underline
the specific words that Defoe uses to
describe Crusoe's reactions to seeing the
The original edition of Robinson Crusoe
footprint.
did not contain chapter breaks. Later
editions added them in, but they vary
LRespond from edition to edition. This following
passage takes place when Robinson
3 Respond to the passage by answering
Crusoe has been stranded on the island
these questions with a partner.
for about fifteen years. By this time,
1 Was your prediction about the mood Crusoe has made the island into a very
of the passage correct? Explain. comfortable place to Jive. He has pet
2 How did the author create the mood? dogs, cats, goats, and even parrots. He's
Think about the words he uses. learned how to grow barley and rice and
3 How does Robinson Crusoe feel in this he even knows how to bake bread. His
passage? life on the island is pleasant, if a bit
lonely. Everything changes one day when
he makes a strange discovery.
. .
happened one day, about noon, going towards my remember; no, nor could I remember
t boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a the next morning, for never frightened
an's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to hare fled to cover, or fox to earth , with
e seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as more terror of mind than I to this retreat.
-'I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, I slept none that night; the farther I was from the
I could hear nothing, nor see anything; I went up to a occasion of my fright, the greater my apprehensions
sing ground to look farther; I went up the shore and were, which is something contrary to the nature of such
:own the shore, but it was all one; I could see no other things, and especially to the usual practice of all
1pression but that one. I went to it again to see if there creatures in fear; but I was so embarrassed with my own
ere any more, and to observe if it might not be my frightful ideas of the thing, that I formed nothing but
"'::ncy; but there was no room for that, for there was dismal imaginations to myself, even though I was now a
-: (actly the print of a foot - toes, heel, and every part of a great way off . ... While these reflections were rolling in
-~-- How it came thither I knew not, nor could I in the my mind, I was very thankful in my thoughts that I was so
::ast imagine; but after innumerable fluttering thoughts, happy as not to be thereabouts at that time, or that they
·'3 a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came did not see my boat, by which they would have concluded
-::me to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the that some inhabitants had been in the place, and perhaps
nd I went on , but terrified to the last degree, looking have searched farther for me. Then terrible thoughts
:e-1ind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every racked my imagination about their having found out my
and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to boat, and that there were people here; and that, if so, I
-,:-a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various should certainly have them come again in greater
---~e s my affrighted imagination represented things to numbers and devour me; that if it should happen that
--: in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in they should not find me, yet they would find my
• ancy, and what strange, unaccountable whimsies enclosure, destroy all my corn, and carry away all my
-=-e into my thoughts by the way. flock of tame goats, and I should perish at last for mere
-::n I came to my castle (for so I think I called it ever want.
-·this), I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went
::r by the ladder, as first contrived, or went in at the
:= in the rock, which I had called a door, I cannot
nderstand
Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
rative Language
,'/ ork w it h a partner. Find two examples of similes in the passage.
m
Lsummarize
First, fill in the graphic organizer based on the passage you read.
Setti'6
Character(s)
Jvtain Event(s)
7 Now, use your graphic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner:. ...
Lusten
80 Listen to a lecture about Robinson Crusoe.
Them, answer the questions.
T he original title of
Robinson Crusoe was
The Life and Strange THE
Surprising Adventures of
Robinson Crusoe, of York,
L I F E
AND
Mariner: Who Jived Eight and 5
Why do you think that the title of the book was changed?
What is good about having a longer title? What is bad about it? Explain.
Look at four other possible titles that the publishers could have chosen from the original. Why
aren't they suitable titles for the book?
An Uninhabited Island
Th e Great River of Oroonoque
Shipwreck!
De livered by Pirates
, thy do you think Daniel Defoe didn't just call his book Alexander Selkirk, and write a book
escri bing Selkirk's adventure? Discuss with your partner, then with the class as a whole.
11
J
14 Talk lt Over.
Discuss the answers to the previous questions with a partner. As a class, discuss the following
question.
What do the attitudes of the two characters represent?
-Analyze the Setting
1) Fill lt In.
0 listen to a lecture about the setting in Robinson Crusoe. Then, use information from the
lecture to fill in the graphic organizer.
"
4'
Setting Description
the island
nk About lt.
.... a partner answer the following questions.
;; 1ao you think Defoe chose to set the story on this island? Could the story take
,: :.=::: in a different setting?
lt Over.
- ....: ::: as s, discuss your answers to the previous question.
m
lAnalyze the Symbols
18 Fill lt In.
0 First, listen to the following lecture about the symbolism of the footprint in Robinson
Crusoe. Then, use information from the lecture to fill in the second column of the graphic
organizer.
Symbol Meaning
the footprint "When I came to my castle .. .
I fled into it like one
pursued"
Can you find any examples from the passage that help you understand the meaning of the
footprint? Fill in the third column of the graphic organizer with as many examples as you can
find. One has been included for you.
20 Talk lt Over.
With a partner, discuss the following questions.
• Do you think that Crusoe wants to meet another person? Why or why not?
Why do you th ink that Crusoe is nervous about the footprint?
view of outsiders
fear
23 Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the previous question in groups of four. Select one group member to
report the group's answer to the class.
-In-Depth Analysis: Diction
In literature, the word "diction" refers to word choice. Authors use different diction for different purposes. For example,
consider the subtle difference between "asked" and "requested ." Writers choose different words depending on the
mood, the tone, and their own style. Careful readers pay attention to the individual words that an author uses. Often,
.vriters use diction to help communicate ideas or feelings that are not immediately obvious.
In Robinson Crusoe, Defoe's diction represents the thoughts of Robinson Crusoe himself.
The story is told from Crusoe's point of view. When examining the diction in Robinson
Crusoe, then, readers should remember that the word choice reflects Crusoe's hidden
oughts or ideas.
n e passage from Robinson Crusoe tells us how Crusoe feels when he encounters a
'ootprint on the beach. This is a very emotional scene. Crusoe is very frightened . As he
escribes his actions upon seeing the footprint, he reveals his feelings of unease through his
::;hoice of words. In particular, we learn that Crusoe feels safest inside of his house based on the words he
es to talk about the house.
Read the In-Depth Analysis and then fill in the graphic organizer. In the left column are al l the
different words that Crusoe uses to describe his home in the passage. Use a dictionary to fi ll in
t he right column with the definitions of the words.
fortification
As a class, discuss your answers to the previous questions. In addition, answer this question:
What does Defoe's diction reveal about Crusoe?
rite
Daniel Defoe uses particular diction to communicate the thoughts and feelings
of Robinson Crusoe. In the passage you have read, Crusoe describes his house
w ith some interesting words. In a 250- to 300-word essay, discuss Defoe's use
for vide·o activities
& essay writing
of diction in the passage. Include examples of interesting word choices, what
those words mean, and what they reveal about Crusoe.
m
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
• know about the author and the background information behind
the novel • thoroughly understand the passage from the novel •
be able to identify figurative language in the passage • be able to
summarize the passage • be able to analyze the characters,
setting, symbols, and themes of the novel • know about satire in
some depth • be able to use the passage to support your opinions
and write a literature essay
Predict
[step 1
method
Discuss these questions with a partner.
ingenuity
1 Do you think that people should use science only to beggi ~
solve problems? Or is it acceptable to use science just c• cumbers
sunshine
to learn something new? Explain. gunpowder
2 What are some interesting scientific discoveries from Jed
your life?
treatise fire
L Step 2 academy
Look at the key words from the passage from Gulliver's Travels.
With a partner, discuss the meaning of the words. Based on
the words, predict main ideas of the passage.
ulliver's Travels is about the fictional journeys of a man called Lemuel Gulliver. The book is divided into four parts,
G each describing a journey. The first part tells about Gulliver's visit to a land called Lilliput, full of tiny people with a
dangerous and aggressive nature, considering their size. He makes it home from this land, but on his next trip, he is
sh ipwrecked in another strange place: Brobdingnag . The people here are giants, though their nature is quite
peaceful and their country ruled fairly and rationally. Part three relates Gulliver's visits to the flying island of
Laputa (where people pursue the most abstract art and knowledge imaginable), Balnibarbi (the land below
Laputa, which the king controls from Laputa by blocking sunshine and rain or dropping down rocks), and
other lands. Part four is the last part, and it tells about Gulliver's time in the country of th e Houyhnhnms
- intelligent talking horses who rule a race of filthy greedy human-like creatures called Yahoos. When
Gulliver finally returns home, he is so disgusted by humanity that he refuses to speak with anyone.
preferring to spend his time in his stables, talking to his horses.
The book is a satire. That is, it pokes fun at certain people, places. and 1deas by presenting s1milar
people, places, or ideas in a rid iculous way. Jonathan Swift used this book to point to the flaws he saw in
many of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, where science was seen as a new god, as well as the
growing power of the British Empire and other topical issues. it is also,
oroadly, a satire of the travel books popular at the time, and
:Jarticularly of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which had been
::~u blis hed seven years before and extolled the virtues of the
1dividual man and his capabilities. Gulliver encounters
J'lly inhabited islands and established societies,
and even at the end , when he tries to find a
jesert island to live on alone, he is brought
Jack home by sympathetic captains. Swift
seems to be implying that humans are
siuck with society, for better or worse.
ead
0 listen to and read the
passage from Gulliver's Travels.
First, read for general
understanding. Then, reread
the passage. As you read the
second time, decide what kind of
In this passage from Gu/liver's Travels (Part 3, Chapter Gulliver is taking a tour of an academy
-a place where scientists come together to invent things- in Lagado. Lagado is the capital city
of Balnibarbi, ruled over by a king who lives on the flying island of Laputa. The people from
Balnibarbi and Laputa are very preoccupied with science and invention - but many of their
scientific ideas are very impractical, as Gulliver soon finds out.
his academy is not an entire single building, but a I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder;
T continuation of several houses on both sides of a
street, which growing waste, was purchased and
who likewise showed me a treatise he had written
concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to
applied to that use. publish.
I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for There was a most
many days to the academy. Every room in it has one or ingenious architect, who
more. projectors; and I believe I could not be in fewer had contrived a new
than five hundred rooms. method for building
The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty houses, by
hands and face , his hair and beard long , ragged , and beginning at the
singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, roof, and working
were all of the same colour. He has been eight years downward to the
upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of foundation; which he
cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically justified to me, by the
sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement like practice of those
summers. H ~ told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight two prudent insects,
years more, he should be able to supply the governor's the bee and the spider.
gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he
complained that his stock was low, and entreated me
"to give him something as an encouragement to
ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear
season for cucumbers." I made him a small present,
for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose,
because he knew their practice of begging from all who
go to see them.
I
Respond to the passage by answering these questions wit h a partner.
Was your prediction about the main idea of th e passag e co rrect? Explain .
How did the author communicate the main ideas? Pick one (or more) and explain.
a with images b w ith dialogue c by expl ai ni ng t hem directly
Who are the important people in th is pa ssage?
Which of the words in t he phrase ba nk do you t hin k best describe how Gu lliver f ee ls in the
passage? Expla in.
Imagine you were Gulliver. Descri be the scene . How do you feel?
• surprised
• amazed • shocked
• amused • bored
• interested
erstand
Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 What was the first projector 3 What did one projector write
working with? a paper about?
a cucumbers a ice
b soot b gunpowder
c airtight bottles c f ire
d clothing d architectu re
c He is in debt. c an insect
d He needs new clothes. d a bi rd
Figurative Language
Work with a partner. Find one example of visual imagery and one example of irony
in the passage.
·.
11
Lsummarize
6 First, fill in the graphic organizer based on the passage you read.
Character(s)
Settiifj
Jv!ain Event(s)
7 Now, use your graphic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner.
Lusten
8 0 l!:isten to a lecture about Gulliver's Travels. Then, answer the questions.
1 What is the speaker mostly talking about?
a why Swift was prosecuted for Gulliver's Travels
b how Swift thought of the idea for Gulliver's Travels
c how Swift tried to hide authorship of Gulliver's Travels
d when Swift first published Gulliver's Travels
• How is the original title similar to the original title of Robinson Crusoe?
• Which title do you think is better, the longer one or the shorter one? Explain.
Filllt In.
'J First, listen to the lecture. Then, use words f rom the phrase bank to fill in the table.
Gulliver Projectors
Talk it Over.
Discuss the answers to the previous questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the class.
11
J
Brobdingnag
country of the
Houyhnhnms
Think about the projectors and what you know about them. What do you think the academy
could represent?
15 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss your answers to the previous question.
J
Symbol Meaning
~--------~------------------------========== '
Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answers to the previous questions with a partner.
fill lt In.
k lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the previous question with a partner.
11
J
Satire is a kind of literary genre which pokes fun at society by illuminating its shortcomings, vices, and injustices.
Satire makes an ideal , behavior, or belief seem ridicu lous. This is usually done in a playful and even humorous way,
but is still intended to make people think about their own behavior.
There are two kinds of satire: Horatian and Juvenalian . These get their names from two of the earliest satirists,
Horace and Juvenal, who were Roman poets. Horatian satire is more playful, witty, and general. Juvenalian satire,
on the other hand, is often more angry, abrasive, and personal. In Gulliver's Travels, the satire is mostly Juvenalian.
Swift attacks specific people, governments, and practices. Though the book is definitely funny, the criticisms of the
British state and European self-importance are often scathing.
For example, when Gulliver visits Lilliput, he spends a lot of time explaining conflicts in the Lilliputian court and
parliament. These conflicts seem petty and foolish to Gulliver - and , of course, to the reader. Yet they directly
correspond to contemporary political conflicts in Britain . In pointing out the absurdity of the Lilliputian conflicts,
Swift implies that their British counterparts are no less foolish. Their constant wars with their similarly tiny
neighbors from the island of Blefuscu remind readers of the unending conflicts between Britain and France at the
time.
The entire book is full of examples like this. When
Gulliver visits the academy, his descriptions of
the projectors' ridiculous experiments make us
laugh . These projectors, however, are similar to
the members of the Royal Society in Britain . So
by indirectly comparing the projectors to the
Royal Society, Swift suggests that the Royal
Society is just as useless as the academy in
Balnibarbi. Both pursue knowledge that has no
useful purpose for humanity, and both are
completely cut off from the society that
supports them.
Some people have treated Gulliver's Travels as
a children's book, but this could not be further
from the truth . In reality, it's a harsh criticism
of life in the eighteenth century. lt was for this
reason that Swift published the book
anonymously, pretending it was written by
Gulliver himself; it was designed to upset
some very powerful people, and it did. lt was
also, however, enormously popular, and has
never been out of print since.
11
2'2 Read the In-Depth Analysis and answer the following questions with a partner.
• What is satire?
• Read the quotations below and, based on the information in the text, decide which is from
Horace's satires and which is from Juvenal's satires.
1 2 .............................. ........ .
Reread the passage from Gulliver's Travels. With a partner, answer the following questions.
What is the main subject of this section?
What is Swift satirizing in this section?
How does Swift make the subject of his satire seem ridiculous?
ite
ym bols are incredibly important to Gulliver's Tra vels. Using your answers for video activities
· om the sections above, write a 250- to 300-word essay about three of & essay writing
--e symbols in the story and what they represent.
11
/
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
• know about the author and the background information behind
the novel • thoroughly understand the passage from the novel • be
able to identify the point of view in the passage • be able to
summarize the passage • be able to analyze the title, characters,
setting, and themes of the novel • know about character in some
depth • be able to use the passage to support your opinions and
write a literature essay
.
Predict
[step 1
noble
Discuss these questions with a partner.
proud
1 When you meet someone new, how do you decide admiration
tall
whether or not you like them?
manners
pleasant
What is more important when making a new friend:
handsome torbiddmg
their appearance or their actions? Explain .
gentleman amiable
L e ., dance
disgust
Look at the key words from the passage from Pride and
Prejudice. With a partner, discuss the meaning of the
words. Based on the words, predict main ideas of the
passage.
Background Information
J
Read the text and answer the questions.
,~ ..\.;::.
ride and Prejudice is about the Bennet family. Mr. husbands for their daughters. Marriage is the only m.eans
and Mrs. Bennet have five daughters. Jane is the by which the Bennet girls can avoid becoming destitute.
- :::;st, and she is beautiful, kind , and good. Elizabeth is At the beginning of the book, a new man named Mr.
·- :: 1ext oldest. She, too, is pretty, but not as beautiful as Bingley moves to town. He is rich, so Mrs. Bennet
=..-8. She's free-spirited, outspoken, and intelligent. immediately wants to introduce him to her daughters. The
~-:: s also the main character. The other three daughters ball described in the following passage is the first chance
z..-:: not as important to the story. They are Mary, the the Bennet women have to meet Mr. Bingley and their
:: sh intellectual , and Lydia and Kitty, the silly flirts. impressions of him and his friend Mr. Darcy are given.
:-:-:ause of the laws and customs in England at the time , On the surface, Pride and Prejudice is a romance, where
-:-8 of these daughters will inherit the family home when Elizabeth and Mr Darcy slowly move from dislike of one
Mr. Bennet passes away. In addition, another to falling in love. However, under the surface is
Mr. Ben net is not a wealthy man. Jane Austen's keen and often biting humor, as she lays
Therefore, his daughters will open the hypocrisy and materialism of her society, where
be left with nothing when every woman by necessity must find a man - and one
he is gone. For this with means. On each level - as a romance, a comedy of
reason , both Mr. and manners, and a social critique - the novel works
Mrs. Bennet are very exquisitely well, earning it a place alongside the other
concerned with finding classics of English literature.
11
]14 Bingley was good looking and Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with
lJ'..I..T. gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant all the principal people in the room; he was lively
countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that
brother-iq-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one
gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must
attention of the room by his fine, tall person, speak for themselves. What a contrast between him
handsome features, noble mien; and the report which and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with
was in general circulation within five minutes after Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined
his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest
gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a of the evening in walking about the room, speaking
man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer occasionally to one of his own party. His character
than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable
admiration for about half the evening, till his man in the world, and every body hoped that he
manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his would never come there again. Amongst the most
popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike
above his company, and above being pleased; and of his general behaviour was sharpened into
not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save particular resentment by his having slighted one of
him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable her daughters.
countenance, and being unworthy to be compared
with his friend.
-Respond
Respond to the passage by answering these questions with a partner.
1 Was your prediction about the main idea of the passage correct? Explain .
2 How did the author communicate the main ideas? Pick one (or more) and explain.
a with images b with dialogue c by explaining them directly
3 Who are the important people in this passage?
4 Which of the words from the phrase bank do you think best describe how Mr. Bi ~gley feels
in the passage? Which might describe Mr. Darcy's feelings? Explain.
• excited • bored
• tired • unimpressed
• happy • upset
• interested
5 Imagine that you are at that ball. What are you wearing? What do you see, feel, hear, taste?
How do you feel? How does this scene differ from a similar modern one?
nderstand
Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 Which of the following is NOT 3 Why do people stop liking Mr. Darcy?
attractive about Mr. Darcy? a He thinks he's better than them.
a his appearance b He talks too much and too loudly.
b his income c He dances with too many women.
c his home d He insults people to their faces.
d his attitude
4 Who particularly dislikes Mr. Darcy?
2 How does Mr. Darcy compare to a Miss Bingley
Mr. Bingley?
b Mr. Bingley
a He is better-looking.
c Mrs. Bennet
b He is more of a gentleman.
d Mrs. Hurst
c He has more money.
d He is friendlier.
oint of View
Work with a partner. Does a first-person
narrator or a third-person narrator tell
the story? Is the narrator omniscient or
limited? How do you know?
11
y
Lsummarize
6 First, fill in the graphic organizer
based on the passage you read.
Now, use your graphic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner.
Lusten
80 Listen to a lecture about Pride and Prejudice. Then, answer the questions.
Definition
• Which character in the passage best shows the meaning of the word "pride " ? Explain.
• Are there any characters that exhibit "prejudice"? Explain.
1 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss your answers to the previous question. Then, answer the following question
as a group.
Based on the passage, does Pride and Prejudice seem like a good name for the book? Why or
why not?
"':.j
lil
lAnalyze the Characters
12 Fill lt In.
a. 0 Listen to the first half of the lecture. Then, use words from the phrase bank to fill in
the first Venn diagram.
b. 0 Listen to the second half of the lecture and use words from the phrase bank to fill in
the second Venn diagram.
JaJtt
14 Talk lt Over.
Discuss the answers to the previous questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the class.
- Analyze the Setting
15 Fill lt In.
0 Listen to the following lecture about the setting in Pride and Prejudice. Then, use information
from the lecture to fill in the graphic organizer .
... ~
~--
time
~
I
-
7 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss your answers to the previous questions.
lt Over.
Di scuss your answer to the previous question with a partner.
11
L In-Depth Analysis: Character
Characters are the people that the reader meets in a novel. They are important to literary
works because it is through the characters that the reader experiences the action in the
story. Characters are what keep the action going, drive the plot, and encounter and resolve
conflicts. Without characters, it would be very hard to have a story.
Writers reveal things about characters in many different ways. lt would be boring, for
example, if a writer simply told you everything about a character the first time you saw
that character on the page. it's much more interesting for the information to be revealed
piece by piece. Writers can reveal things about characters by telling the reader directly,
describing how the character looks, letting us hear the character speak, sharing the
character's private thoughts and feelings, showing how the character affects other people,
and making the character act. All of these things come together to paint the picture of a
complete character.
These different means of characterization are all important. And, in some cases,
they may conflict with one another. For example, a character may say that he is
a kind and gentle person. Later, however, the character might get into a fist
fight with someone else. At this point, the reader has to decide which version of
the character to believe in: the character who says he's kind and gentle, or the
character who beats people up. Good writers know that people are
complicated, so there will often be conflicts between who a person
seems to be at first, and how he or she acts later on.
Another important point about characters is that they often change
throughout a story. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Mr.
Darcy has a very bad attitude at the beginning. By the end of the
story, however, he has overcome much of his pride. He realizes
that he 's been acting poorly and makes an effort to change. By the
end of the novel , he is a far different person from how he is when
the reader first meets him .
Not all characters grow and change. This isn 't the mark of bad
writing. lt simply reflects what the author wants to emphasize. Mr.
Bingley, for instance, doesn't change throughout the course of the
novel. At the beginning, he is kind, gentlemanly, handsome, and
rich. He stays this way throughout the story. This is because
the story is not really about him . He's involved and he's
important, but his character is not the one being scrutinized .
Mr. Bingley as a character is most important as a device for
moving the plot forward. His own personal development is
not important to the story.
J '
!
I
"'" "·~·""'·"""•·•••·•••· •·'·=••·-~-M•~·~o••"··~f·'"" .·-···· .... -······~ ·····~-~---~-·- .········--__J.....
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
• know about the author and the background information
behind the novel • thoroughly understand the passage from the
novel • be able tO identify figurative language in the passage
• be able to summarize the passage • be able to analyze the
t itle, characters, setting, symbols, and themes of the novel
• know about allusion in some depth • be able to use the
passage to support your opinions and write a literature essay
Preqict
[step 1
Discuss these questions with a pa rtner.
agony
1 Do you think scientists ever reg ret their discover ies? horrid wa ery
Why or why not?
yellow creature
2 Are there moral boundaries which scient ists should not dreary
cross, even in the pursuit of progress? Explain and give
dismal rain
examples. shrivelled
catastrophe wretch
[step 2 black
Look at the key words from the passage from Frankenstein.
With a partner, discuss the meaning of the words. Based on
the words, predict the mood of the passage.
ackground Information
Read the text and answer the questions.
rankenstein takes place in the late 1700s. lt begins on someone saw him, they ran away or tried to hurt him. The
F board a ship bound for the North Pole. The ship's
captain, Robert Walton, sees a solitary figure moving across
creature was very lonely and asked Victor to make him a
friend.
the ice. Later, he sees another man and brings the man onto At first, Victor agreed. But as he got closer and closer to
the ship. This man is Victor Frankenstein. In Walton's finishing the new creature, he became more and more afraid
expedition towards the North Pole (which had not even been of the consequences, so he destroyed all of his progress and
attempted at the time of the novel's publication), said that he'd never make another. The creature became
Frankenstein recognizes his own obsessive pursuit of very upset and killed first Victor's friend, and then his :.'lfe.
knowledge, and he decides to tell Walton his life story as a and Victor began chasing it further and further north to Ki .....
cautionary tale. Shortly after he finishes telling his story, Victor des. The
When Frankensteinwas a student he became obsessed with creature comes aboard the ship shortly afterward. a1d 1s
e creation of life. In fact, he became so obsessed that he very sad to hear of Victor's death. lt decides it has noth1ng
decided to create a human being. He studied very hard and now left to live for, and says it will build a funeral py:-e to bum
began building a person out of stolen body parts. Using itself on.
electricity, he brought the body to life. However, when Victor The novel is important because it shows the scientific
saw what he had created, he was immediately disgusted. He concerns of the time. For example, sc1ennsts rn the 1790s
couldn't even bear to be in the same room as it and he fled. noticed that when electrical currems were applied to the
The creature subsequently disappeared. muscles of a dead frog, the legs t\'litched. People now
Victor was so upset that he got sick. He went home once he understand that electricity caused the muscle fibers to
:1as well, only to find out that his younger brother had been contract, but in the past, they believed that electricity held
murdered. Victor knew that it was the creature. Feeling some vital life force. Shelley drew on this principle in her
guilty, he took a trip to the mountains to relax. There, he met novel. In addition, the novel references new understanding
e creature face to face. The creature could speak and was about electromagnetism and other scientific pursuits.
ntelligent. He told Victor about his life and what he'd been Indeed, Frankenstein would not have seemed implausible to
:nrough. He'd learned to speak and read, but every time people in Shelley's time period.
11
L listen & Read
20 Listen to and read the passage from Frankenstein. Fi rst, read for general understanding .
Then , reread the passage. As you read the second time, note down t he specific ways in
which Victor describes his creation's appearance.
t was on a dreary night of November that I beheld horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost
-Respond
Respond to the passage by answering these questions with a partner.
1 Was your prediction about the mood of the passage correct? Explain.
2 How did the author create the mood? Pick one (or more) and explain .
a with images b with dia logue c by explain ing it directly
3 Who are the important people in this passage?
4 Which of the words in the phrase bank do you think best describe how Victor feel s in the
passage? Explain.
• happy • excited
• disgusted • afraid
• shocked • angry
• indifferent
nderstand
Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 Which of the following colors does 3 What does Victor do when he sees the creature?
Victor NOT use to describe the a He leaves.
creature?
b He screams.
a black
c He hides.
b yellow
d He paces.
c white
d red
4 What bothers Victor most about the creat ure?
a its voice
2 What does Victor use to bring the
b its appearance
creature to life?
c its movements
a an invented tool
d its strength
b a magical chant
c an electric shock
d a mixture of chemicals
igurative Language
Find one example of
onomatopoeia and one
example of kinesthetic
imagery in the text.
settixo
11
J
0 listen to the lecture. Then, use words from the phrase bank to complete the Venn diagram.
PrvmefAtUJ
How are the stories of Victor Frankenstein and Prometheus similar? How are they different?
Talk lt Over.
With a partner, discuss your answers to the previous questions. Then, talk about why you
t hink Mary Shelley included the alternate title, The Modern Prometheus.
11
J
1
Character Trait r Victor Creature
rr
self-pity
overly emotional
self-importance
13 Think A ut lt.
Use the graphic organizer to answer the following questions individually.
• How are the two characters the same?
• How are they different?
14 Talk lt Over.
Discuss the answers to the previous questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the class.
-Analyze the Setting
15 Fill lt In.
0 Listen to the following lecture about the setting in Frankenstein. Then, use information from
the lecture to fill in the graphic organizer.
7 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss your answers to the previous questions.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------
--~~i
Symbol 1 Meaning
D the monster . A the duality of knowledge (it can both help and harm)
:!: l li ghtlfire B the negative consequences of going against nature
-- exploration
) I
Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss the following questions.
Based on what you know about the book, which symbol do you think is the most important?
Why?
11
lAnalyze the Themes
21 Fill lt In.
Two important themes from Frankenstein are listed below. Fill in the graphic organizer with
words or lines from the passage that relate to these themes.
23 Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the previous question with a partner.
In literature, an allusion is a reference to another work, such as a work of art, a piece of music, or another
literary wo rk. Authors use allusions to draw parallels between two characters or situations without going
into great detail. If, for example , an author compared two of his characters to Romeo and Juliet, the reader
might assume that the characters are doomed and will never be together, since that's what happens in
Shakespeare's play.
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley draws a parallel between Victor Frankenstein and Prometheus. The story of
Prometheus comes from ancient Greece. According to some legends, Prometheus created the first humans.
He taught them how to talk, read, and hunt. Then he stole fire from the Greek gods and gave it to the
humans of the Earth . This angered the gods greatly, since by doing this, he was showing disrespect to
them . As a punishment, the leader of the Greek gods, Zeus, chained Prometheus to a rock. Every day, a bird
came and ate part of Prometheus' liver. Every night, the liver grew back. So Prometheus lived in agony for
the rest of his life.
Mary Shelley's audience would have been aware of this story. They would have seen the similarities
between the characters, as well as the differences. For example , Prometheus did everything out of love for
humans, but Frankenstein has no love for his creation - quite the opposite. In addition, as a modern
Prometheus from Enlightenment Europe, Frankenstein represents humans' quest for knowledge -
especially scientific knowledge.
By comparing Victor to Prometheus, Mary Shelley places him in this long tradition of figures whose
willingness to go against natural law and insatiable desire for knowledge lead to their ruin.
11
24 Read the In-Depth Analysis and answer the following questions individually.
• What do Victor and Prometheus have in common?
• What are some differences between Victor and Prometheus?
• Based on the similarities and differences listed above, do you think that the characters of
Victor and Prometheus are more alike than they are different, or vice versa? Explain .
..
• Which are more important to understanding the story of Frankenstein, the similarities
between the two characters or their differences?
6 In groups of four, discuss your answers to the previous questions. Then, as a group, write a
short paragraph answering the following question. Use evidence from the In-Depth Analysis to
back up your answers.
• Authors use allusions to draw parallels between two characters or situations. Why do you
think Mary Shelley chose to allude to Prometheus in Frankenstein?
rite
Victor Frankenstein is a modern Prometheus, reminding us of the dangers of going
against nature. Write a 250- to 300-word essay about the importance this theme has
in the story of Frankenstein, and its consequences.
11
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
Pred.ict
[step 1
Discuss these questions with a partner.
secret
1 Is it possible to feel romantic love for two different
heart samP
people at the same time? Explain .
marry change
2 What are some reasons that people marry one
another? Are some reasons better than others? bme being
Explain. obstacle different
\~ ,l ~j/
11
'Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?' she pursued , 'That's very strange! I cannot make it out .'
knee li ng down by me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my 'it's my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain
face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, it: I can't do it distinctly; but I'll give you a feel ing of how I
even when one has all the right in the world to ind ulge it. feel ... I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I
'Is it worth keeping? ' I inquired, less sulkily. have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had
'Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to not brou ght Heathcliff so low, I shouldn 't have thought of
know what I should do . Today, Edgar Linton has asked it. lt would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he
me to marry him , and I've given him an answer. Now, shall never know how I love him: and that, not because
before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial , you he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself
tell me which it ought to have been.' than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine
are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam
from lightning , or frost from fire.. . If all else perished ,
'Your brother will be pleased; the old lady and gentleman and he remained , I should still continue to be; and if all
will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly, else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe
comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one; and wou ld turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part
you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the- woods:
and easy: where is the obstacle?' time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the
'Here! and here!' replied Catherine, striking one hand on trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks
her forehead, and the other on her breast: 'in whichever beneath : a source of little visible delight, but necessary.
place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I'm Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind:
convinced I'm wrong!' not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure
to myself, but as my own being.'
J
-Respond
Respond to the passage by answering these questions with a partner.
1 Was your prediction about the main ideas of the passage correct? Explain .
2 How did the author communicate the main ideas? Pick one (or more) and explain .
a with images b with dialogue c by explaining it directly
3 Who are the important people in this passage?
4 Which of the words in the phrase bank do you think best describe how Catherine feels in
the passage? Explain.
• upset • confused
• happy • scared
• ashamed • sad
• indifferent
Understand
Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 What does Catherine ask Nelly? 4 What does Catherine say about
a if she should tell everybody about Heath cliff?
Edgar a He will not be happy with her.
b if she should marry Heathcliff b He does not love her.
c if she should have accepted Edgar's c He is better than Edgar.
proposal d He is the same as her.
d what Nelly thinks about Heathcliff
rary Techniques
J
Lsummarize
6 First, fill in the graphic organizer based on the passage you read.
Character(s) Sttti'g
7 Now, use your graphic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner.
lListen
8 0 Listen to a lecture about Wuthering Heights.
Then, answer the questions.
Word Definition
wuthering
Read the extract below from Wuthering Heights describing the house. How does it fit with
Gothic conventions outlined in the box above?
.'luthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it
::mlling. 'Wuthering' being a significant provincial strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, il
:::jective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which
~ station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing
and the corners defended with large jutting stones. ,
~~
Before passing the threshold , I paused to admire a
=nti lation they must have up there at all times, indeed: quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and
::-e may guess the power of the north wind blowing over especially about the principal door; above which, among
::-;; edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little
::-3 end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all
boys, I detected the date '1500', and the name 'Hareton
:;:-etching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the Earnshaw'."
Talk lt Over.
With a partner, discuss the meanings of the two words and how they make you feel. Then
answer the following question.
• Why do you think Emily Bronte named the house and the novel Wuthering Heights?
m
lAnalyze the Characters
12 Fill lt In.
a. 0 Listen to the first half of the lecture. Then, use words from the phrase bank to fill in the
first Venn diagram.
b. 0 Listen to the second half of the lecture and use words from the phrase bank to fill in
the second Venn diagram.
14 Talk lt Over.
Discuss the previous questions with a partner. As a class, discuss the following question.
• Why did Catherine choose to marry Edgar and not Heathcliff?
-Ana lyze the Setting
15 Fill lt In.
0 Listen to the following lecture about the setting in Wuthering Heights. Then, use inform ation
from the lecture to fill in the graphic organizer.
7 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss your answers to the previous questions.
--·-·----,..-<...
Meaning
symbol
Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss the following questions.
• Which symbol do you think is the most important? Why?
m
/
love
obsession
social class
23 Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the previous
question with a partner.
n a novel, a conflict occurs when one or more A second kind of conflict is "man versus society."
I characters or entities want opposite or incompatible
things. For example, perhaps one man has something
This conflict occurs when a person wants something
that goes against the norms of their society. That is,
that another man wants. The rest of the story could they want to do something that most people think is
be about the resolution of this conflict. Will the first wrong or improper. This conflict is also evident in
man steal from the second? Will he try to barter or Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is an outsider in his
trade with him? Maybe the second man will give him society because of his appearance and social status.
the object, but only if he performs some task. These He wants to be with Catherine, but she is considered
possibilities are what make a good story. Without above him, so society does not allow it.
conflict, there would be no story to tell. If one man Characters can also feel a conflict called "man versus
wanted something from another and the second man nature." Stories of people who are shipwrecked and
simply gave it up willingly, it would make for a very must survive against all odds are good examples of
short story, and not a particularly interesting one. this conflict. In Wuthering Heights, the weather often
There are several different kinds of conflict in causes conflicts. For instance, Lockwood must spend
literature. The most obvious one - used in the a night at Wuthering Heights against his will when a
example above- is called "man versus man." (Note blizzard prevents him from walking home.
that here the word "man" here means any character, Finally, characters may experience an internal conflict:
not just a male.) In this kind of conflict, two people "man versus self. " In this kind of conflict, a character
have opposite or incompatible goals. Think, for experiences two separate, but incompatible desires.
example, of Edgar and Heathcliff. They both love Catherine has such a conflict when she must choose
Catherine, but they can't both be with her. This between Heathcliff and Edgar. She must someho"
means that the two are in conflict. come to terms with both of her desires.
Read the In-Depth Analysis. What are the four kinds of conflict? Give an example from the
novel of each kind.
In groups of four, discuss your answers to the previous question. Then, as a group, wr ite a
short paragraph answering the following question. Use evidence from the In-Depth Ana lvsis to
back up your answers.
Authors use co nflicts to move along the action in a novel. Based on the pa ssage ara .·. na1: yo
know about Wuthering Heights, which conflict is the most important t o t he storv ano .,., m?
rite
Heathcliff and Edgar are two of the main characters in the novel. Write
a 250- to 300-word essay comparing and contrasting the two men, and
commenting on the significance of their differences in light of the
choice Catherine is forced to make between them. When you can,
quote the passage directly.
m
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
Predict
[step 1
Discuss these questions with a partner. good
commingled
1 Can someone be all good or all bad? Explain. virtue d
ecay
2 What are some ways that people deal with ugly
deformity
their "bad" or "evil" impulses?
pure
stde
[step 2 human
nature
Look at the key words from the passage from
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. With a
natural
partner, discuss the meaning of the words. Based
on the words, predict the main ideas of the
passage.
trange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde takes place in side of his personality has become more powerful than the
S London in the late 19th century. it tells the story of a
scientist, Dr. Jekyll, who is a respectable, upstanding
good. The short novel ends with Jekyll's friends
discovering Hyde's dead body in Jekyll's locked room. A
:itizen. But he's bothered by the dark impulses that he letter from Jekyll explains it all and implies that Hyde will
:3els, the urges he has to commit acts that he considers most likely kill himself rather than go on trial for the
:;•til . Instead of acknowledging and dealing with these terrible things that he did; which is, it seems, what has
pulses, Jekyll invents a potion that he hopes will happened.
3eparate his good side from his bad side. By separating Most of the novel is told by an omnipresent narrator from
-;mself into two individual personalities, he feels he can the perspective of Dr. Jekyll's lawyer, Utterson. He is trying
-dul ge his dark side without his good side suffering to find out who the mysterious Mr. Hyde is, and what hold
·:rrib le pangs of conscience. he has over Utterson's client. The last two chapters take the
'1hen Jekyll first drinks the potion he has created, he form of confessional letters, one from Dr. Jekyll's deceased
·:.alizes that he has transformed into a different person. He friend Dr. Lanyon and the second Jekyll himself, which
::ails this other man Hyde. Hyde is completely evil; he's together provide the answer to the mystery
_3kyl l's completely bad side. To turn back into Jekyll, Hyde Though it was not immediately embraced by literary critics,
-ust drink another potion. At first, Jekyll enjoys his new- Stevenson's story was an instant popular success.
·-und freedom. He transforms into Hyde and does all of the Pub Iished in 1886, it was estimated to have sold 250,000
·:rrible things that he isn't allowed to do normally, and copies by 1901, which was a huge number at the time. it
--en he turns back into Jekyll and enjoys his respectable was soon adapted for the stage on both sides of the
;e. Over time, however, it takes more and more of the Atlantic, and versions have since been broadcast on the
:Jtion to turn Hyde back into Jekyll. Not only that: he radio, on television, and in the cinema. In fact, there are
:egins to turn into Mr. Hyde without even taking it. The evil over 123 film versions of the story alone.
Ill
I must here speak by theory alone , saying not
that which I know, but that which I suppose
to be most probable. The evil side of my nature,
express and single, than the imperfect and
divided countenance I had been hitherto
accustomed to call mine. And in so far I was
to which I had now transferred the stamping doubtless right. I have observed that when I
efficacy, was less robust and less developed wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none
than the good which I had just deposed. Again , could come near to me at first without a visible
in the course of my life, which had been , after misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was
all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control , because all human beings, as we meet them,
itflad been much less exercised and much less are commingled out of good and evil: and
exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind,
that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, was pure evil.
slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as
I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the
good shone upon the countenance of the one,
second and conclusive experiment had yet to
evil was written broadly and plainly on the face
be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if I had
of the other. Evil besides (which I must still
lost my identity beyond redemption and must
believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on
that body an imprint of deformity and decay. flee before daylight from a house that was no
And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I
glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather once more prepared and drank the cup , once
of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. lt more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and
seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a came to myself once more with the character,
livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.
J
[Respond
3 Respond to the passage by answering these questions with a partner.
1 Was your prediction about the main ideas of the passage correct? Explain.
2 How did the author communicate the main ideas? Pick one (or more) and explain.
a with images b with dialogue c by explaining it directly
3 Who are the important people in this passage?
4 Which of the words from the phrase bank do you think best describe how Jekyll feels in the
passage? Explain.
• happy • scared
• excited • confused
• horrified • ashamed
• indifferent
5 Imagine you were Dr. Jekyll looking at yourself in a mirror as Mr. Hyde. Describe your
feelings .
[Understand
4 Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 What is true of Edward Hyde? 3 Why is Hyde different than all other people?
a He is taller than Jekyll. a There is no good within him .
b He is younger than Jekyll. b His body is strangely deformed.
c He is more handsome than Jekyll. c His anger is overly powerful.
d He is smarter than Jekyll. d There are two clear sides to his nature.
2 How does Jekyll feel when he sees 4 How do people react when they see Hyde?
Hyde in the mirror? a They are curious.
a shocked b They run away.
b disgusted c They are uncomfortable.
c afraid d They don't talk to him.
d glad
-Figurative Language
Work with a partner. Find two examples of organic imagery
and two examples of kinesthetic imagery in the passage.
11
J
Lsummarize
6 First, fill in the graphic organizer based on the passage you read.
Character(s) Setti~
7 Now, use your graphic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner.
Lusten
8 0 Listen to a lecture about Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Then, answer the questions.
11 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss
whether Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr Hyde is a
good title for the
book. What other
titles might be
suitable?
Ill
)
14 Talk lt Over.
Discuss the answers to the previous questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the class.
Then, as a class, discuss the following question.
What do you think the two characte rs represent?
Setting
""'·'<i·.~i·-·•·•-'•'"""'"""'"""'..-"'''0.~"~"'
Victorian Britain
17 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss the graphic organizer. Then, answer the following question.
Could the story of Jekyll and Hyde take place in a different setting? Explain.
Character Meaning
' I· ~-
11
19 Think About lt.
With a partner, answer the following questions.
• What is the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
• What does this relationship suggest about the concepts the men represent?
20 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss the following question.
How does Stevenson use the men as symbols to communicate the main ideas of the novel?
21 Fill lt In.
The duality of human nature {that is, the idea that people have "good" and "bad" sides) is
one of the most important themes in the passage and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
as a whole. Use lines from the passage to fill in the graphic organizer.
the duality of
human nature
23 Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the
.r
previous question with a pa ·
L In-Depth Analysis: Doppelgangers
4 Read the In-Depth Analysis and, with your answers to the Analyze the Characters section,
answer the following questions.
• What is a doppelganger?
• What are doppelganger stories normally about?
• What is the function of a doppelganger in modern literature?
• How is Hyde a doppelganger for Dr. Jekyll?
Take turns agreeing and disagreeing with the statement. Use points from the passage, the
lesson, and the lectures to formulate your responses.
Write
26 The duality of human nature is one of the most important themes in Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The characters of Jekyll and Hyde give a
physical representation of this idea. Write a 250- to 300-word essay about for video activities
the duality of human nature in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Include & essay writing
what message the author communicates about this idea .
11
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
Predjct
Lstep 1
Discuss these questions with a partner.
clothes
1 Can two people from different social classes be wrong
friends? Why or why not? dignity prosper
2 What are some barriers that social class creates? forge London
blacl<smith
partings
Lstep 2
Look at the key words from the Great Expectations proud divisions
passage. With a partner, discuss the meaning of sir
the words. Based on the words, predict the main
ideas of the passage.
reat Expectations is one of Charles Dickens' most clothes, and spends a lot of money on frivolous things.
G famous novels. it's set in early Victorian England
:. 1840-50) and tells the story of a young man named
He forgets about his old friends, and when Joe comes to
visit, Pip is embarrassed by his accent, manners, and
:>'p. Pip is an orphan, and his older sister takes care of appearance.
-m. She is very mean to both him and her husband, Joe. In the end, Pip finds out that it was Magwitch, and not
1e day, Pip meets a convict called Magwitch, who has Miss Havisham, who gave him the money. In addition,
~"caped from prison. Pip helps the man and gives him Miss Havisham does not want him to marry Estella. In
~Jm e food and afile to remove the chains. fact, Miss Havisham hates men and only used Estella to
3Jme time later, Pip goes to play at Satis House, where make Pip feel bad. Eventually, Pip loses his fortune and
--estrange Miss Havisham lives. Miss Havisham is aold leaves Britain. Before doing so, he makes up with Joe,
.oman who always wears a wedding dress. She takes who has married loving, kind Biddy, after Pip's cruel
:.are of a beautiful little girl, Estella. Pip is soon in love sister died. Pip works as a merchant in Egypt for eleven
n Estella, but he knows that he is not agentleman, and years to pay off his debts and, when he comes back, he .
I therefore never be with her. Furthermore, Estella is runs into Estella. She is nice to him, for achange, and the
:~en mean to Pip. book ends with them holding hands.
=" starts working as a blacksmith with Joe, but he Likealmost all of Dickens' works, Great Expectations is a
=-~ms of being a rich gentleman. One day, his dreams story with amoral, warning of the dangers of easy money,
::11e true. A lawyer tells him that some mysterious a life of leisure and snobbishness. lt promotes the simple
==:-~efactor has given him asum of money. Pip thinks that values of friendship, honesty, and warmth, while hinting
: "lust be Miss Havisham and is excited to become a that social advancement is possible through hard work
;=-tleman for Estella. Pip moves to London, buys fancy and education.
11
J
"I have now concluded , sir," said Joe, rising from his clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes . I'm wrong out of
chair, "and , Pip, I wish you ever well and ever the forge , the kitchen , or off th' meshes. You won 't
prospering to a greater and a greater height." find half so much fault in me if you think of me in my
"But you are not go ing now, Joe?" forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my
pipe. You won 't find half so much fault in me if,
"Yes I am ," said Joe.
supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you
"But you are coming back to dinne r, Joe?" come and put your head in at the forge window and
"No I am not," said Joe. see Joe the blacksm ith , there, at the old anvil , in the
old burnt apron , sticking to the old work. I'm awful
Our eyes ..met, and all the "Sir" melted out of that
dull, but I hope I've beat out something nigh the
manly heart as he gave me his hand.
rights of this at last. And so GOD bless you, dear old
"Pip , dear old chap, life is made of ever so many Pip , old chap, GOD bless you!"
partings welded together, as I may say, and one
I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a
man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and
simple dignity in him. The fashion of his dress could
one 's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith.
no more come in its way when he spoke these words
Diwisions among such must come, and must be met
than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched
as they come. If there's been any fault at all to-day,
me gently on the forehead , and went out. As soon as I
it's mine. You and me is not two figures to be
could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after
together in London ; nor yet anywheres else but what
him and looked for him in the neighbouring streets;
is private, and beknown , and understood among
but he was gone.
friends. lt ain 't that I am proud , but that I want to be
right, as you shall never see me no more in these
11
J
[Respond
Respond to the passage by answering these questions with a partner.
1 Was your prediction about the main ideas of the passage correct? Explain .
2 How did the author communicate the main ideas? Pick one (or more) and explain.
a with images b with dialogue c by explaining it directly
3 Who are the important people in this passage?
4 Which of the words in the phrase bank do you think best describe how Pip feels in t he
passage? Explain.
• embarrassed • sad
• excited • ashamed
• happy • angry
•.
,,
.. .•;
• understanding
derstand
Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 What does Pip ask Joe? 3 Where does Joe say he and Pip should
a if he's ready to leave meet?
Point of View
Work with a partner. Does a first-person
narrator or a third-person narrator
tell the story? Is the narrator omniscient
or limited? How do you know?
~.;.,_ ::'1'-..:.."'
Jviain Event(s) Conflict
7 Now, use your graphic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner.
Lusten
8 0 Listen to a lecture about Great Expectations. Then, answer the questions.
1 What is the speaker mostly talking about?
a a change that Dickens made to the novel
b the life of Estella after the novel ends
c reasons that Pip and Estella get married
d the sad tone of the novel
Definition
For his title, Dickens chose two words that appear a number of times in the novel. This is a
common novelistic device, and makes the words jump out at the reader when they come
across them. Read this extract, in which the words first appear, and answer the questions.
" ... the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations."
Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.
"1 am instructed to communicate to him," said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his
finger at me sideways, "that he will come into a handsome property. Further,
that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be
immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and
be brought up as a gentleman - in a word, as a young fellow of great
expectations."
My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality... J
11 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss your answers to the previous questions. Then, talk about why you think
Dickens chose to call the novel Great Expectations.
1111
lAnalyze the Characters
12 Fill lt In.
0 Listen to the lecture. Use the words above each graphic organizer to fill it in .
Jot
• went to jail • good at heart • bad to the core • Miss Havisham's former fiance
• Estella's real father • forged signatures
• Which two characters are most similar, and which are most different?
• As the story progresses, does Pip become more like Joe, or less like Joe?
14 Talk lt Over.
Discuss the answers to the previous questions with a partner. As a class, discuss the following
question.
• Besides his part in the plot, what is Joe's importance in the story?
6umas Jo pads'\'f
I
J
Meaning
symbo\
A living in the past, refusing to move forward
l2IJ stopped docks B decay
l![J the wedding cake
L!D the wedding dress C death
19 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss the following questions.
• Which symbol do you think is the most important? Why?
appearance
social class
22 Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the previous question with a partner.
7
The Victorian era in England lasted from 1837 to aim , he does move up into a new class - the
1901 . During this time, the most popular literary middle class.
form was the novel. Indeed, the novel changed The emerging middle class is another important
drastically during these times. Victorian novels are theme in Victorian literature. With the Industrial
usually quite dense, with complicated plots, lots of Revolution in full swing, a new group be'gan to
characters, and realistic (and sometimes tediously emerge in English society. These people were not
detailed) physical descriptions. Charles Dickens' poor or members of the working class. Nor were
novels reflect these changes quite well. He writes they nobility or members of the upper class.
stories with many different characters, twisting and Instead, they were merchants, doctors, lawyers -
turning plots that keep readers guessing, and very in short, working professionals. Above the working
descriptive language that paints a picture of scenes poor, but below the aristocracy, this new group
of life in London. had to find a place for itself. Dickens captures this
All of these stylistic features are important, but idea, as well. In Great Expectations, for example,
there were thematic changes in novels as well. One Pip wants to be a member of the upper class - a
of the most important themes in Victorian literature gentleman. This doesn't work out, however.
is the drive for social advancement. People in all Instead, through his own hard work and
groups and in all social classes wanted to move up. perseverance, Pip is able to become part of the
Things were changing in Victorian Britain. People middle class, working as a merchant. This
were beginning to feel like they had more social il lustrates one of the most important values in the
mobility. lt was becoming easier to make money, middle class: hard work. lt also highlights a final
at least. Novels reflected this preoccupation with feature of Victorian novels - they often contain a
moving up. They told stories of people who fought strong moral message.
and worked to achieve a better position. Again, Victorian novels reflect the times in which they
Dickens' novels are great examples . Pip, from were written. They're often long , complex, and deal
Great Expectations, wants to become a real with the social changes of the time and place in
gentleman. Although he does not succeed in this which they were written.
Read the In-Depth Analysis. What are the characteristics of Victorian novels? Does
Great Expectations have these characteristics?
In groups of four, discuss your answers to the previous questions. Then, as a group,
write a short paragraph answering the following question. Use evidence from the
In-Depth Analysis and the passage from Great Expectations to back up your answer.
rite
Joe's house and Miss Havisham's Satis House are very important settings in
& essay writing
Great Expectations. Write a 250- to 300-word essay about their significance to the
novel, and the role each plays in the moral lesson Pip has to learn.
11
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
Predict
[step 1
portrait
Discuss these questions with a partner.
young
1 Would you like to live forever? Why or why not? soul ag ing
2 Is it more important to be beautiful or to be contrast
ruin
good? Explain.
fair pleasLu·e sin
scar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Over time, Dorian's behavior gets worse and
a
ln this passage, from Chapter 11, Dorian compares his outwardly flawless appearance with the
increasingly ugly and old appearance ofhis portrait. He has been living a life ofpleasure-seeking for
years at this point, and he still looks as young and beautiful as he did at the beginning ofthe novel.
Often, on returning home from one of those horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He
mysterious and prolonged absences that gave would place his white hands beside the coarse
rise to such strange conjecture among those bloated hands of the picture, and smile. He
who were his friends, or thought that they were mocked the misshapen body and the failing
so, he [Dorian Gray] himself would creep limbs.
upstairs to the locked room, open the door with There were moments, indeed, at night, when,
the key that never left him now, and stand, with lying sleepless in his own delicately scented
a mirror, in front of the portrait that BasH chamber, or in the sordid room of the little m-
Hallward had painted of him, looking now at famed tavern near the docks which, under an
the evil and aging face on the canvas, and now assumed name and in disguise, it was his habit
at the fair young face that laughed back at him to frequent, he would think of the ruin he had
from the polished glass. The very sharpness of brought upon his soul with a pity that was all
the contrast used to quicken his sense of the more poignant because it was purely
pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured selfish. But moments such as these were rare.
of his own beauty, more and more interested in That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had
the corruption of his own soul. He would first stirred in him, as they sat together in the
examine with minute care, and sometimes with garden of their friend, seemed to increase with
a monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous gratification. The more he knew, the more he
lines that seared the wrinkling forehead or desired to know. He had mad hungers that
crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, grew more ravenous as he fed them.
wondering sometimes which were the more
LRespond
3 Respond to the passage by answering these questions with a partner.
1 Was your prediction about the main ideas of the passage correct? Explain.
2 How did the author communicate the main ideas? Pick one (or more) and explain.
a with images b with dialogue c by explaining it directly
3 Who are the important people in this passage?
4 Which of the words from the phrase bank do you think best describe how Dorian feels in the
passage? Explain.
• excited scared
• ashamed • upset
• sad • interested
• indifferent
nderstand
4 Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 How does Dorian feel about the portrait? 3 What does Dorian NOT note in the
a lt scares him. painting?
·gurative Language
Work with a partner. Find one example of olfactory imagery and one example of oxymoron in
the passage.
11
Lsummarize
6 First, fill in the graphic organizer
based on the passage you read.
Character(s) Setting
Jvlain f!dea(s)
7 Now, use your graphic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner.
lList~n
80 Listen to a lecture about The Picture of Dorian Gray. Then, answer the questions.
1 What is the speaker mostly talking about? 2 How does Wilde symbolize Dorian's soul ?
a beauty and goodness in the novel a with his outward looks
b how the transformation of Dorian b with the changes in the painting
takes place c with the words of his friends
c the sources of the story of Dorian d with his inner thoughts
Gray
d why Dorian Gray never aged or
looked bad
~About the Title
The Picture of oorian Gray is a fairly straightforward title, although it has two possible interpretations. For
one thing, the title refers to the actual portrait of Dorian that Basil painted. The title can also refer to the
novel itself. That is, the novel is actually a "picture" of Dorian Gray. Many titles play with words like this, and
have a double meaning. Both pictures (the actual portrait and the novel) reveal things about Dorian that the
rest of the world cannot see. The readers are the only people who know how degraded Dorian truly is- with
the exception of Dorian himself. So the picture in the title refers to the true picture of Dorian's inner self.
Another interesting observation about the title is that it emphasizes the "picture," not a "tale" or a "story. ~
The image takes center stage in the title. This reflects Dorian's obsession with the portrait and its beauty
(or lack thereon. lt also brings to mind the central theme of the novel: the difference between appearance
and truth .
9 Do you think Wilde chose a good title for his novel? Would you choose a different one?
• beautiful • a tempter
• obsessed with beauty • has no regrets
• immoral • pleasure-seeking
• does not care about right and wrong
• innocent • young
Character Description
Dorian
lord Henry
2 Talk lt Over.
Discuss the answers to the previous questions with a partner. Share your ideas with the class.
Then, as a class, discuss the following question.
Why do yo u th ink t hat Dorian gave in to lord Hen ry and didn't listen to his friend Basil?
11
/
Importance
Place
15 Talk lt Ov r.
As a class, discuss the graphic organizer. Then, answer the following question.
• Could the story of Dorian Gray take place in a different setting? Explain.
J
the portrait
18 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss the following question.
• How does the author use the painting in the novel?
9 Filllt In.
Find lines in the passage that relate to each of the three themes from The Picture of Dorian Gray
and fill in the graphic organizer.
~ auty/appearance
1 Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the previous question with a partner.
11
L In-Depth Analysis: Faustian Themes
There is an old German tale about a man named Faust. He is very smart and a serious
student. But he's not satisfied. He wants to know more. So he makes a deal with an evil
spirit. Faust gets unlimited knowledge. ln exchange, after an agreed number of years, the
Devil takes Faust' s soul.
For years, Faust enjoys his limitless knowledge in self-serving ways. He doesn't use his
powers for good. He doesn't even use them to do great things. lnstead, he plays silly
pranks on people. Faust enjoys his pranks, but his happiness does not last forever.
Eventually, the evil spirit comes to claim Faust' s soul. Though he begs for mercy, the spirit
does not give in. Faust dies and spends eternity in Hell.
This legend is incredibly popular, both inside and outside Germany. lt has inspired
countless retelUngs and adaptations. People have written books, plays, movies, and even
musk based on the story ofF aust. lt is an important and recognizable theme in the literary
world.
The Faustian theme shows people that they should not overstep their natural boundaries.
That is, people should not try to achieve more than they can naturally achieve. People
should be satisfied with what they do have and accept their limitations. This is Faust' s fatal
flaw: being dissatisfied with his own knowledge. Certainly, the pursuit of knowledge is not
bad in and of itself. But this desire superseded everything else in Faust' s life - even his
own sense of morals. When a character acts in such a way, people should immediately
think ofF aust.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a kind of Faustian story. Dortan Gray gives up his soul in
order to have eternal youth and beauty. lt' s never said who or what the agent of this t
exchange is. But the reader does know that Dorian has unnaturally extended his life and
his good looks. Nothing good can come of this.
Dorian's crime is different than Faust's in that he does not immediately seek knowledge.
H~ main motivation is retaining his beauty and his youth. Still, the main idea is the same.
Dorian, like Faust, is dissatisfied with a natural limitation of being a human. He leaves
behind what is normal and right to pursue something abnormal. And in the end, he pays
for it.
Why are Faustian tales so popular? The answer is likely to be that they resonate with a lot
of people. The desire for more knowledge, eternal life, and eternal beauty are things that
many people have experienced. ln a Faustian story, people go after these things and are
always punished. lt shows people that although these are things that people would like to
have, pursuing them is unnatural and will lead to problems. ln this way, Faustian tales are
cautionary stories that warn people against going too far to get what they want.
y
22 Read the In-Depth Analysis and, with your answers to the Analyze the Characters section,
answer the following questions.
• What is the story of Faust?
• How is The Picture of Dorian Gray related to the story of Faust?
• In what way is Dorian similar to Faust?
• How is Dorian different from Faust?
Take turns agreeing and disagreeing with the statement. Use points from the passage, the
unit, and the lectures to formulate your responses.
-Write
25 The ideas of good and evil, and beauty and ugliness are very
important in The Picture of Dorian Gray. In addition, good and
evil are connected to the ideas of beauty and ugliness. In a
250- to 300-word essay, discuss the relationship between
these two sets of opposites in the novel.
11
If YOU were there ...
Main Ideas Your family migrated to America in the 1700s and started a small
1. Colonial governments farm in western Pennsylvania. Now, more and more people are
were influenced by political
changes in England. moving in. You would like to move farther west, into the Ohio River
2. English trade laws limited valley. But a new law says you cannot move west of the mountains
free trade in the colonies.
3. The Great Awakening and because it is too dangerous. Still, you are restless and want more
the Enlightenment led to land and more freedom.
ideas of political equality
among many colonists. Why might you decide to break the
4. The French and Indian War
gave England control of more law and move west'l
land in North America.
t
The Big Idea BUILDING BACKGROUND When they moved to America, the
The English colonies continued 11:: English colonists brought their ideas about government. They
to grow despite many challenges.
expected to have the same rights as citizens in England. However, ~
many officials in England wanted tight control over the colonies. ~
Key Terms and People As a result, some colonists, like this family, were unhappy with the ·~
town meeting, p. 55
policies of colonial governments. 'l
English Bill of Rights, p. 55 ~F"' t ·• i<£H#*-w--~ .J
triangular trade, p. 57
Middle Passage, p. 58
Great Awakening, p. 58 Colonial Governments
Enlightenment, p. 59 The English colonies in North America all had their own govern-
Pontiac, p. 61 ments. Each government was given power by a charter. The English
monarch had ultimate authority over all of the colonies. A group of
royal advisers called the Privy Council set English colonial policies.
~
royal colonies the English king or queen selected the governor
and the council members. In proprietary colonies, the proprietors
Gm 8.1.1 Describe the relation- chose all of these officials. In a few colonies, such as Connecticut,
ship between the moral and political the people elected the governor.
ideas of the Great Awakening and the
development of revolutionary fervor.
In some colonies the people also elected representatives to help
make laws and set policy. These officials served on assemblies. Each
8.2.1 Discuss the significance of
the Magna Carta, the English Bill of colonial assembly passed laws that had to be approved first by the
Rights, and the Mayflower Compact. advisory council and then by the governor.
54 CHAPTER 2
Established in 1619, Virginia's assembly
was the first colonial legislature in North
America.Atfirstitmetasasinglebody, butitwas
later split into two houses. The first house was
known as the Council of State. The governor's
advisory council and the London Company
selected its members. The House of Burgesses
was the assembly's second house. The mem-
bers were elected by colonists.
In New England the center of politics was
the town meeting. In town meetings people
talked about and decided on issues of local
interest, such as paying for schools.
In the southern colonies, people typically
lived farther away from one another. There-
fore, many decisions were made at the county
level. The middle colonies used both county
meetings and town meetings to make laws.
'\o
---------
-------~-\$- r;
~
Colonial Courts English Trade Laws
Colonial courts made up another important One of England's main reasons for found-
part of colonial governments. Whenever ing and controlling its American colonies
possible, colonists used the courts to con- was to earn money from trade. In the late
trol local affairs. The courts generally reflect- 1600s England, like most western European
ed the beliefs of their local communities. nations, practiced mercantilism, a system of
For example, many laws in Massachusetts creating and maintaining wealth through
enforced the Puritans' religious beliefs. Laws carefully controlled trade. A country gained
based on the Bible set the standard for the wealth if it had fewer imports-goods bought
The Zenger
case was the
community's conduct.
Sometimes colonial courts also pro-
tected individual freedoms. For example, in
1733 officials arrested John Peter Zenger for
printing a false statement that damaged the
l from other countries-than exports-goods
sold to other countries.
To support this system of mercantil-
ism, between 1650 and 1696 Parliament
first major case passed a series of Navigation Acts limiting
establishing reputation of the governor of New York. colonial trade. For example, the Navigation
freedom of the Andrew Hamilton, Zenger's attorney, argued Act of 1660 forbade colonists from trading
press in British that Zenger could publish whatever he wished
North America. specific items such as sugar and cotton with
Today this is an
as long as it was true. Jury members believed any country other than England. The act
important right of that colonists had a right to voice their ideas also required colonists to use English ships
all Americans. openly and found him not guilty. to transport goods. Parliament later passed
other acts that required all trade goods to
l;jf;!al!Uij!:!ii:p Analyzing Information pass through English ports, where duties, or
Why were colonial assemblies and colonial import taxes, were added to the items.
courts created, and what did they do?
58 CHAPTER 2
sinners to seek forgiveness for their sins or The French and Indian War
face punishment in Hell forever. British min-
ister George Whitefield held revivals from By the 1670s tensions had arisen between
New England colonists and the Wampanoag.
Georgia to New England.
Metacomet, a Wampanoag leader also known
The Great Awakening drew people of dif-
as King Philip, opposed the colonists' efforts
ferent regions, classes, and races. Women,
to take his people's lands. In 1675 these ten-
members of minority groups, and poor peo-
sions finally erupted in a conflict known
ple often took part in services. Ministers from
as King Philip's War. The colonial militia-
different colonies met and shared ideas with
one another. This represented one of the few civilians serving as soldiers-fought Ameri-
can Indian warriors. Both sides attacked each
exchanges between colonies.
other's settlements, killing men, women, and
The Great Awakening promoted ideas that
children. The fighting finally ended in 1676,
may also have affected colonial politics. Ser-
but only after about 600 colonists and some
mons about the spiritual equality of all people
3,000 Indians had been killed, including
led some colonists to begin demanding more
Metacomet.
political equality. Revivals became popular
places to talk about political and social issues.
People from those colonies with less political Native American Allies
freedom were thus introduced to more demo- Some Native Americans allied with the col-
cratic systems used in other colonies. onists to fight against Metacomet and his
Enlightenment forces. These Indians had developed trade
During the 1600s Europeans began to re- relations with colonists. They wanted tools,
examine their world. Scientists began to better weapons, and other goods that Europeans
understand the basic laws that govern nature. could provide. In exchange, the colonists
Their new ideas about the universe began the wanted furs, which they sold for large prof-
Scientific Revolution. The revolution changed its in Europe. As a result, each side came to
how people thought of the world. depend upon the other.
Many colonists were also influenced by French colonists traded and allied with
the Enlightenment. This movement, which the Algonquian and Huron. English colonists
took place during the 1700s, spread the idea traded and allied with the Iroquois League.
that reason and logic could improve society. This powerful group united American Indi-
Enlightenment thinkers also formed ideas ans from six different groups. Many American
about how government should work. Indians trusted the French more than they did
Some Enlightenment thinkers believed the English. The smaller French settlements
that there was a social contract between gov- were less threatening than the rapidly grow-
ernment and citizens. Philosophers such as ing English colonies. No matter who their
John Locke thought that people had natural allies were, many Indian leaders took care to
rights such as equality and liberty. Eventual- protect their people's independence. As one
ly, ideas of the Scientific Revolution and the leader said:
Enlightenment influenced colonial leaders. 11
We are born free. We neither depend upon [the
governor of New France] nor [the governor of
'''tnl·m•~•,,,, .• Summarizing How did the
New York]. We may go where we please ... and
Great Awakening and the Enlightenment influence buy and sell what we please. 11
r colonial society?
-Garangula, quoted in The World Turned Upside Down,
edited by Colin G. Calloway
Treaty of Paris
The turning point of the war came in 1759.
That year British general James Wolfe cap-
tured Quebec, gaining the advantage in the
war. However, the war dragged on for four
more years. Finally, in 17 63 Britain and
France signed the Treaty of Paris, officially
ending the war.
The terms of the treaty gave Canada to
Britain. Britain also gained all French lands
east of the Mississippi River except the city
of New Orleans and two small islands in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence. From Spain, which had
allied with France in 1762, Britain received
Florida. In an earlier treaty, Spain had received
Louisiana, the land that France had claimed
west of the Mississippi River. The Treaty of
1. Regions Which countries gained North American territory
Paris changed the balance of power in North
between 1754 and 1763?
2. Human-Environment Interaction What natural feature helped America. Soon British settlers began moving
form the boundary between British and Spanish territory in 1763? west to settle new lands.
Western Frontier
Most colonial settlements were located along
the Atlantic coast. Colonial settlers, or pioneers, Pontiac
slowly moved into the Virginia and Carolina 1720-1769
backcountry and the Ohio River valley. Pontiac, an Ottawa chief who had fought for France,
Indian leaders like Chief Pontiac opposed tried to resist British settlement west of the Appa-
British settlement of this new land. Pontiac's lachians. Calling them "dogs dressed in red who
have come to rob us;' he attacked the British in
Rebellion began in May 17 63 when his forces
the Ohio country in 1763. Pontiac's rebellion
attacked British forts on the frontier. Within
was put down, and he surrendered in 1766.
one month, they had destroyed or captured
seven forts. Pontiac then led an attack on Fort Analyzing Information How did Pontiac try to
Detroit. The British held out for months. stop the British?
British leaders feared that more fighting
would take place on the frontier if colonists
kept moving onto American Indian lands. To
avoid more conflict, King George III issued SUMMARY AND PREVIEW In this section
the Proclamation of 1763. This law banned you read about colonial governments, the
British settlement west of the Appalachian slave trade, and the conflicts with foreign
Mountains. The law also ordered settlers to countries and with Native Americans that
leave the upper Ohio River valley. the colonies faced as they grew. In the next
section you'll learn about the increasing
•tJ:wwr''"" '' Summarizing Why did tension between the colonies and Great
George Ill issue the Proclamation of 1763? Britain that led to independence.
Section 4 Assessment
Reviewing Ideas, Terms, and People Gm 8.1.1, 8.2.1
1. a. Describe How were colonial governments orga- organizer below and use it to list the causes and
nized? effects of the Great Awakening.
b. Analyze How did political change in England Great Awakening
Cause Effect
affect colonial governments?
2. a. Explain What is mercantilism?
b. Analyze How did the Navigation Acts support
the system of mercantilism?
c. Evaluate Did the colonies benefit from mercan-
tilism? Why or why not?
3. a. Identify What was the Great Awakening?
b. Compare How was the Enlightenment similar
to the Great Awakening?
4. a. Explain What caused the French and Indian
War? 6. Reviewing the Information This section focused
b. Evaluate Defend the British decision to ban on what life was like in all the English colonies
colonists from settling on the western frontier. discussed so far. Does this information give you
any new ideas about the colony you'll use in your
Critical Thinking infomercial?
5. Identifying Cause and Effect Copy the graphic
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
o•
20"E ·40" E
AFRJCA
~"
0
1493-1600
If YOU were there ...
Main Ideas You live in the New England colonies in the 1700s. Recently,
1. British efforts to raise taxes British officials have placed new taxes on tea-your favorite
on colonists sparked protest.
2. The Boston Massacre caused beverage. You've never been very interested in politics, but you're
colonial resentment toward beginning to think that people far across the ocean in Britain
Great Britain.
3. Colonists protested the British shouldn't be able to tell you what to do. Some of your friends
tax on tea with the Boston have joined a group that refuses to buy British tea.
Tea Party.
4. Great Britain responded to
colonial actions by passing
Would you give up your favorite drink
the Intolerable Acts. to join the boycott?
l -
The Big Idea
Tensions developed as the
British government placed BUILDING BACKGROUND As the British colonies grew and
tax after tax on the colonies. became prosperous, the colonists got used to running their own
lives. Britain began to seem very far away. At ~he same time, officials
Key Terms and People in Britain still expected the colonies to obey them and to earn money
Samuel Adams, p. 65 for Britain. Parliament passed new laws and imposed new taxes. But
Committees of Correspondence, the colonists found various ways to challenge them.
p.65
Stamp Act of 1765, p. 66
Boston Massacre, p. 67
Tea Act, p. 68 Great Britain Raises Taxes
Boston Tea Party, p. 68
Intolerable Acts, p. 68 Great Britain had won the French and Indian War, but Parliament
_still had to pay for it. The British coptinued to keep a standing, or
permanent, army in North America to protect the colonists against
Indian attacks. To help pay for this army, Prime Minister George
Grenville asked Parliament to tax the colonists. In 17 64 Parlia-
ment passed the Sugar Act, which set duties on molasses and sugar
~ imported by colonists. This was the first act passed specifically. to
aJ raise money in the colonies.
C§fj 8.1.1 Describe the relation- British officials also tried harder to arrest smugglers. Colonial
ship between the moral and political merchants were required to list all the trade goods they carried
ideas of the Great Awakening and the
aboard their ships. These lists had to be approved before ships
development of revolutionary fervor.
could leave colonial ports. This made it difficult for traders to avoid
8.2.1 Discuss the significance of
the Magna Carta, the English Bill of
paying duties. The British navy also began to stop and search ships
Rights, and the Mayflower Compact. for smuggled goods.
64 CHAPTER 2
Parliament also changed the colonies' direct representatives in Parliament. Colo-
legal system by giving greater powers to nial assemblies had little influence on Parlia-
the vice-admiralty courts. These courts had ment's decisions.
no juries, and the judges treated suspected At a Boston town meeting in May 1764,
smugglers as guilty until proven innocent. In local leader Samuel Adams agreed with Otis.
regular British courts, accused persons were He believed that Parliament could not tax
treated as innocent until proven guilty. the colonists without their permission. The
ideas of Otis and Adams were summed up in
Taxation without Representation the slogan "No Taxation without Representa-
Parliament's actions upset many colonists tion," which spread throughout the colonies.
who had grown used to being independent. Adams helped found the Committees of
Merchants thought the taxes were unfair Correspondence. Each committee got in touch
and hurt business. Many believed that Great with other towns and colonies. Its members
Britain had no right to tax the colonies at all shared ideas and information about the new
without their consent. British laws and ways to challenge them.
James Otis argued that the power of the A popular method of protest was the boy-
Crown and Parliament was limited. Otis said cott, in which people refused to buy British
they could not "take from any man any part goods. The first colonial boycott started in
of his property, without his consent in per- New York in 1765. It soon spread to other
son or by representation." No one in Britain colonies. Colonists hoped that their efforts
had asked the colonists if they wanted to would hurt the British economy and might
be taxed. Ill- addition, the colonists had no convince Parliament to end the new taxes.
66 CHAPTER 2
Primary Source
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
The Boston Massacre
~ 1 An account of the Boston Massacre appeared in the Boston
Gazette and Country Journal soon after the event.
The Sugar Act is passed to raise The Stamp Act taxes newspapers,
money from the colonies for Britain. licenses, and colonial paper products.
The Boston Tea Party without paying the duty. Unsure of what to do,
the captains waited in the harbor.
To reduce tensions in the colonies, Parlia-
On the night of December 16, 1773,
ment repealed almost all of the Townshend
colonists disguised as Indians sneaked onto
Acts. However, it kept the tax on tea. British
the three tea-filled ships. After dumping over
officials knew that the colonial demand for
340 tea chests into Boston Harbor, the colo-
tea was high despite the boycott. But colo-
nists headed home to remove their disguises.
nial merchants were smuggling most of this
This event became known as the Boston Tea
imported tea and paying no duty on it.
Party. Soon the streets echoed with shouts of
The British East India Company offered
"Boston harbour is a teapot tonight!"
Parliament a solution. The company had
huge amounts of tea but was not allowed to Summarizing What factors
sell it directly to the colonists. If the com- led to the Boston Tea Party?
pany could sell directly to the colonists,
it could charge low prices and still make
money. Cheaper tea might encourage colo- The Intolerable Acts
nists to stop smuggling. Less smuggling Lord North, the new British prime min-
would result in more tax money: ister, was furious when he heard about
Parliament agreed and passed the Tea Act the Boston Tea Party. Parliament dedded
in 1773, which allowed the British East India to punish Boston. In the spring of 1774 it
Company to sell tea directly to the colonists. passed the Coercive Acts. Colonists called
Many colonial merchants and smugglers these laws the Intolerable Acts. The acts had
feared that the British East India Company's several effects.
cheap tea would put them out of business. 1. Boston Harbor was closed until Boston
As a result, colonists united against the paid for the ruined tea.
Tea Act. 2. Massachusetts's charter was canceled:
Three ships ded with tea from the The governor decided if and when the
British East India Co any arrived in Boston legislature could meet.
Harbor in 1773. The Son of Liberty demand- 3. Royal officials accused of crimes were
ed that the ships leave. B t the governor of sent to Britain for trial. This let them
Massachusetts would not let the ships leave face a more friendly judge and jury.
68 CHAPTER 2
British soldiers fire into a crowd of The Tea Act is passed, making British Boston Harbor is closed, and British
colonists, killing five men. tea cheaper than colonial tea. troops are quartered.
Colonists protest and bring Colonists protest by dumping Colonists' resentment toward
the soldiers to trial. shipments of British tea into Britain builds.
Boston Harbor.
Section 5 Assessment
Events in England
/64Z /649 /660 /688
Massachusetts shows Vir-grnia pledges Massachusetts is united with Colonies disband DoMrnion of
independence b~ passing /o~a/f~ fo Charles )) ofhu colonies rn DoMrnion of New England and r-e-establish
own code of Jaws. as k.rng of Eng/ and. New England b~ Krng JaMes)). separate gover-nMents.
70 CHAPTER 2
chapter
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau,
2
Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar
Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson.
America’s literary independence was slowed
by a lingering identification with England, an
excessive imitation of English or classical liter-
ary models, and difficult economic and political
conditions that hampered publishing.
democratic origins and
revolutionary writers, Revolutionary writers, despite their genuine
1776-1820 patriotism, were of necessity self-conscious,
and they could never find roots in their Ameri-
T
can sensibilities. Colonial writers of the revo-
he hard-fought American Revolution
lutionary generation had been born English,
against Britain (1775-1783) was the first
had grown to maturity as English citizens, and
modern war of liberation against a colo-
had cultivated English modes of thought and
nial power. The triumph of American indepen-
English fashions in dress and behavior. Their
dence seemed to many at the time a divine sign
parents and grandparents were English (or
that America and her people were destined for
European), as were all their friends. Added to
greatness. Military victory fanned nationalistic
this, American awareness of literary fashion
hopes for a great new literature. Yet with the
still lagged behind the English, and this time
exception of outstanding political writing, few
lag intensified American imitation. Fifty years
works of note appeared during or soon after the
after their fame in England, English neoclassic
Revolution.
writers such as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele,
American books were harshly reviewed in
Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Oliver Gold-
England. Americans were painfully aware of
smith, and Samuel Johnson were still eagerly
their excessive dependence on English liter-
imitated in America.
ary models. The search for a native literature
Moreover, the heady challenges of building
became a national obsession. As one American
a new nation attracted talented and educated
magazine editor wrote, around 1816, “Depen-
people to politics, law, and diplomacy. These
dence is a state of degradation fraught with
pursuits brought honor, glory, and financial
disgrace, and to be dependent on a foreign
security. Writing, on the other hand, did not
mind for what we can ourselves produce is to
pay. Early American writers, now separated
add to the crime of indolence the weakness of
from England, effectively had no modern pub-
stupidity.”
lishers, no audience, and no adequate legal
Cultural revolutions, unlike military revo-
protection. Editorial assistance, distribution,
lutions, cannot be successfully imposed but
and publicity were rudimentary.
must grow from the soil of shared experience.
Until 1825, most American authors paid
Revolutions are expressions of the heart of the
printers to publish their work. Obviously only
people; they grow gradually out of new sensi-
the leisured and independently wealthy, like
bilities and wealth of experience. It would take
Washington Irving and the New York Knicker-
50 years of accumulated history for America to
bocker group, or the group of Connecticut poets
earn its cultural independence and to produce
knows as the Hartford Wits, could afford to
the first great generation of American writers:
indulge their interest in writing. The exception,
Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper,
Benjamin Franklin, though from a poor
14
family, was a printer by trade and rious examples of pirating. Mat-
could publish his own work. thew Carey, an important Ameri-
Charles Brockden Brown was can publisher, paid a London agent
more typical. The author of sev- — a sort of literary spy — to send
eral interesting Gothic romances, copies of unbound pages, or even
Brown was the first American proofs, to him in fast ships that
author to attempt to live from his could sail to America in a month.
writing. But his short life ended Carey’s men would sail out to meet
in poverty. the incoming ships in the har-
The lack of an audience was bor and speed the pirated books
another problem. The small culti- into print using typesetters who
vated audience in America wanted divided the book into sections and
well-known European authors, worked in shifts around the clock.
partly out of the exaggerated Such a pirated English book could
respect with which former colo- be reprinted in a day and placed on
nies regarded their previous rul- the shelves for sale in American
ers. This preference for English bookstores almost as fast as in
works was not entirely unreason- England.
able, considering the inferiority Because imported authorized
of American output, but it wors- editions were more expensive and
ened the situation by depriving could not compete with pirated
American authors of an audience. ones, the copyright situation dam-
Only journalism offered financial aged foreign authors such as Sir
remuneration, but the mass audi- Walter Scott and Charles Dickens,
ence wanted light, undemanding along with American authors. But
verse and short topical essays — at least the foreign authors had
not long or experimental work. already been paid by their original
The absence of adequate copy- publishers and were already well
right laws was perhaps the clear- known. Americans such as James
est cause of literary stagnation. Fenimore Cooper not only failed
American printers pirating Eng- to receive adequate payment, but
lish best-sellers understandably N oah W ebster they had to suffer seeing their
were unwilling to pay an Ameri- works pirated under their noses.
can author for unknown material. Cooper’s first successful book, The
The unauthorized reprinting of Spy (1821), was pirated by four dif-
foreign books was originally seen ferent printers within a month of
as a service to the colonies as well its appearance.
as a source of profit for printers Ironically, the copyright law of
like Franklin, who reprinted works 1790, which allowed pirating, was
of the classics and great European nationalistic in intent. Drafted
books to educate the American by Noah Webster, the great lexi-
public. cographer who later compiled an
Engraving © The Bettmann
Printers everywhere in America Archive American dictionary, the law pro-
followed his lead. There are noto- tected only the work of American
15
authors; it was felt that English writers should life illustrates the impact of the Enlightenment
look out for themselves. on a gifted individual. Self-educated but well-
Bad as the law was, none of the early publish- read in John Locke, Lord Shaftesbury, Joseph
ers were willing to have it changed because Addison, and other Enlightenment writers,
it proved profitable for them. Piracy starved Franklin learned from them to apply reason to
the first generation of revolutionary American his own life and to break with tradition — in
writers; not surprisingly, the generation after particular the old-fashioned Puritan tradition
them produced even less work of merit. The — when it threatened to smother his ideals.
high point of piracy, in 1815, corresponds with While a youth, Franklin taught himself lan-
the low point of American writing. Neverthe- guages, read widely, and practiced writing for
less, the cheap and plentiful supply of pirated the public. When he moved from Boston to Phil-
foreign books and classics in the first 50 years adelphia, Pennsylvania, Franklin already had
of the new country did educate Americans, the kind of education associated with the upper
including the first great writers, who began to classes. He also had the Puritan capacity for
make their appearance around 1825. hard, careful work, constant self-scrutiny, and
the desire to better himself. These qualities
THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT steadily propelled him to wealth, respectability,
T
he 18th-century American Enlightenment and honor. Never selfish, Franklin tried to help
was a movement marked by an emphasis other ordinary people become successful by
on rationality rather than tradition, scien- sharing his insights and initiating a character-
tific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious istically American genre — the self-help book.
dogma, and representative government in place Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack, begun
of monarchy. Enlightenment thinkers and writ- in 1732 and published for many years, made
ers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, Franklin prosperous and well-known through-
and equality as the natural rights of man. out the colonies. In this annual book of useful
encouragement, advice, and factual informa-
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) tion, amusing characters such as old Father
Benjamin Franklin, whom the Scottish phi- Abraham and Poor Richard exhort the reader
losopher David Hume called America’s “first in pithy, memorable sayings. In “The Way
great man of letters,” embodied the Enlighten- to Wealth,” which originally appeared in the
ment ideal of humane rationality. Practical Almanack, Father Abraham, “a plain clean old
yet idealistic, hard-working and enormously Man, with white Locks,” quotes Poor Richard at
successful, Franklin recorded his early life in length. “A Word to the Wise is enough,” he says.
his famous Autobiography. Writer, printer, pub- “God helps them that help themselves.” “Early
lisher, scientist, philanthropist, and diplomat, to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy,
he was the most famous and respected private wealthy, and wise.” Poor Richard is a psy-
figure of his time. He was the first great self- chologist (“Industry pays Debts, while Despair
made man in America, a poor democrat born encreaseth them”), and he always counsels
in an aristocratic age that his fine example hard work (“Diligence is the Mother of Good
helped to liberalize. Luck”). Do not be lazy, he advises, for “One
Franklin was a second-generation immi- Today is worth two tomorrow.” Sometimes he
grant. His Puritan father, a chandler (candle- creates anecdotes to illustrate his points: “A
maker), came to Boston, Massachusetts, from little Neglect may breed great Mischief....For
England in 1683. In many ways Franklin’s want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want
16
B enjamin F ranklin
F
ranklin saw early that writing could best strange mixture of blood, which you will
advance his ideas, and he therefore delib- find in no other country. I could point out
erately perfected his supple prose style, to you a family whose grandfather was
not as an end in itself but as a tool. “Write an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch,
with the learned. Pronounce with the vulgar,” whose son married a French woman,
he advised. A scientist, he followed the Royal and whose present four sons have now
(scientific) Society’s 1667 advice to use “a four wives of different nations....Here
close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive individuals of all nations are melted into
expressions, clear senses, a native easiness, a new race of men, whose labors and
bringing all things as near the mathematical posterity will one day cause changes in
plainness as they can.” the world.
Despite his prosperity and fame, Franklin
18
THE POLITICAL PAMPHLET: whom English might be a second
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) language. Thomas Jefferson’s
The passion of Revolutionary original draft of the Declaration
literature is found in pamphlets, of Independence is clear and logi-
the most popular form of political cal, but his committee’s modifica-
literature of the day. Over 2,000 tions made it even simpler. The
pamphlets were published during Federalist Papers, written in sup-
the Revolution. The pamphlets port of the Constitution, are also
thrilled patriots and threatened lucid, logical arguments, suitable
loyalists; they filled the role of for debate in a democratic nation.
drama, as they were often read
aloud in public to excite audiences. NEOCLASSISM: EPIC,
American soldiers read them aloud MOCK EPIC, AND SATIRE
in their camps; British Loyalists Unfortunately, “literary” writ-
threw them into public bonfires. ing was not as simple and direct
as political writing. When trying
T
homas Paine’s pamphlet to write poetry, most educated
Common Sense sold over authors stumbled into the pitfall of
100,000 copies in the first elegant neoclassicism. The epic, in
three months of its publication. It particular, exercised a fatal attrac-
is still rousing today. “The cause of tion. American literary patriots
America is in a great measure the felt sure that the great American
cause of all mankind,” Paine wrote, Revolution naturally would find
voicing the idea of American excep- expression in the epic — a long,
tionalism still strong in the United dramatic narrative poem in ele-
States — that in some fundamental vated language, celebrating the
sense, since America is a demo- feats of a legendary hero.
cratic experiment and a country Many writers tried but none suc-
theoretically open to all immigrants, ceeded. Timothy Dwight, (1752-
the fate of America foreshadows the 1817), one of the group of writers
fate of humanity at large. known as the Hartford Wits, is an
Political writings in a democracy T homas P aine example. Dwight, who eventually
had to be clear to appeal to the vot- became the president of Yale Uni-
ers. And to have informed voters, versity, based his epic, The Con-
universal education was promoted quest of Canaan (1785), on the
by many of the founding fathers. Biblical story of Joshua’s strug-
One indication of the vigorous, if gle to enter the Promised Land.
simple, literary life was the pro- Dwight cast General Washington,
liferation of newspapers. More commander of the American army
newspapers were read in America and later the first president of the
during the Revolution than any- United States, as Joshua in his
where else in the world. Immigra- allegory and borrowed the couplet
Portrait courtesy Library of
tion also mandated a simple style. Congress form that Alexander Pope used to
Clarity was vital to a newcomer, for translate Homer. Dwight’s epic
19
was as boring as it was ambitious. English Another satirical work, the novel Modern
critics demolished it; even Dwight’s friends, Chivalry, published by Hugh Henry Brack-
such as John Trumbull (1750-1831), remained enridge in installments from 1792 to 1815,
unenthusiastic. So much thunder and lightning memorably lampoons the excesses of the age.
raged in the melodramatic battle scenes that Brackenridge (1748-1816), a Scottish immi-
Trumbull proposed that the epic be provided grant raised on the American frontier, based
with lightning rods. his huge, picaresque novel on Don Quixote;
it describes the mis-adventures of Captain
N
ot surprisingly, satirical poetry fared Farrago and his stupid, brutal, yet appealingly
much better than serious verse. The human, servant Teague O’Regan.
mock epic genre encouraged American
poets to use their natural voices and did not POET OF THE AMERICAN
lure them into a bog of pretentious and pre- REVOLUTION
dictable patriotic sentiments and faceless con- Philip Freneau (1752-1832)
ventional poetic epithets out of the Greek poet One poet, Philip Freneau, incorporated the
Homer and the Roman poet Virgil by way of the new stirrings of European Romanticism and
English poets. escaped the imitativeness and vague universal-
In mock epics like John Trumbull’s good- ity of the Hartford Wits. The key to both his suc-
humored M’Fingal (1776-1782), stylized emo- cess and his failure was his passionately demo-
tions and conventional turns of phrase are cratic spirit combined with an inflexible temper.
ammunition for good satire, and the bom- The Hartford Wits, all of them undoubted
bastic oratory of the Revolution is itself ridi- patriots, reflected the general cultural con-
culed. Modeled on the British poet Samuel servatism of the educated classes. Freneau
Butler’s Hudibras, the mock epic derides a Tory, set himself against this holdover of old Tory
M’Fingal. It is often pithy, as when noting of attitudes, complaining of “the writings of an
condemned criminals facing hanging: aristocratic, speculating faction at Hartford,
in favor of monarchy and titular distinctions.”
No man e’er felt the halter draw. With Although Freneau received a fine education
good opinion of the law. and was as well acquainted with the classics
as any Hartford Wit, he embraced liberal and
M’Fingal went into over 30 editions, was democratic causes.
reprinted for a half-century, and was appreci- From a Huguenot (radical French Protestant)
ated in England as well as America. Satire background, Freneau fought as a militiaman
appealed to Revolutionary audiences partly during the Revolutionary War. In 1780, he was
because it contained social comment and criti- captured and imprisoned in two British ships,
cism, and political topics and social problems where he almost died before his family man-
were the main subjects of the day. The first aged to get him released. His poem “The Brit-
American comedy to be performed, The Con- ish Prison Ship” is a bitter condemnation of the
trast (produced 1787) by Royall Tyler (1757- cruelties of the British, who wished “to stain
1826), humorously contrasts Colonel Manly, an the world with gore.” This piece and other revo-
American officer, with Dimple, who imitates lutionary works, including “Eutaw Springs,”
English fashions. Naturally, Dimple is made “American Liberty,” “A Political Litany,” “A Mid-
to look ridiculous. The play introduces the first night Consultation,” and “George the Third’s
Yankee character, Jonathan. Soliloquy,” brought him fame as the “Poet of
20
the American Revolution.” ing the early years. Nationalism
Freneau edited a number of inspired publications in many
journals during his life, always fields, leading to a new appre-
mindful of the great cause of ciation of things American. Noah
democracy. When Thomas Jef- Webster (1758-1843) devised an
T
ferson helped him establish the American Dictionary, as well as
militant, anti-Federalist National an important reader and speller
Gazette in 1791, Freneau became for the schools. His Spelling Book
the first powerful, crusading sold more than 100 million copies
newspaper editor in America, and over the years. Updated Webster’s
the literary predecessor of William dictionaries are still standard
Cullen Bryant, William Lloyd Gar- he 18th- today. The American Geography, by
rison, and H.L. Mencken. centry American Jedidiah Morse, another landmark
As a poet and editor, Freneau Enlightenment reference work, promoted knowl-
adhered to his democratic ideals. edge of the vast and expanding
His popular poems, published in
was a movement American land itself. Some of the
newspapers for the average read- marked by an most interesting, if nonliterary,
er, regularly celebrated American emphasis on writings of the period are the jour-
subjects. “The Virtue of Tobacco” rationality rather nals of frontiersmen and explorers
concerns the indigenous plant, a such as Meriwether Lewis (1774-
mainstay of the southern econo-
than tradition, 1809) and Zebulon Pike (1779-
my, while “The Jug of Rum” cel- scientific inquiry 1813), who wrote accounts of
ebrates the alcoholic drink of the instead of expeditions across the Louisiana
West Indies, a crucial commod- unquestioning Territory, the vast portion of the
ity of early American trade and a North American continent that
religious dogma,
major New World export. Common Thomas Jefferson purchased from
American characters lived in “The and representative Napoleon in 1803.
Pilot of Hatteras,” as well as in government in
poems about quack doctors and place of monarchy. WRITERS OF FICTION
T
bombastic evangelists. Enlightenment he first important fiction
Freneau commanded a natural writers widely recognized
and colloquial style appropriate to
thinkers and writers today, Charles Brockden
a genuine democracy, but he could were devoted Brown, Washington Irving, and
also rise to refined neoclassic lyri- to the ideals of James Fenimore Cooper, used
cism in often-anthologized works justice, liberty, and American subjects, historical per-
such as “The Wild Honey Suckle” spectives, themes of change, and
(1786), which evokes a sweet-
equality as the nostalgic tones. They wrote in
smelling native shrub. Not until natural rights of many prose genres, initiated new
the “American Renaissance” that man. forms, and found new ways to
began in the 1820s would Ameri- make a living through literature.
can poetry surpass the heights that With them, American literature
Freneau had scaled 40 years earlier. began to be read and appreciated
Additional groundwork for later in the United States and abroad.
literary achievement was laid dur-
21
Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) Nathaniel Hawthorne. Despite his talent, he
Already mentioned as the first professional probably would not have become a full-time
American writer, Charles Brockden Brown was professional writer, given the lack of financial
inspired by the English writers Mrs. Radcliffe rewards, if a series of fortuitous incidents had
and English William Godwin. (Radcliffe was not thrust writing as a profession upon him.
known for her terrifying Gothic novels; a novel- Through friends, he was able to publish his
ist and social reformer, Godwin was the father Sketch Book (1819-1820) simultaneously in
of Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein and England and America, obtaining copyrights
married English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.) and payment in both countries.
Driven by poverty, Brown hastily penned four The Sketch Book of Geoffrye Crayon (Irving’s
haunting novels in two years: Wieland (1798), pseudonym) contains his two best remembered
Arthur Mervyn (1799), Ormond (1799), and stories, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend
Edgar Huntley (1799). In them, he developed of Sleepy Hollow.” “Sketch” aptly describes
the genre of American Gothic. The Gothic Irving’s delicate, elegant, yet seemingly casual
novel was a popular genre of the day fea- style, and “crayon” suggests his ability as a
turing exotic and wild settings, disturbing colorist or creator of rich, nuanced tones and
psychological depth, and much suspense. Trap- emotional effects. In the Sketch Book, Irving
pings included ruined castles or abbeys, ghosts, transforms the Catskill mountains along the
mysterious secrets, threatening figures, and Hudson River north of New York City into a
solitary maidens who survive by their wits and fabulous, magical region.
spiritual strength. At their best, such novels American readers gratefully accepted Irving’s
offer tremendous suspense and hints of magic, imagined “history” of the Catskills, despite the
along with profound explorations of the human fact (unknown to them) that he had adapted
soul in extremity. Critics suggest that Brown’s his stories from a German source. Irving gave
Gothic sensibility expresses deep anxieties America something it badly needed in the
about the inadequate social institutions of the brash, materialistic early years: an imaginative
new nation. way of relating to the new land.
Brown used distinctively American settings. No writer was as successful as Irving at
A man of ideas, he dramatized scientific theo- humanizing the land, endowing it with a name
ries, developed a personal theory of fiction, and and a face and a set of legends. The story
championed high literary standards despite of “Rip Van Winkle,” who slept for 20 years,
personal poverty. Though flawed, his works waking to find the colonies had become inde-
are darkly powerful. Increasingly, he is seen pendent, eventually became folklore. It was
as the precursor of romantic writers like Edgar adapted for the stage, went into the oral tradi-
Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel tion, and was gradually accepted as authentic
Hawthorne. He expresses subconscious fears American legend by generations of Americans.
that the outwardly optimistic Enlightenment Irving discovered and helped satisfy the raw
period drove underground. new nation’s sense of history. His numerous
works may be seen as his devoted attempts to
Washington Irving (1789-1859) build the new nation’s soul by recreating his-
The youngest of 11 children born to a well- tory and giving it living, breathing, imaginative
to-do New York merchant family, Washington life. For subjects, he chose the most dramatic
Irving became a cultural and diplomatic ambas- aspects of American history: the discovery
sador to Europe, like Benjamin Franklin and of the New World, the first president and
22
national hero, and the westward different cultures. The son of a
exploration. His earliest work was Quaker family, he grew up on his
a sparkling, satirical History of father’s remote estate at Otsego
New York (1809) under the Dutch, Lake (now Cooperstown) in cen-
ostensibly written by Diedrich tral New York State. Although
Knickerbocker (hence the name this area was relatively peaceful
of Irving’s friends and New York during Cooper’s boyhood, it had
writers of the day, the “Knicker- once been the scene of an Indian
bocker School”). massacre. Young Fenimore Coo-
per grew up in an almost feudal
James Fenimore Cooper environment. His father, Judge
(1789-1851) Cooper, was a landowner and
James Fenimore Cooper, like leader. Cooper saw frontiersmen
Irving, evoked a sense of the and Indians at Otsego Lake as a
past and gave it a local habi- boy; in later life, bold white set-
tation and a name. In Cooper, tlers intruded on his land.
though, one finds the powerful Natty Bumppo, Cooper’s
myth of a golden age and the renowned literary character,
poignance of its loss. While Irving embodies his vision of the fron-
and other American writers before tiersman as a gentleman, a Jef-
and after him scoured Europe in fersonian “natural aristocrat.”
search of its legends, castles, and Early in 1823, in The Pioneers,
great themes, Cooper grasped the Cooper had begun to discover
essential myth of America: that it Bumppo. Natty is the first famous
was timeless, like the wilderness. frontiersman in American litera-
American history was a trespass ture and the literary forerunner
on the eternal; European history of countless cowboy and back-
in America was a reenactment woods heroes. He is the idealized,
of the fall in the Garden of Eden. upright individualist who is better
The cyclical realm of nature was than the society he protects. Poor
glimpsed only in the act of destroy- and isolated, yet pure, he is a
ing it: The wilderness disappeared J ames F enimore touchstone for ethical values and
in front of American eyes, vanish- C ooper prefigures Herman Melville’s Billy
ing before the oncoming pioneers Budd and Mark Twain’s Huck Finn.
like a mirage. This is Cooper’s Based in part on the real life of
basic tragic vision of the ironic American pioneer Daniel Boone
destruction of the wilderness, the — who was a Quaker like Coo-
new Eden that had attracted the per — Natty Bumppo, an out-
colonists in the first place. standing woodsman like Boone,
Personal experience enabled was a peaceful man adopted by
Cooper to write vividly of the an Indian tribe. Both Boone and
transformation of the wilderness the fictional Bumppo loved nature
Photo courtesy Library of
and of other subjects such as the Congress and freedom. They constantly kept
sea and the clash of peoples from moving west to escape the oncom-
23
ing settlers they had guided into tension between the lone indi-
the wilderness, and they became vidual and society, nature and cul-
legends in their own lifetimes. ture, spirituality and organized
Natty is also chaste, high-mind- religion. In Cooper, the natural
ed, and deeply spiritual: He is world and the Indian are funda-
the Christian knight of medieval mentally good — as is the highly
romances transposed to the virgin civilized realm associated with his
forest and rocky soil of America. most cultured characters. Inter-
The unifying thread of the five mediate characters are often sus-
novels collectively known as the pect, especially greedy, poor white
Leather-Stocking Tales is the life settlers who are too uneducated
of Natty Bumppo. Cooper’s fin- or unrefined to appreciate nature
est achievement, they constitute or culture. Like Rudyard Kipling,
a vast prose epic with the North E.M. Forster, Herman Melville,
American continent as setting, and other sensitive observers of
Indian tribes as characters, and widely varied cultures interacting
great wars and westward migra- with each other, Cooper was a
tion as social background. The cultural relativist. He understood
novels bring to life frontier Ameri- that no culture had a monopoly on
ca from 1740 to 1804. virtue or refinement.
Cooper’s novels portray the suc- Cooper accepted the American
cessive waves of the frontier set- condition while Irving did not.
tlement: the original wilderness Irving addressed the American set-
inhabited by Indians; the arrival of ting as a European might have —
the first whites as scouts, soldiers, by importing and adapting Euro-
traders, and frontiersmen; the pean legends, culture, and history.
coming of the poor, rough settler Cooper took the process a step far-
families; and the final arrival of ther. He created American settings
the middle class, bringing the first and new, distinctively American
professionals — the judge, the characters and themes. He was the
physician, and the banker. Each first to sound the recurring tragic
incoming wave displaced the ear- P hillis W heatley note in American fiction.
lier: Whites displaced the Indians,
who retreated westward; the “civi- WOMEN AND MINORITIES
A
lized” middle classes who erected lthough the colonial period
schools, churches, and jails dis- produced several women
placed the lower-class individu- writers of note, the revolu-
alistic frontier folk, who moved tionary era did not further the work
further west, in turn displacing of women and minorities, despite
the Indians who had preceded the many schools, magazines,
them. Cooper evokes the endless, newspapers, and literary clubs
inevitable wave of settlers, seeing that were springing up. Colonial
Engraving © The Bettmann
not only the gains but the losses. Archive women such as Anne Bradstreet,
Cooper’s novels reveal a deep Anne Hutchinson, Ann Cotton,
24
and Sarah Kemble Knight exerted considerable Pagan land Taught my benighted soul
social and literary influence in spite of primitive to understand That there’s a God, that
conditions and dangers; of the 18 women who there’s a Savior too;
came to America on the ship Mayflower in 1620, Once I redemption neither sought nor
only four survived the first year. When every knew. Some view our sable race with
able-bodied person counted and conditions were scornful eye, “Their colour is a diabolic
fluid, innate talent could find expression. But as dye.” Remember, Christians, negroes,
cultural institutions became formalized in the black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’
new republic, women and minorities gradually angelic train.
were excluded from them.
Other Women Writers
Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) A number of accomplished Revolutionary-
Given the hardships of life in early America, era women writers have been rediscovered
it is ironic that some of the best poetry of the by feminist scholars. Susanna Rowson (c.
period was written by an exceptional slave 1762-1824) was one of America’s first profes-
woman. The first African-American author sional novelists. Her seven novels included the
of importance in the United States, Phillis best-selling seduction story Charlotte Temple
Wheatley was born in Africa and brought to (1791). She treats feminist and abolitionist
Boston, Massachusetts, when she was about themes and depicts American Indians with
seven, where she was purchased by the pious respect.
and wealthy tailor John Wheatley to be a com-
A
panion for his wife. The Wheatleys recognized nother long-forgotten novelist was
Phillis’s remarkable intelligence and, with the Hannah Foster (1758-1840), whose
help of their daughter, Mary, Phillis learned to best-selling novel The Coquette (1797)
read and write. was about a young woman torn between virtue
Wheatley’s poetic themes are religious, and and temptation. Rejected by her sweetheart, a
her style, like that of Philip Freneau, is neoclas- cold man of the church, she is seduced, aban-
sical. Among her best-known poems are “To doned, bears a child, and dies alone.
S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) published
Works,” a poem of praise and encouragement under a man’s name to secure serious attention
for another talented black, and a short poem for her works. Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814)
showing her strong religious sensitivity filtered was a poet, historian, dramatist, satirist, and
through her experience of Christian conver- patriot. She held pre-Revolutionary gatherings
sion. This poem unsettles some contemporary in her home, attacked the British in her racy
critics — whites because they find it conven- plays, and wrote the only contemporary radical
tional, and blacks because the poem does not history of the American revolution.
protest the immorality of slavery. Yet the work Letters between women such as Mercy Otis
is a sincere expression; it confronts white Warren and Abigail Adams, and letters gener-
racism and asserts spiritual equality. Indeed, ally, are important documents of the period. For
Wheatley was the first to address such issues example, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband,
confidently in verse, as in “On Being Brought John Adams (later the second president of the
from Africa to America”: United States), in 1776 urging that women’s
independence be guaranteed in the future U.S.
’Twas mercy brought me from my constitution. ■
25
Chapter 3
You Try It! Section 1
The following passage is from the chapter you are about to read. First Continental
Read it and then answer the questions below. Congress (p. 78)
minutemen (p. 79)
Redcoats (p. 80)
1
Second Continental
Americans and the War Effort Congress (p. 80)
Continental Army (p. 80)
During the war more than 230,000 sol- From
George Washington (p. 80)
Chapter3,
diers served in the Continental Army. The p. 90 Battle of Bunker Hill (p. 81)
typical soldier was young, often under the
legal age of 16. Most had little money, no Section 2
Common Sense (p. 83)
property, and few opportunities in life. The Thomas Paine (p. 83)
army offered low pay, often rotten food, hard Thomas Jefferson (p. 84)
work, cold, heat, poor clothing and shelter, Declaration of
Independence (p. 84)
harsh discipline, and a high chance of becom-
Patriots (p. 84)
ing a casualty. Yet for some young men and Loyalists (p. 84)
boys, it represented change and excitement.
Finding and keeping dedicated soldiers Section 3
mercenaries (p. 92)
throughout the long, hard war would be a
Battle of Trenton (p. 93)
constant chore. In time, the Continental Battle of Saratoga (p. 94)
Congress required states to supply soldiers. Marquis de Lafayette (p. 95)
Men who could afford it often paid others, Bernardo de Galvez (p. 95)
such as slaves or apprentices, to fight in their John Paul Jones (p. 97)
George Rogers Clark (p. 97)
places.
Section 4
Francis Marion (p. 99)
After you have read the passage, answer the following questions. Comte de Rochambeau (p. 100)
Battle of Yorktown (p. 100)
1. The main idea of the second paragraph is stated in a sentence. Treaty of Paris of 1783 (p. 101)
Which sentence expresses the main idea?
Academic Vocabulary
2. What is the first paragraph about? What facts and details are Success in school is related to
included in the paragraph? Based on your answers to these knowing academic vocabulary-
questions, what is the main idea of the first paragraph? the words that are frequently used
in school assignments and discus-
sions. In this chapter, you will learn
the following academic words:
reaction (p. 79)
strategy (p. 94)
78 CHAPTER 3
''Shot Heard 'round the colonial militia had a major weapons
the World" storehouse there. In reaction, he sent his
soldiers to destroy it.
In early 1775 Patrick Henry predicted that Local spies got the news to the patriot
news of hostilities in Boston would come at group, the Sons of Liberty. On a prearranged
any moment. Addressing the hesitation of signal, Paul Revere, William Dawes, and
some of his fellow Virginia legislators, Henry Samuel Prescott set off on horseback to sound
uttered these famous words: the alert that the British were coming.
ACADEMIC
11 Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-but there Across the countryside, drums and church VOCABULARY
is no peace. The war is actually begun!. .. I know bells called to duty the minutemen -mem- reaction
not what course others may take; but as for me, bers of the civilian volunteer militia. At response
give me liberty or give me death! 11 dawn the British troops arrived at the town
- Patrick Henry, quoted in Eyewitnesses and Others
of Lexington, near Concord, where 70 armed
One month later, on the night of Aprill8, minutemen awaited the British advance.
a force of 700 British soldiers headed for Con- "Don't fire unless fired upon," the cap- ·
cord, a town about 20 miles west of Boston. tain yelled to his minutemen. "But if they
British general Thomas Gage had heard that mean to have a war, let it begin here!"
E AMERICAN REVOLUTION 83
Independence for Colonies Third, Jefferson argued that the colonies
had the right to break from Britain. He was
Many colonial leaders agreed with Paine. They influenced by the Enlightenment idea of the
thought that the colonies should be free. In sodal contract, which states that govern-
June 1776 the Second Continental Congress ments and rulers must protect the rights of
created a committee to write a document dtizens. In exchange, the people agree to be I
declaring the colonies' independence. governed. Jefferson said that because King I
George III had broken the sodal contract, the
A New Philosophy of Government ~I
colonists should no longer obey him.
The committee members were John Adams, On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress · I
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert approved the Declaration of Independence.
The Continental R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Jefferson This act broke all ties to the British Crown. ~
Congress voted was the document's main author. [
for independence The United States of America was born.
on July 2. How-
The Declaration of Independence for- ··J
ever, because the mally announced the colonies' break from Choosing Sides
Declaration was Great Britain. In doing so, it expressed three Colonists known as Patriots chose to fight
not approved until
July 4, the fourth
main ideas. The first idea Jefferson argued for independence. Loyalists -sometimes
is celebrated was that all men possess unalienable rights. called Tories-were those who remained
today as Indepen- He stated that these basic rights include "life, loyal to Great Britain. Historians estimate
dence Day.
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." that 40 to 45 percent of Americans were
Jefferson's next argument was that King Patriots, while 20 to 30 percent were Loyal-
George III had violated the colonists' rights ists. The rest were neutral.
by passing unfair laws and interfering with Once the Declaration was signed, Loyalists
colonial governments. Jefferson accused the and Patriots became opponents. More than
king of taxing colonists without their con- 50,000 Loyalists fled during the Revolution.
sent and he felt that the large British army in The war tore apart families. Even the great
the colonies violated colonists' rights. Patriot Benjamin Franklin had a Loyalist son.
84 CHAPTER 3
SUrlttARY AND PREVIEW In 1776 the col-
onists declared their independence. The
Declaration of Independence has inspired
Americans throughout history with its
message of freedom and equality. In order
to maintain their freedom, however, col-
onists would have to battle the British
army and win a war. In the next section
0 JohnAdams 0 Benjamin Franklin you will learn about some of the battles
f) Roger Sherman 0 Charles Thomson
that took place early during the Revolu-
0 Robert R. Livingston 8 John Hancock
0 Thomas Jefferson tionary War. Early in the war, it seemed as
if the British would defeat the colonists.
1be Declaration of lnclepenclence was adopted on
July 4, 1776. rtlis painting shows 47 of the 56 sign-
en of the document 1be man sitting on the right
is John Hancock. who was the president of the
Second Continental Congress. He is accepting the
Declaration from the committee that wrote it Reviewing Ideas, Terms, and People
How realistic do you think this painting is? 1. a. Identify Who was Thomas Paine?
b. Make Inferences Why do you think Thomas Paine
originally published Common Sense anonymously?
Other Reactions to the Declaration c. Elaborate Do you think that most colonists would have
supported independence from Britain without Thomas
Today we can see that the Declaration ignored Paine's publication of Common Sense? Explain your
many colonists. At least one delegate's wife, answer.
Abigail Adams, tried to influence her hus- 2. a. Identify What two sides emerged in response to the
band to include women in the Declaration. Declaration of Independence? What did each side favor?
Although many women were Patriots, the b. Explain What arguments did the authors of the
Declaration did not address their rights. Declaration of Independence give for declaring the
Nor did the Declaration recognize the colonies free from British control?
c. Predict How might some groups use the Declaration of
rights of enslaved African Americans. The
Independence in the future to gain rights?
Revolution raised questions about whether
slavery should exist in a land that valued lib- Critical Thinking
erty. Some Patriot writers had compared liv- 3. Summarizing Copy the web below. Use it to identify the
ing under British rule to living as slaves. The main ideas in the Declaration of Independence.
difference between the ideals of liberty and
the practice of slavery was a subject of great
t. disagreement among Americans.
In July 1776 slavery was legal in all of the
colonies. By the 1780s the New England col-
onies were taking steps to end slavery. Even
so, the conflict over slavery continued long
FOCUS ON SPEAKING 7,
..,.
.?
after the Revolutionary War had ended. 4. Gathering Ideas about the Declaration of Independence
Imagine you were living at the time of the Am~rican
.··nwwa·narra1t:B' Finding Main Ideas Revolution. What was new and surprising about the
What groups were unrepresented in the Declaration of colonists' actions? In one or two minutes, what is the
Independence? most important thing you can say about the colonies'
declaring independence?
returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in appropriations of lands
setting aside land for
the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and settlement
convulsions within.
tenure term
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that pur- a multitude of many
pose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to quartering lodging, housing
pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the condi-
tions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to
Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Offi-
cers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the
Consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the
Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their
Acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: Colonists had
been angry
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: over British tax policies since
just after the French and
For imposing taxes on us without our Consent: Indian War. Why were the
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: colonists protesting British
tax policies?
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province,
arbitrary not based on law establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Bound-
render make aries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for intro-
abdicated given up ducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
foreign mercenaries For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and alter-
soldiers hired to fight for a
ing fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
country not their own
perfidy violation of trust For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested
insurrections rebellions with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
petitioned for redress
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
asked formally for a
correction of wrongs and waging War against us.
unwarrantable jurisdiction He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and
unjustified authority destroyed the lives of our people.
magnanimity generous
spirit He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to com-
conjured urgently called plete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
upon circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barba-
consanguinity common rous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
ancestry
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to
acquiesce consent to
bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages,
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes and conditions.
Here the In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in
Declaration the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only
calls the king a tyrant. What by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
do you think tyrant means in
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.
this passage?
Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend
an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the cir-
cumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the
ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which; would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have
been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold
them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in Gen-
eral Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for
the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the
good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these
United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that
all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and
ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they Here is where
have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish the document
Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States declares the independence of
may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reli- the colonies. Whose authority
does the Congress use to
ance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each
declare independence?
other our Lives, our Fortunes an.d our sacred Honor.
FIG U RE 3
Map showing states and territories in 1 8 54.
0 SOOkm
BRITIS H N O RTH A M E RICA
(CANADA)
N
N E B RASKA
T ERRITORY
M I N N ESOTA
T ERRITORY T
1854
UTAH T ERRITORY
KANSAS T ERRITORY
1854 Free state or territory
Slave state or territory
Opened to slavery by principle
of popular sovereignty,
Compromise of 1850
Opened to slavery by principle
of popular sovereignty,
T EXAS Kansas- Nebraska Act of 1854
• Gadsen purchase - a strip of
..... ./ - · ... . , land that runs from Texas to
\
\ California along the bottom
\
·, of New Mexico Territory. The
\ <71J idea was that it could and
·,
-..... . later did provide a feasible
�
�:
route for a southern railway to
\J California.
L tude 36° North
on slavery; but there was also arable and food crop farming so the South could
feed itself.
In comparison, the Northern states industrialised, with towns and cities
developing alongside agriculture. It was to the Northern states that the many
immigrants to America came and stayed. They arrived in the North because that
was where the shipping lines ran to and they stayed because they did not want to
try and compete with slave labour.
Meanwhile in the North slavery was disappearing. The last Northern state to
end slavery was New Jersey in 1804. At the same time an ABOLITIONIST movement,
working for the total end to slavery, developed in the Northern states.
Differences aside, historians argue that the two economies of North and South
complemented each other so in that respect the Union worked well. But the fact
that they had different interests meant that the Northern and Southern states
sometimes disagreed on federal government policy. For example when regulating
trade with Britain, the main market for Southern cotton, the Southern states
wanted open trade while the Northern ones wanted protection for some of their PRACTICE QUESTION
industries. When such disagreements arose the equal numbers of Northern free Descri be two differences between the
and Southern slave states balanced each other, neither could vote down the other's Northern and So uthern states in the
interests so everyone was forced to look for a compromise. 1840s.
Abol itionism
Formal organised opposition to slavery in the USA began as early as 1817 when
the American Colonisation Society began work. It bought land in West Africa and
worked to resettle freed slaves there in what was to eventually become the country
of Liberia. This gradual approach gathered only limited support from white and
black Americans. Only about 12,000 freed slaves had been helped to migrate to
Liberia by 1860.
In the meantime the wider anti-slavery movement that emerged in 1831 demanded
an immediate end to slavery. The Anti-Slavery Society was set up in 1832 and
gained momentum after slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in
1833. It also went further in demanding equal civil and religious rights for freed
slaves. Unsurprisingly it was far stronger in the Northern states. The issue of slavery
therefore became part of the political debate in the United States and part of the
argument between the Northern and Southern states.
Westwa rd expansion
When the USA expanded westwards the federal government divided the land into
new territories. As each territory was settled and its population grew, the people
within it could apply for full statehood. They would then be admitted as a state
into the Union. As the free states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois entered the Union
so too did the slave states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, thus maintaining
the voting balance between North and South. But when in 1819 Missouri was
ready to enter as a slave state, the Northern states initially opposed this. In the end
the Missouri Compromise, 1820, was reached by which Missouri could enter as a
slave state while Maine entered as a non-slave state, but no more slave states were
to be allowed north of the line of latitude 36 degrees north.
FIG U RE 4
The spread of cotton growing using sl ave l abour between 1 8 3 9 and 1 8 60.
fl r, ; l
I N D IANA )- , Q H IO
'
\ I LLINOIS I I
� \ -, I 1 '- J "'" ._ ..... ...... ,1 /
KANSAS
)-- � ...- J
I I / ,. ',
I M ISSOURI ' --� KENTUC KY ___ /
1
- - , - - - - - - - - - - i_ I - - - - - - - - - - I I :�� � - - - - - - - - - -
;
� �/- -
'/ /
-, -
\ O K LA H OMA I -! NN!:SSEE
L - -/
\ I _ _
\ ARKANSAS
I
,r -- - - -- · -- ; \
,,, I I
I
...... ...... .... , ..... ..... , , ,...� ; I
I
I
\
� \
I I
"
,... - - - - - - M ISSI>PFPI AlABAMA
I I I
,
',
N
T
TEXAS
IQijelj!lj
A b ra h a m l i n co l n
• B o r n i n H o d g envi l l e, Ke n t u c ky
in 1809.
• Early career as a l awyer
b efore e n te r i n g p o l itics. H e
retu rned t o l e g a l p ra ctice
IQijeljllj
afte r o p p o s i n g the J efferson Davi s
M exican-American War. • B o r n i n Fai rvi ew, Kentucky i n
• Re-entered p o l itics 1807 o r 1808.
i n 18 54 and beca m e • E a r l y career as a s o l d i e r.
a l e a d e r o f t h e n ew Later ran a p l a ntati o n a n d
Re p u b l i c a n Pa rty. I n beca m e a s l ave owner
18 58 , w h i l e r u n n i n g fo r before e n te r i n g p o l iti cs.
CONGRESS, he took p a rt in a • He fo u g h t a n d was
series of h i g h - p rofi l e d e bates wo u n d e d i n the
with his D e m ocrat o p p o n e n t M exican-America n Wa r.
Ste p h e n A . D o u g l a s a n d s p o ke o u t • Afte r that war he ret u r n e d
a g a i nst t h e expa n s i o n of s l ave ry. t o p o l itics with a s e a t i n
• I n 18 60 he s u ccessfu l l y ra n fo r President a n d h i s election convi n ced C o n g ress a n d went o n to
m a n y i n t h e South of t h e need to secede fro m t h e U n i o n. beco m e Secretary of War.
• H i s E m a n ci p a t i o n Procl a m at i o n in J a n u a ry 18 63 was a key m ove • As the s p l it between N o rth a n d S o u t h w i d e n e d h e was a s u p p o rter
towa rds e n d i n g s l avery. of states' rig hts b u t a rg u e d a g a i nst seces s i o n .
• I n J u ly 18 6 3 h i s G ettys b u rg a d d ress g iven at t h e battlefi e l d • E l ected t h e President of Co nfe d e racy in 18 6 1 .
cem etery clearly i d e ntified t h e C i v i l War a s a war a g a i nst s l ave ry. • Afte r t h e C i v i l Wa r h e w a s i m prisoned fo r t w o yea rs b u t t h e n
• ASSASSINATED by J o h n W i l kes Booth j ust six days afte r t h e re lea sed.
Co nfe d e racy h a d s u rre n d ered i n 18 65. • D i e d in N ew O r l e a n s in 18 8 9.
1 America 1840-1895: xpansion and Consolidation
FOCUS TAS K
Why d i d the C i v i l Wa r break out i n 1861?
Here is a list of long- and short-term ca uses of the Civil War:
• Differences between North and So uth
• A bolitionism
• Westward expansion
• The spread of cotton growing
• P u blication of Uncle Tom 's Cabin
• The underground rai lroad
• Transcontinental rai lroad
• Bleeding Kansas
• John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid
• The e lection of Linco ln as President
1 For each write down one example of why it made war more li kely.
2 Give each a mar k out of 10 for its importance in bringing a bout war, with 1 being
the most important.
3 Choose what yo u thin k are the five most important causes and write a short
paragraph on each, exp laining why yo u have chosen it.
4 If you too k away any of those causes, wo uld war still have bro ken o u t in 186 1?
The social and economic impact of the
SOU RCE 6
American Civil War Recruitment poster designed to encourage African American men to
Recru itment and conscription enlist in the Union army.
in the fighting. They did not always receive equal treatment ACIMtl I ,Ac,Ciw l 111..14 .. ..r ra i l IP _I ... a nd tht .,.n t i •n l o( Vir
� .. I ,,,..... 0ra t41f', •oC J�e - l loc-t17 or &lr� ...., D.e t h ." aal .. u- e"ry
and there were no black officers. Initially black soldiers '-1• 1 - el Ute Ohl O.. le loa ! l.et ..., • • l •e ..... th� l u•alli� fool of •
""'"'"' ... 1'11 1 r.e. er !.fa "" • �rtl '" ,... lnltr • hal wr dW bra ..eiT
received lower pay than white soldiers, but this was changed ...re..t l "r C - .,.. . ....,. dn.-f� hoacw of eu r w i ,.. aad ola ...blen,
-.1 die Mei'OII p•H o( - ._.,.. I
(DHe •1 orUJ•]
in June 1864. When some were captured by the Confederates
they were not treated as prisoners of war but were returned A•C
to slavery in the state they came from or in some instances 11 . G. H.& M 1 .. �,
Co• d' '\J• ·
Socia l im pact
During the war, as men went off to fight, many women volunteered as unpaid
nurses while thousands took on new roles as farmers, plantation managers and
munitions-plant workers. While many returned to their traditional roles when
the war ended, the experience had changed the status of women. Moreover the
high numbers of casualties created a generation of widows, spinsters and wives of
disabled husbands. Immediately after the war, however, an appeal for the vote for
women as well as for black males received little support.
SOU RCE 1
The balance of fed eral and state powers
The Thirteenth Amendment, 1 8 65.
Closely linked with the problem of the former Confederates and former slaves was
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary the issue of the balance of federal and state powers. During the struggles of the
servitude, except as a punishment for crime
reconstruction period the federal government was in conflict with the Southern
whereof the party shall have been duly
states over the freedom and equality of African Americans, and had to intervene
convicted, shall exist within the United States,
or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
in matters such as the rights of CITIZENS, which those states considered were their
concerns only. It was for this reason that Section 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment
Section 2. Congress shall have power to
(see Source 1) was added and that the word 'State' was explicitly included in the
enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Fourteenth Amendment (see Source 2) .
B lack codes
Moreover all seven Southern states passed 'black codes'. Under these laws freed
slaves could marry, own property, make legal contracts and testify against other
black Americans in court, but most prohibited racial intermarriage, jury service
by black Americans and testimony in court by blacks against whites. They
also contained provisions for annual contracts between black Americans and
landowners. In effect, while the ex-slaves were free, they were not fully free. The
status of black Americans in the Southern states thus became a major political
issue. The Republicans in Congress believed that the Southern states would not SOU RCE 4
deal fairly with black Americans unless they were forced to do so. E xtract from the F ourteenth Amendment,
1 8 66.
Civil Rig hts Act All persons born or naturalised in the United
In 1866 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which President Johnson vetoed. States . . . are citizens of the United States
Congress overrode his VETO and by ratifying it as the Fourteenth Amendment and of the State wherein they reside.
ensured it could not easily be overturned. The Act was intended to protect the
rights of ex-slaves by making them citizens. It could not guarantee black suffrage
but tried to ensure this by threatening that Southern states would have reduced ••mm•
1 H ow does t h e p a s s i n g of t h e b l a c k codes
representation in the federal government if they refused to give black men the
s u p p o rt t h e a rg u m e n t that t h e Civil War
vote. This was the first attempt by the federal government to limit state control of
was a war fo u g h t over s l ave ry?
civil and political rights. This amendment also disqualified from political office
2 After rea d i n g pages 30-3 1, exp l a i n why
all those pre-war officers, both in civil government and the military, who had t h e word ' State' was i n s e rted i nto t h e
supported the Confederacy. Their disqualification could be removed by Congress if F o u rteenth A m e n d m ent.
two-thirds voted for it. So they were not permanently excluded from political life.
FIG U RE 2 FIG U RE 3
The l egislative process in the United States. Separation of government powers under the US Constitution.
All legislation begins as a bill in Congress. Congress, the Legislature makes the law.
When a bill is passed it goes to the President for The President, the Executive carries out the laws passed by Congress.
approval. If the President approves it, it becomes an Act.
FIG U RE 6
Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution.
-
)�Jfr�d val\ l\oc�O\�·
-
Reconstruction government achievements
While the Republicans remained in control they managed
�
. '
a number of significant achievements. They established
ST. L lS
Pub l tsl\ed by BAL:ME R&.VI'Ell£(\ , 206 t'f rifL� ;>trm the first state school systems with 600,000 black pupils
in schools by 1877. They ensured that African Americans
achieved lasting rights to an education. They also ensured
IIIIIWI that in principle African Americans had equality before the law, the right to own
property, to set up businesses and to enter the professions.
1 Stu d y S o u rce 8 . Look at t h e fig u re o n
t h e l eft of t h e p i ct u re . W h o d o e s h e They repaired and rebuilt roads, buildings and bridges. There was corruption in
represent a n d how d o you know t h i s ? some states, but then that was true in some Northern states too. So Republican
2 What sort of bag is he carrying a n d what reconstruction achieved some lasting benefits. However, by 1877 the conservative
does h e h ave i n it? forces of the Democrats had regained power in all Southern states, bringing
3 What sort of h o u s e or property is shown reconstruction to an end. This happened for four reasons:
o n t h e r i g h t of t h e p i c t u re?
• The drift of Republicans, both Southern and Northern, to the DEMOCRATIC views
4 U s i n g these deta i l s a n d a nyth i n g else you
of their neighbours: it had been difficult holding views that were in conflict
c a n see, exp l a i n what message t h e a rtist
is tryi n g to convey.
with their friends and associates.
• The loss of Republican morale due to the actions of the KU KLUX KLAN
(see page 35).
• Vote rigging such as ballot stuffing where extra voting papers are added to the
ballot box or simply by miscounting the votes cast.
• The lack of political will of the federal government to support black rights. The
government was tired of the Southern struggle and focused instead upon other
issues such as westward expansion and the Indian Wars.
1 America 1840-1895: xpansion and Consolidation
S O U RC E 9 SOU RCE 1 0
The new town of N icodemus, established by black Americans in The Shores family, who settled in Custer County, N ebraska, in 1 8 8 7.
Kansas in 1 8 7 7.
chapter
3
The development of the self became a major
theme; self-awareness, a primary method. If,
according to Romantic theory, self and nature
were one, self-awareness was not a selfish
dead end but a mode of knowledge opening
up the universe. If one’s self were one with
all humanity, then the individual had a moral
the romantic period, duty to reform social inequalities and relieve
1820-1860: human suffering. The idea of “self” — which
essayists and poets suggested selfishness to earlier generations
— was redefined. New compound words with
T
he Romantic movement, which origi- positive meanings emerged: “self-realization,”
nated in Germany but quickly spread to “self-expression,” “self-reliance.”
England, France, and beyond, reached As the unique, subjective self became impor-
America around the year 1820, some 20 years tant, so did the realm of psychology. Exceptional
after William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor artistic effects and techniques were developed
Coleridge had revolutionized English poetry to evoke heightened psychological states. The
by publishing Lyrical Ballads. In America as in “sublime” — an effect of beauty in grandeur
Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and (for example, a view from a mountaintop) —
intellectual circles. Yet there was an important produced feelings of awe, reverence, vastness,
difference: Romanticism in America coincided and a power beyond human comprehension.
with the period of national expansion and the Romanticism was affirmative and appropri-
discovery of a distinctive American voice. The ate for most American poets and creative essay-
solidification of a national identity and the ists. America’s vast mountains, deserts, and
surging idealism and passion of Romanticism tropics embodied the sublime. The Romantic
nurtured the masterpieces of “the American spirit seemed particularly suited to American
Renaissance.” democracy: It stressed individualism, affirmed
Romantic ideas centered around art as inspi- the value of the common person, and looked
ration, the spiritual and aesthetic dimension of to the inspired imagination for its aesthetic
nature, and metaphors of organic growth. Art, and ethical values. Certainly the New England
rather than science, Romantics argued, could Transcendentalists — Ralph Waldo Emerson,
best express universal truth. The Romantics Henry David Thoreau, and their associates —
underscored the importance of expressive art were inspired to a new optimistic affirmation
for the individual and society. In his essay “The by the Romantic movement. In New England,
Poet” (1844), Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps Romanticism fell upon fertile soil.
the most influential writer of the Romantic
era, asserts: TRANSCENDENTALISM
The Transcendentalist movement was a reac-
For all men live by truth, and stand in tion against 18th-century rationalism and a
need of expression. In love, in art, in manifestation of the general humanitarian
avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we trend of 19th-century thought. The movement
study to utter our painful secret. The man was based on a fundamental belief in the unity
is only half himself, the other half is his of the world and God. The soul of each individu-
expression. al was thought to be identical with the world
26
— a microcosm of the world itself. in 1834, and Thoreau are most
The doctrine of self-reliance and closely associated with the town,
individualism developed through but the locale also attracted the
the belief in the identification of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, the
the individual soul with God. feminist writer Margaret Fuller,
Transcendentalism was inti- the educator (and father of novel-
mately connected with Concord, ist Louisa May Alcott) Bronson
a small New England village 32 Alcott, and the poet William Ellery
kilometers west of Boston. Con- Channing. The Transcendental
cord was the first inland settle- Club was loosely organized in 1836
ment of the original Massachu- and included, at various times,
setts Bay Colony. Surrounded Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Chan-
by forest, it was and remains a ning, Bronson Alcott, Orestes
peaceful town close enough to Brownson (a leading minister),
Boston’s lectures, bookstores, and Theodore Parker (abolitionist and
colleges to be intensely cultivated, minister), and others.
but far enough away to be serene. The Transcendentalists pub-
Concord was the site of the first lished a quarterly magazine, The
battle of the American Revolu- Dial, which lasted four years and
tion, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s was first edited by Margaret Full-
poem commemorating the battle, er and later by Emerson. Reform
“Concord Hymn,” has one of the efforts engaged them as well as
most famous opening stanzas in literature. A number of Transcen-
American literature: dentalists were abolitionists, and
some were involved in experimen-
By the rude bridge that arched tal utopian communities such as
the flood nearby Brook Farm (described
Their flag to April’s breeze in Hawthorne’s The Blithedale
unfurled, Romance) and Fruitlands.
Here once the embattled Unlike many European groups,
farmers the Transcendentalists never
stood R alph W aldo E merson issued a manifesto. They insisted
And fired the shot heard round on individual differences — on
the world. the unique viewpoint of the indi-
vidual. American Transcendental
Concord was the first rural art- Romantics pushed radical individ-
ist’s colony, and the first place ualism to the extreme. American
to offer a spiritual and cultural writers often saw themselves as
alternative to American material- lonely explorers outside society
ism. It was a place of high-minded and convention. The American
conversation and simple living hero — like Herman Melville’s
(Emerson and Henry David Tho- Photo courtesy National Portrait Captain Ahab, or Mark Twain’s
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
reau both had vegetable gardens). Huck Finn, or Edgar Allan Poe’s
Emerson, who moved to Concord Arthur Gordon Pym — typically
27
faced risk, or even certain destruction, in foregoing generations beheld God and
the pursuit of metaphysical self-discovery. For nature face to face; we, through their eyes.
the Romantic American writer, nothing was Why should not we also enjoy an original
a given. Literary and social conventions, far relation to the universe? Why should not
from being helpful, were dangerous. There was we have a poetry of insight and not of
tremendous pressure to discover an authentic tradition, and a religion by revelation to us,
literary form, content, and voice — all at the and not the history of theirs. Embosomed
same time. It is clear from the many master- for a season in nature, whose floods of life
pieces produced in the three decades before stream around and through us, and invite
the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) that American us by the powers they supply, to action
writers rose to the challenge. proportioned to nature, why should we
grope among the dry bones of the past...?
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) The sun shines today also. There is more
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the towering figure wool and flax in the fields. There are
of his era, had a religious sense of mission. new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let
Although many accused him of subverting us demand our own works and laws and
Christianity, he explained that, for him “to be worship.
a good minister, it was necessary to leave the
church.” The address he delivered in 1838 at Emerson loved the aphoristic genius of the
his alma mater, the Harvard Divinity School, 16th-century French essayist Montaigne, and
made him unwelcome at Harvard for 30 years. he once told Bronson Alcott that he wanted to
In it, Emerson accused the church of acting “as write a book like Montaigne’s, “full of fun, poet-
if God were dead” and of emphasizing dogma ry, business, divinity, philosophy, anecdotes,
while stifling the spirit. smut.” He complained that Alcott’s abstract
style omitted “the light that shines on a man’s
E
merson’s philosophy has been called con- hat, in a child’s spoon.”
tradictory, and it is true that he conscious- Spiritual vision and practical, aphoristic
ly avoided building a logical intellectual expression make Emerson exhilarating; one
system because such a rational system would of the Concord Transcendentalists aptly com-
have negated his Romantic belief in intuition pared listening to him with “going to heaven in
and flexibility. In his essay “Self-Reliance,” a swing.” Much of his spiritual insight comes
Emerson remarks: “A foolish consistency is the from his readings in Eastern religion, espe-
hobgoblin of little minds.” Yet he is remarkably cially Hinduism, Confucianism, and Islamic
consistent in his call for the birth of American Sufism. For example, his poem “Brahma” relies
individualism inspired by nature. Most of his on Hindu sources to assert a cosmic order
major ideas — the need for a new national beyond the limited perception of mortals:
vision, the use of personal experience, the
notion of the cosmic Over-Soul, and the doctrine If the red slayer think he slay
of compensation — are suggested in his first Or the slain think he is slain,
publication, Nature (1836). This essay opens: They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Our age is retrospective. It builds the
sepulchres of the fathers. It writes Far or forgot to me is near
biographies, histories, criticism. The Shadow and sunlight are the same;
28
The vanished gods to me Nietzsche, and William James.
appear;
And one to me are shame and Henry David Thoreau
fame. (1817-1862)
They reckon ill who leave me Henry David Thoreau, of French
out; and Scottish descent, was born
When me they fly, I am the in Concord and made it his per-
wings; manent home. From a poor fam-
I am the doubter and the doubt, ily, like Emerson, he worked his
And I the hymn the Brahmin way through Harvard. Throughout
sings his life, he reduced his needs to
the simplest level and managed
The strong gods pine for my to live on very little money, thus
abode, maintaining his independence. In
And pine in vain the sacred essence, he made living his career.
Seven, A nonconformist, he attempted to
But thou, meek lover of the live his life at all times according
good! to his rigorous principles. This
Find me, and turn thy back on attempt was the subject of many of
heaven. his writings.
Thoreau’s masterpiece, Walden,
This poem, published in the first or, Life in the Woods (1854), is the
number of the Atlantic Monthly result of two years, two months,
magazine (1857), confused read- and two days (from 1845 to 1847)
ers unfamiliar with Brahma, the he spent living in a cabin he built
highest Hindu god, the eternal at Walden Pond on property owned
and infinite soul of the universe. by Emerson. In Walden, Thoreau
Emerson had this advice for his consciously shapes this time into
readers: “Tell them to say Jehovah one year, and the book is care-
instead of Brahma.” fully constructed so the seasons
The British critic Matthew are subtly evoked in order. The
Arnold said the most important H enry D avid T horeau book also is organized so that the
writings in English in the 19th simplest earthly concerns come
century had been Wordsworth’s first (in the section called “Econ-
poems and Emerson’s essays. A omy,” he describes the expenses
great prose-poet, Emerson influ- of building a cabin); by the ending,
enced a long line of American the book has progressed to medi-
poets, including Walt Whitman, tations on the stars.
Emily Dickinson, Edwin Arling- In Walden, Thoreau, a lover of
ton Robinson, Wallace Stevens, travel books and the author of
Hart Crane, and Robert Frost. He several, gives us an anti-travel
is also credited with influencing book that paradoxically opens the
Photo © The Bettmann Archive
the philosophies of John Dewey, inner frontier of self-discovery as
George Santayana, Friedrich no American book had up to this
29
time. As deceptively modest as of the minstrels to the Lake
Thoreau’s ascetic life, it is no less Poets, Chaucer and Spenser
than a guide to living the classical and Shakespeare and Milton
ideal of the good life. Both poetry included, breathes no quite
and philosophy, this long poetic fresh and in this sense, wild
essay challenges the reader to strain. It is an essentially
examine his or her life and live it tame and civilized literature,
authentically. The building of the reflecting Greece and Rome.
cabin, described in great detail, is Her wilderness is a greenwood,
a concrete metaphor for the care- her wildman a Robin Hood.
ful building of a soul. In his jour- There is plenty of genial love
nal for January 30, 1852, Thoreau of nature in her poets, but not
explains his preference for living so much of nature herself. Her
rooted in one place: “I am afraid chronicles inform us when
to travel much or to famous places, her wild animals, but not the
lest it might completely dissipate wildman in her, became extinct.
the mind.” There was need of America.
Thoreau’s method of retreat
and concentration resembles Walden inspired William Butler
Asian meditation techniques. The Yeats, a passionate Irish national-
resemblance is not accidental: ist, to write “The Lake Isle of Innis-
like Emerson and Whitman, he free,” while Thoreau’s essay “Civil
was influenced by Hindu and Bud- Disobedience,” with its theory of
dhist philosophy. His most trea- passive resistance based on the
sured possession was his library moral necessity for the just indi-
of Asian classics, which he shared vidual to disobey unjust laws, was
with Emerson. His eclectic style an inspiration for Mahatma Gan-
draws on Greek and Latin classics dhi’s Indian independence move-
and is crystalline, punning, and as ment and Martin Luther King’s
richly metaphorical as the English struggle for black Americans’ civil
metaphysical writers of the late rights in the 20th century.
Renaissance. W alt W hitman Thoreau is the most attractive
In Walden, Thoreau not only of the Transcendentalists today
tests the theories of Transcenden- because of his ecological con-
talism, he re-enacts the collective sciousness, do-it-yourself inde-
American experience of the 19th pendence, ethical commitment to
century: living on the frontier. abolitionism, and political theory
Thoreau felt that his contribution of civil disobedience and peace-
would be to renew a sense of ful resistance. His ideas are still
the wilderness in language. His fresh, and his incisive poetic style
journal has an undated entry from and habit of close observation are
1851: still modern.
Photo courtesy Library of
Congress
English literature from the days
30
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs.”
Born on Long Island, New York, Walt Whit- Whitman seems to project himself into every-
man was a part-time carpenter and man of thing that he sees or imagines. He is mass
the people, whose brilliant, innovative work man, “Voyaging to every port to dicker and
expressed the country’s democratic spirit. Whit- adventure, / Hurrying with the modern crowd
man was largely self-taught; he left school at as eager and fickle as any.” But he is equally
the age of 11 to go to work, missing the sort of the suffering individual, “The mother of old,
traditional education that made most American condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her
authors respectful imitators of the English. His children gazing on....I am the hounded slave, I
Leaves of Grass (1855), which he rewrote and wince at the bite of the dogs....I am the mash’d
revised throughout his life, contains “Song of fireman with breast-bone broken....”
Myself,” the most stunningly original poem More than any other writer, Whitman invent-
ever written by an American. The enthusiastic ed the myth of democratic America. “The
praise that Emerson and a few others heaped Americans of all nations at any time upon the
on this daring volume confirmed Whitman in earth have probably the fullest poetical nature.
his poetic vocation, although the book was not The United States is essentially the greatest
a popular success. poem.” When Whitman wrote this, he daringly
A visionary book celebrating all creation, turned upside down the general opinion that
Leaves of Grass was inspired largely by Emer- America was too brash and new to be poetic.
son’s writings, especially his essay “The Poet,” He invented a timeless America of the free
which predicted a robust, open-hearted, uni- imagination, peopled with pioneering spirits of
versal kind of poet uncannily like Whitman all nations. D.H. Lawrence, the British novelist
himself. The poem’s innovative, unrhymed, and poet, accurately called him the poet of the
free-verse form, open celebration of sexuality, “open road.”
vibrant democratic sensibility, and extreme
W
Romantic assertion that the poet’s self was one hitman’s greatness is visible in many
with the poem, the universe, and the reader of his poems, among them “Crossing
permanently altered the course of American Brooklyn Ferry,” “Out of the Cradle
poetry. Endlessly Rocking,” and “When Lilacs Last in
Leaves of Grass is as vast, energetic, and the Dooryard Bloom’d,” a moving elegy on the
natural as the American continent; it was the death of Abraham Lincoln. Another important
epic generations of American critics had been work is his long essay “Democratic Vistas”
calling for, although they did not recognize it. (1871), written during the unrestrained mate-
Movement ripples through “Song of Myself” rialism of industrialism’s “Gilded Age.” In this
like restless music: essay, Whitman justly criticizes America for its
“mighty, many-threaded wealth and industry”
My ties and ballasts leave me... that mask an underlying “dry and flat Sahara” of
I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents soul. He calls for a new kind of literature to revive
I am afoot with my vision. the American population (“Not the book needs
so much to be the complete thing, but the reader
The poem bulges with myriad concrete of the book does”). Yet ultimately, Whitman’s
sights and sounds. Whitman’s birds are not main claim to immortality lies in “Song of
the conventional “winged spirits” of poetry. His Myself.” Here he places the Romantic self at the
“yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of center of the consciousness of the poem:
31
I celebrate myself, and sing carried their genteel, European-
myself, oriented views to every section of
And what I assume you shall the United States, through public
assume, lectures at the 3,000 lyceums (cen-
For every atom belonging to me ters for public lectures) and in the
as good belongs to you. pages of two influential Boston
magazines, the North American
Whitman’s voice electrifies Review and the Atlantic Monthly.
even modern readers with his The writings of the Brahmin
proclamation of the unity and poets fused American and Euro-
vital force of all creation. He was pean traditions and sought to cre-
enormously innovative. From him ate a continuity of shared Atlantic
spring the poem as autobiography, experience. These scholar-poets
the American Everyman as bard, attempted to educate and elevate
the reader as creator, and the the general populace by intro-
still-contemporary discovery of ducing a European dimension to
“experimental,” or organic, form. American literature. Ironically,
their overall effect was conser-
THE BRAHMIN POETS vative. By insisting on European
In their time, the Boston Brah- things and forms, they retarded
mins (as the patrician, Harvard- the growth of a distinctive Ameri-
educated class came to be called) can consciousness. Well-meaning
supplied the most respected and men, their conservative back-
genuinely cultivated literary arbi- grounds blinded them to the dar-
ters of the United States. Their ing innovativeness of Thoreau,
lives fitted a pleasant pattern of Whitman (whom they refused to
wealth and leisure directed by the meet socially), and Edgar Allan Poe
strong New England work ethic (whom even Emerson regarded as
and respect for learning. the “jingle man”). They were pil-
In an earlier Puritan age, the lars of what was called the “genteel
Boston Brahmins would have tradition” that three generations
been ministers; in the 19th cen- H enry W adsworth of American realists had to battle.
tury, they became professors, L ongfellow Partly because of their benign but
often at Harvard. Late in life they bland influence, it was almost 100
sometimes became ambassadors years before the distinctive Ameri-
or received honorary degrees can genius of Whitman, Melville,
from European institutions. Most Thoreau, and Poe was generally
of them travelled or were educat- recognized in the United States.
ed in Europe: They were familiar
with the ideas and books of Brit- Henry Wadsworth
ain, Germany, and France, and Longfellow (1807-1882)
often Italy and Spain. Upper class The most important Boston
in background but democratic Photo courtesy Brown Brothers Brahmin poets were Henry Wad-
in sympathy, the Brahmin poets sworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell
32
Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. Longfellow, tradition with the new realism and regionalism
professor of modern languages at Harvard, was based on dialect that flowered in the 1850s and
the best-known American poet of his day. He came to fruition in Mark Twain.
was responsible for the misty, ahistorical, leg-
endary sense of the past that merged American Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
and European traditions. He wrote three long Oliver Wendell Holmes, a celebrated physi-
narrative poems popularizing native legends in cian and professor of anatomy and physiology
European meters — “Evangeline” (1847), “The at Harvard, is the hardest of the three well-
Song of Hiawatha” (1855), and “The Courtship known Brahmins to categorize because his
of Miles Standish” (1858). work is marked by a refreshing versatility. It
Longfellow also wrote textbooks on modern encompasses collections of humorous essays
languages and a travel book entitled Outre-Mer, (for example, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-
retelling foreign legends and patterned after Table, 1858), novels (Elsie Venner, 1861), biogra-
Washington Irving’s Sketch Book. Although con- phies (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885), and verse
ventionality, sentimentality, and facile handling that could be sprightly (“The Deacon’s Mas-
mar the long poems, haunting short lyrics like terpiece, or, The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay”),
“The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” (1854), “My philosophical (“The Chambered Nautilus”), or
Lost Youth” (1855), and “The Tide Rises, The fervently patriotic (“Old Ironsides”).
Tide Falls” (1880) continue to give pleasure. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the sub-
urb of Boston that is home to Harvard, Holmes
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was the son of a prominent local minister. His
James Russell Lowell, who became professor mother was a descendant of the poet Anne
of modern languages at Harvard after Longfel- Bradstreet. In his time, and more so thereafter,
low retired, is the Matthew Arnold of American he symbolized wit, intelligence, and charm not
literature. He began as a poet but gradually lost as a discoverer or a trailblazer, but rather as an
his poetic ability, ending as a respected critic exemplary interpreter of everything from society
and educator. As editor of the Atlantic and co- and language to medicine and human nature.
editor of the North American Review, Lowell
exercised enormous influence. Lowell’s A Fable TWO REFORMERS
N
for Critics (1848) is a funny and apt appraisal ew England sparkled with intellectual
of American writers, as in his comment: “There energy in the years before the Civil
comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge War. Some of the stars that shine more
/ Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths brightly today than the famous constellation of
sheer fudge.” Brahmins were dimmed by poverty or accidents
Under his wife’s influence, Lowell became a of gender or race in their own time. Modern
liberal reformer, abolitionist, and supporter of readers increasingly value the work of aboli-
women’s suffrage and laws ending child labor. tionist John Greenleaf Whittier and feminist
His Biglow Papers, First Series (1847-48), cre- and social reformer Margaret Fuller.
ates Hosea Biglow, a shrewd but uneducated
village poet who argues for reform in dialect John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
poetry. Benjamin Franklin and Phillip Freneau John Greenleaf Whittier, the most active
had used intelligent villagers as mouthpieces poet of the era, had a background very similar
for social commentary. Lowell writes in the to Walt Whitman’s. He was born and raised on
same vein, linking the colonial “character” a modest Quaker farm in Massachusetts,
33
had little formal education, and journalist of note in America, Full-
worked as a journalist. For decades er wrote influential book reviews
before it became popular, he was and reports on social issues such
an ardent abolitionist. Whittier is as the treatment of women pris-
respected for anti-slavery poems oners and the insane. Some of
such as “Ichabod,” and his poetry these essays were published in
is sometimes viewed as an early her book Papers on Literature and
example of regional realism. Art (1846). A year earlier, she
Whittier’s sharp images, sim- had her most significant book,
ple constructions, and ballad-like Woman in the Nineteenth Century.
tetrameter couplets have the It originally had appeared in the
simple earthy texture of Robert Transcendentalist magazine, The
Burns. His best work, the long Dial, which she edited from 1840
poem “Snow Bound,” vividly rec- to 1842.
reates the poet’s deceased fam- Fuller’s Woman in the Nine-
ily members and friends as he teenth Century is the earliest
remembers them from childhood, and most American explora-
huddled cozily around the blaz- tion of women’s role in society.
ing hearth during one of New Often applying democratic and
England’s blustering snowstorms. Transcendental principles, Fuller
This simple, religious, intensely thoughtfully analyzes the numer-
personal poem, coming after the ous subtle causes and evil con-
long nightmare of the Civil War, is sequences of sexual discrimina-
an elegy for the dead and a healing tion and suggests positive steps
hymn. It affirms the eternity of the to be taken. Many of her ideas
spirit, the timeless power of love in are strikingly modern. She
the memory, and the undiminished stresses the importance of “self-
beauty of nature, despite violent dependence,” which women lack
outer political storms. because “they are taught to learn
their rule from without, not to
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) unfold it from within.”
Margaret Fuller, an outstanding E mily D ickinson Fuller is finally not a femi-
essayist, was born and raised in nist so much as an activist and
Cambridge, Massachusetts. From reformer dedicated to the cause
a modest financial background, of creative human freedom and
she was educated at home by her dignity for all:
father (women were not allowed
to attend Harvard) and became a ...Let us be wise and not
child prodigy in the classics and impede the soul....Let us have
modern literatures. Her special one creative energy....Let it
passion was German Romantic lit- take what form it will, and let
erature, especially Goethe, whom us not bind it by the past to
Daguerreotype courtesy Harper
she translated. & Bros. man or woman, black or white.
The first professional woman
34
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) often evokes the agonizing paradox of the
Emily Dickinson is, in a sense, a link between limits of the human consciousness trapped in
her era and the literary sensitivities of the turn time. She had an excellent sense of humor, and
of the century. A radical individualist, she was her range of subjects and treatment is amaz-
born and spent her life in Amherst, Massa- ingly wide. Her poems are generally known
chusetts, a small Calvinist village. She never by the numbers assigned them in Thomas H.
married, and she led an unconventional life Johnson’s standard edition of 1955. They bristle
that was outwardly uneventful but was full of with odd capitalizations and dashes.
inner intensity. She loved nature and found A nonconformist, like Thoreau she often
deep inspiration in the birds, animals, plants, reversed meanings of words and phrases and
and changing seasons of the New England used paradox to great effect. From 435:
countryside.
Much Madness is divinest sense —
D
ickinson spent the latter part of her life To a discerning Eye —
as a recluse, due to an extremely sensi- Much Sense — the starkest Madness —
tive psyche and possibly to make time ‘Tis the Majority
for writing (for stretches of time she wrote In this, as All, prevail —
about one poem a day). Her day also included Assent — and you are sane —
homemaking for her attorney father, a promi- Demur — you’re straightway dangerous
nent figure in Amherst who became a member And handled with a chain —
of Congress.
Dickinson was not widely read, but knew the Her wit shines in the following poem (288),
Bible, the works of William Shakespeare, and which ridicules ambition and public life:
works of classical mythology in great depth.
These were her true teachers, for Dickinson I’m Nobody! Who are you?
was certainly the most solitary literary figure Are you — Nobody — Too?
of her time. That this shy, withdrawn village Then there’s a pair of us?
woman, almost unpublished and unknown, cre- Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know!
ated some of the greatest American poetry of How dreary — to be — Somebody!
the 19th century has fascinated the public since How public — like a Frog —
the 1950s, when her poetry was rediscovered. To tell one’s name — the livelong June —
Dickinson’s terse, frequently imagistic style To an admiring Bog!
is even more modern and innovative than
Whitman’s. She never uses two words when Dickinson’s 1,775 poems continue to intrigue
one will do, and combines concrete things critics, who often disagree about them. Some
with abstract ideas in an almost proverbial, stress her mystical side, some her sensitivity to
compressed style. Her best poems have no fat; nature; many note her odd, exotic appeal. One
many mock current sentimentality, and some modern critic, R.P. Blackmur, comments that
are even heretical. She sometimes shows a Dickinson’s poetry sometimes feels as if “a cat
terrifying existential awareness. Like Poe, she came at us speaking English.” Her clean, clear,
explores the dark and hidden part of the mind, chiseled poems are some of the most fascinat-
dramatizing death and the grave. Yet she also ing and challenging in American literature. ■
celebrated simple objects — a flower, a bee.
Her poetry exhibits great intelligence and
35
chapter
— lived in a complex, well-articulated, tradi-
tional society and shared with their readers
4
attitudes that informed their realistic fiction.
American novelists were faced with a history
of strife and revolution, a geography of vast
wilderness, and a fluid and relatively classless
democratic society. American novels frequently
the romantic period, reveal a revolutionary absence of tradition.
1820-1860: fiction Many English novels show a poor main char-
acter rising on the economic and social ladder,
perhaps because of a good marriage or the
W
alt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, discovery of a hidden aristocratic past. But this
Herman Melville, Edgar Allan buried plot does not challenge the aristocratic
Poe, Emily Dickinson, and the social structure of England. On the contrary,
Transcendentalists represent the first great lit- it confirms it. The rise of the main character
erary generation produced in the United States. satisfies the wish fulfillment of the mainly
In the case of the novelists, the Romantic vision middle-class readers.
tended to express itself in the form Hawthorne In contrast, the American novelist had to
called the “romance,” a heightened, emotional, depend on his or her own devices. America
and symbolic form of the novel. Romances were was, in part, an undefined, constantly moving
not love stories, but serious novels that used frontier populated by immigrants speaking
special techniques to communicate complex foreign languages and following strange and
and subtle meanings. crude ways of life. Thus the main character in
Instead of carefully defining realistic charac- American literature might find himself alone
ters through a wealth of detail, as most English among cannibal tribes, as in Melville’s Typee,
or continental novelists did, Hawthorne, Mel- or exploring a wilderness like James Fenimore
ville, and Poe shaped heroic figures larger than Cooper’s Leatherstocking, or witnessing lonely
life, burning with mythic significance. The typ- visions from the grave, like Poe’s solitary indi-
ical protagonists of the American Romance are viduals, or meeting the devil walking in the for-
haunted, alienated individuals. Hawthorne’s est, like Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown.
Arthur Dimmesdale or Hester Prynne in The Virtually all the great American protagonists
Scarlet Letter, Melville’s Ahab in Moby-Dick, have been “loners.” The democratic American
and the many isolated and obsessed characters individual had, as it were, to invent himself.
of Poe’s tales are lonely protagonists pitted The serious American novelist had to invent
against unknowable, dark fates that, in some new forms as well — hence the sprawl-
mysterious way, grow out of their deepest ing, idiosyncratic shape of Melville’s novel
unconscious selves. The symbolic plots reveal Moby-Dick, and Poe’s dreamlike, wander-
hidden actions of the anguished spirit. ing Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Few
One reason for this fictional exploration American novels achieve formal perfection,
into the hidden recesses of the soul is the even today. Instead of borrowing tested lit-
absence of settled, traditional community life erary methods, Americans tend to invent
in America. English novelists — Jane Austen, new creative techniques. In America, it
Charles Dickens (the great favorite), Anthony is not enough to be a traditional and definable
Trollope, George Eliot, William Thackeray social unit, for the old and traditional gets
36
left behind; the new, innovative end Arthur Dimmesdale, and the
force is the center of attention. sensuous, beautiful townsperson,
Hester Prynne. Set in Boston
THE ROMANCE around 1650 during early Puri-
T
he Romance form is dark tan colonization, the novel high-
and forbidding, indicating lights the Calvinistic obsession
how difficult it is to create an with morality, sexual repression,
identity without a stable society. guilt and confession, and spiritual
Most of the Romantic heroes die salvation.
in the end: All the sailors except For its time, The Scarlet Let-
Ishmael are drowned in Moby- ter was a daring and even sub-
Dick, and the sensitive but sinful versive book. Hawthorne’s gentle
minister Arthur Dimmesdale dies style, remote historical setting,
at the end of The Scarlet Letter. and ambiguity softened his grim
The self-divided, tragic note in themes and contented the general
American literature becomes dom- public, but sophisticated writers
inant in the novels, even before such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and
the Civil War of the 1860s mani- Herman Melville recognized the
fested the greater social tragedy of book’s “hellish” power. It treated
a society at war with itself. issues that were usually sup-
pressed in 19th-century America,
Nathaniel Hawthorne such as the impact of the new,
(1804-1864) liberating democratic experience
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a fifth- on individual behavior, especially
generation American of English on sexual and religious freedom.
descent, was born in Salem, Mas- The book is superbly organized
sachusetts, a wealthy seaport and beautifully written. Appropri-
north of Boston that specialized ately, it uses allegory, a technique
in East India trade. One of his the early Puritan colonists them-
ancestors had been a judge in an selves practiced.
earlier century, during trials in Hawthorne’s reputation rests on
Salem of women accused of being N athaniel H awthorne his other novels and tales as well.
witches. Hawthorne used the idea In The House of the Seven Gables
of a curse on the family of an evil (1851), he again returns to New
judge in his novel The House of the England’s history. The crumbling
Seven Gables. of the “house” refers to a family
Many of Hawthorne’s stories are in Salem as well as to the actual
set in Puritan New England, and structure. The theme concerns an
his greatest novel, The Scarlet Let- inherited curse and its resolution
ter (1850), has become the classic through love. As one critic has
portrayal of Puritan America. It noted, the idealistic protagonist
tells of the passionate, forbidden Holgrave voices Hawthorne’s own
love affair linking a sensitive, Photo courtesy OWI democratic distrust of old aristo-
religious young man, the Rever- cratic families: “The truth is, that
37
once in every half-century, at least, a family the least likely wilderness places, Hawthorne’s
should be merged into the great, obscure mass stories and novels repeatedly show broken,
of humanity, and forget about its ancestors.” cursed, or artificial families and the sufferings
of the isolated individual.
H
awthorne’s last two novels were less The ideology of revolution, too, may have
successful. Both use modern settings, played a part in glorifying a sense of proud yet
which hamper the magic of romance. alienated freedom. The American Revolution,
The Blithedale Romance (1852) is interesting from a psychohistorical viewpoint, parallels
for its portrait of the socialist, utopian Brook an adolescent rebellion away from the parent-
Farm community. In the book, Hawthorne criti- figure of England and the larger family of the
cizes egotistical, power-hungry social reform- British Empire. Americans won their indepen-
ers whose deepest instincts are not genuinely dence and were then faced with the bewilder-
democratic. The Marble Faun (1860), though ing dilemma of discovering their identity apart
set in Rome, dwells on the Puritan themes of from old authorities. This scenario was played
sin, isolation, expiation, and salvation. out countless times on the frontier, to the
These themes, and his characteristic set- extent that, in fiction, isolation often seems the
tings in Puritan colonial New England, are basic American condition of life. Puritanism
trademarks of many of Hawthorne’s best- and its Protestant offshoots may have further
known shorter stories: “The Minister’s Black weakened the family by preaching that the
Veil,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “My Kins- individual’s first responsibility was to save his
man, Major Molineux.” In the last of these, or her own soul.
a naïve young man from the country comes
to the city — a common route in urbanizing Herman Melville (1819-1891)
19th-century America — to seek help from Herman Melville, like Nathaniel Hawthorne,
his powerful relative, whom he has never met. was a descendant of an old, wealthy family that
Robin has great difficulty finding the major, fell abruptly into poverty upon the death of the
and finally joins in a strange night riot in which father. Despite his patrician upbringing, proud
a man who seems to be a disgraced criminal is family traditions, and hard work, Melville found
comically and cruelly driven out of town. Robin himself in poverty with no college education. At
laughs loudest of all until he realizes that this 19 he went to sea. His interest in sailors’ lives
“criminal” is none other than the man he grew naturally out of his own experiences,
sought — a representative of the British who and most of his early novels grew out of his
has just been overthrown by a revolutionary voyages. In these we see the young Melville’s
American mob. The story confirms the bond wide, democratic experience and hatred of
of sin and suffering shared by all humanity. tyranny and injustice. His first book, Typee,
It also stresses the theme of the self-made was based on his time spent among the sup-
man: Robin must learn, like every democratic posedly cannibalistic but hospitable tribe of the
American, to prosper from his own hard work, Taipis in the Marquesas Islands of the South
not from special favors from wealthy relatives. Pacific. The book praises the islanders and
“My Kinsman, Major Molineux” casts light their natural, harmonious life, and criticizes
on one of the most striking elements in Haw- the Christian missionaries, who Melville found
thorne’s fiction: the lack of functioning families less genuinely civilized than the people they
in his works. Although Cooper’s Leather-Stock- came to convert.
ing Tales manage to introduce families into Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Melville’s
38
masterpiece, is the epic story of nature, as it does in Emerson.
the whaling ship Pequod and its Behind Melville’s accumulation of
“ungodly, god-like man,” Captain facts is a mystic vision — but
Ahab, whose obsessive quest for whether this vision is evil or good,
the white whale Moby-Dick leads human or inhuman, is never
the ship and its men to destruction. explained.
This work, a realistic adventure The novel is modern in its
novel, contains a series of medi- tendency to be self-referential,
tations on the human condition. or reflexive. In other words, the
Whaling, throughout the book, is novel often is about itself. Mel-
a grand metaphor for the pursuit ville frequently comments on
of knowledge. Realistic catalogues mental processes such as writ-
and descriptions of whales and ing, reading, and understanding.
the whaling industry punctuate One chapter, for instance, is an
the book, but these carry symbolic exhaustive survey in which the
connotations. In chapter 15, “The narrator attempts a classification
Right Whale’s Head,” the narra- but finally gives up, saying that
tor says that the Right Whale is nothing great can ever be fin-
a Stoic and the Sperm Whale is a ished (“God keep me from ever
Platonian, referring to two classi- completing anything. This whole
cal schools of philosophy. book is but a draught — nay, but
Although Melville’s novel is the draught of a draught. O Time,
philosophical, it is also tragic. Strength, Cash and Patience”).
Despite his heroism, Ahab is Melville’s notion of the literary
doomed and perhaps damned in text as an imperfect version
the end. Nature, however beauti- or an abandoned draft is quite
ful, remains alien and potentially contemporary.
deadly. In Moby-Dick, Melville Ahab insists on imaging a hero
challenges Emerson’s optimistic ic, timeless world of absolutes in
idea that humans can understand which he can stand above his
nature. Moby-Dick, the great white men. Unwisely, he demands a fin-
whale, is an inscrutable, cosmic H erman M elville ished text, an answer. But the
existence that dominates the novel shows that just as there
novel, just as he obsesses Ahab. are no finished texts, there are
Facts about the whale and whal- no final answers except, perhaps,
ing cannot explain Moby-Dick; death.
on the contrary, the facts them- Certain literary references res-
selves tend to become symbols, onate throughout the novel. Ahab,
and every fact is obscurely related named for an Old Testament king,
in a cosmic web to every other fact. desires a total, Faustian, god-
This idea of correspondence (as like knowledge. Like Oedipus in
Melville calls it in the “Sphinx” Sophocles’ play, who pays tragical-
Portrait courtesy Harvard
chapter) does not, however, mean College Library ly for wrongful knowledge, Ahab is
that humans can “read” truth in struck blind before he is wounded
39
in the leg and finally killed. Moby-Dick ends ville stresses the importance of friendship and
with the word “orphan.” Ishmael, the narrator, the multicultural human community. After the
is an orphan-like wanderer. The name Ishmael ship sinks, Ishmael is saved by the engraved
emanates from the Book of Genesis in the Old coffin made by his close friend, the hero-
Testament — he was the son of Abraham and ic tatooed harpooner and Polynesian prince
Hagar (servant to Abraham’s wife, Sarah). Ish- Queequeg. The coffin’s primitive, mythological
mael and Hagar were cast into the wilderness designs incorporate the history of the cosmos.
by Abraham. Ishmael is rescued from death by an object of
Other examples exist. Rachel (one of the death. From death life emerges, in the end.
patriarch Jacob’s wives) is the name of the Moby-Dick has been called a “natural epic”
boat that rescues Ishmael at book’s end. Finally, — a magnificent dramatization of the human
the metaphysical whale reminds Jewish and spirit set in primitive nature — because of its
Christian readers of the Biblical story of Jonah, hunter myth, its initiation theme, its Edenic
who was tossed overboard by fellow sailors who island symbolism, its positive treatment of
considered him an object of ill fortune. Swal- pre-technological peoples, and its quest for
lowed by a “big fish,” according to the biblical rebirth. In setting humanity alone in nature, it
text, he lived for a time in its belly before being is eminently American. The French writer and
returned to dry land through God’s interven- politician Alexis de Tocqueville had predicted,
tion. Seeking to flee from punishment, he only in the 1835 work Democracy in America, that
brought more suffering upon himself. this theme would arise in America as a result
Historical references also enrich the novel. of its democracy:
The ship Pequod is named for an extinct New
England Indian tribe; thus the name suggests The destinies of mankind, man himself
that the boat is doomed to destruction. Whaling taken aloof from his country and his age
was in fact a major industry, especially in New and standing in the presence of Nature
England: It supplied oil as an energy source, and God, with his passions, his doubts,
especially for lamps. Thus the whale does liter- his rare propensities and inconceivable
ally “shed light” on the universe. Whaling was wretchedness, will become the chief, if not
also inherently expansionist and linked with the sole, theme of (American) poetry.
the idea of manifest destiny, since it required
Americans to sail round the world in search Tocqueville reasons that, in a democracy,
of whales (in fact, the present state of Hawaii literature would dwell on “the hidden depths of
came under American domination because it the immaterial nature of man” rather than on
was used as the major refueling base for Amer- mere appearances or superficial distinctions
ican whaling ships). The Pequod’s crew mem- such as class and status. Certainly both Moby-
bers represent all races and various religions, Dick and Typee, like Adventures of Huckleberry
suggesting the idea of America as a universal Finn and Walden, fit this description. They are
state of mind as well as a melting pot. Finally, celebrations of nature and pastoral subversions
Ahab embodies the tragic version of democratic of class-oriented, urban civilization.
American individualism. He asserts his dignity
as an individual and dares to oppose the inexo- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
rable external forces of the universe. Edgar Allan Poe, a southerner, shares with
The novel’s epilogue tempers the tragic Melville a darkly metaphysical vision mixed
destruction of the ship. Throughout, Mel- with elements of realism, parody, and bur-
40
lesque. He refined the short story Poe’s twilight realm between life
genre and invented detective fic- and death and his gaudy, Gothic
tion. Many of his stories prefigure settings are not merely decora-
the genres of science fiction, hor- tive. They reflect the overcivilized
ror, and fantasy so popular today. yet deathly interior of his char-
Poe’s short and tragic life was acters’ disturbed psyches. They
plagued with insecurity. Like are symbolic expressions of the
so many other major 19th-cen- unconscious, and thus are central
tury American writers, Poe was to his art.
orphaned at an early age. Poe’s Poe’s verse, like that of many
strange marriage in 1835 to his southerners, was very musical
first cousin Virginia Clemm, who and strictly metrical. His best-
was not yet 14, has been interpret- known poem, in his own lifetime
ed as an attempt to find the stable and today, is “The Raven” (1845).
family life he lacked. In this eerie poem, the haunted,
sleepless narrator, who has been
P
oe believed that strangeness reading and mourning the death
was an essential ingredient of his “lost Lenore” at midnight,
of beauty, and his writing is is visited by a raven (a bird that
often exotic. His stories and poems eats dead flesh, hence a symbol
are populated with doomed, intro- of death) who perches above his
spective aristocrats (Poe, like many door and ominously repeats the
other southerners, cherished an poem’s famous refrain, “never-
aristocratic ideal). These gloomy more.” The poem ends in a frozen
characters never seem to work or scene of death-in-life:
socialize; instead they bury them-
selves in dark, moldering castles And the Raven, never flitting,
symbolically decorated with bizarre still
rugs and draperies that hide the is sitting, still is sitting
real world of sun, windows, walls, On the pallid bust of Pallas just
and floors. The hidden rooms above my chamber door;
reveal ancient libraries, strange art E dgar A llan P oe And his eyes have all the
works, and eclectic oriental objects. seeming of
The aristocrats play musical instru- a demon’s that is dreaming,
ments or read ancient books while And the lamp-light o’er him
they brood on tragedies, often streaming throws his shadow
the deaths of loved ones. Themes on the floor;
of death-in-life, especially being And my soul from out that
buried alive or returning like a shadow
vampire from the grave, appear that lies floating on the floor
in many of his works, including Shall be lifted — nevermore!
“The Premature Burial,” “Ligeia,”
“The Cask of Amontillado,” and Photo © The Bettmann Archive Poe’s stories — such as
“The Fall of the House of Usher.” those cited above — have been
41
described as tales of horror. Stories like “The underside of the American dream of the self-
Gold Bug” and “The Purloined Letter” are made man and showed the price of material-
more tales of ratiocination, or reasoning. The ism and excessive competition — loneliness,
horror tales prefigure works by such American alienation, and images of death-in-life.
authors of horror fantasy as H.P. Lovecraft and Poe’s “decadence” also reflects the devalu-
Stephen King, while the tales of ratiocina- ation of symbols that occurred in the 19th
tion are harbingers of the detective fiction of century — the tendency to mix art objects
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross promiscuously from many eras and places, in
Macdonald, and John D. MacDonald. There is the process stripping them of their identity and
a hint, too, of what was to follow as science reducing them to merely decorative items in
fiction. All of these stories reveal Poe’s fascina- a collection. The resulting chaos of styles was
tion with the mind and the unsettling scientific particularly noticeable in the United States,
knowledge that was radically secularizing the which often lacked traditional styles of its
19th-century world view. own. The jumble reflects the loss of coherent
In every genre, Poe explores the psyche. Pro- systems of thought as immigration, urbaniza-
found psychological insights glint throughout tion, and industrialization uprooted families
the stories. “Who has not, a hundred times, and traditional ways. In art, this confusion
found himself committing a vile or silly action, of symbols fueled the grotesque, an idea that
for no other reason than because he knows Poe explicitly made his theme in his classic
he should not,” we read in “The Black Cat.” To collection of stories Tales of the Grotesque and
explore the exotic and strange aspect of psy- Arabesque (1840).
chological processes, Poe delved into accounts
of madness and extreme emotion. The pain- WOMEN WRITERS AND REFORMERS
A
fully deliberate style and elaborate explanation merican women endured many inequal-
in the stories heighten the sense of the horrible ities in the 19th century: They were
by making the events seem vivid and plausible. denied the vote, barred from profes-
Poe’s combination of decadence and roman- sional schools and most higher education, for-
tic primitivism appealed enormously to Europe- bidden to speak in public and even attend
ans, particularly to the French poets Stéphane public conventions, and unable to own prop-
Mallarmé, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Valéry, and erty. Despite these obstacles, a strong women’s
Arthur Rimbaud. But Poe is not un-American, network sprang up. Through letters, personal
despite his aristocratic disgust with democ- friendships, formal meetings, women’s news-
racy, preference for the exotic, and themes of papers, and books, women furthered social
dehumanization. On the contrary, he is almost change. Intellectual women drew parallels
a textbook example of Tocqueville’s prediction between themselves and slaves. They coura-
that American democracy would produce works geously demanded fundamental reforms, such
that lay bare the deepest, hidden parts of as the abolition of slavery and women’s suf-
the psyche. Deep anxiety and psychic insecu- frage, despite social ostracism and sometimes
rity seem to have occurred earlier in America financial ruin. Their works were the vanguard
than in Europe, for Europeans at least had a of intellectual expression of a larger women’s
firm, complex social structure that gave them literary tradition that included the sentimental
psychological security. In America, there was novel. Women’s sentimental novels, such as
no compensating security; it was every man Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
for himself. Poe accurately described the were enormously popular. They appealed to
42
the emotions and often dramatized contentious President of the Woman Suffrage Association
social issues, particularly those touching the for 21 years, she led the struggle for women’s
family and women’s roles and responsibilities. rights. She gave public lectures in several
Abolitionist Lydia Child (1802-1880), who states, partly to support the education of her
greatly influenced Margaret Fuller, was a lead- seven children.
er of this network. Her successful 1824 novel After her husband died, Cady Stanton deep-
Hobomok shows the need for racial and reli- ened her analysis of inequality between the
gious toleration. Its setting — Puritan Salem, sexes. Her book The Woman’s Bible (1895)
Massachusetts — anticipated Nathaniel Haw- discerns a deep-seated anti-female bias in
thorne. An activist, Child founded a private Judaeo-Christian tradition. She lectured on
girls’ school, founded and edited the first jour- such subjects as divorce, women’s rights, and
nal for children in the United States, and religion until her death at 86, just after writing
published the first anti-slavery tract, An Appeal a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt sup-
in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Afri- porting the women’s vote. Her numerous works
cans, in 1833. This daring work made her noto- — at first pseudonymous, but later under her
rious and ruined her financially. Her History own name — include three co-authored vol-
of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and umes of History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1886)
Nations (1855) argues for women’s equality by and a candid, humorous autobiography.
pointing to their historical achievements.
S
Angelina Grimké (1805-1879) and Sarah ojourner Truth (c. 1797-1883) epito-
Grimké (1792-1873) were born into a large fam- mized the endurance and charisma of
ily of wealthy slaveowners in elegant Charles- this extraordinary group of women. Born
ton, South Carolina. These sisters moved to a slave in New York, she grew up speaking
the North to defend the rights of blacks and Dutch. She escaped from slavery in 1827, set-
women. As speakers for the New York Anti- tling with a son and daughter in the supportive
Slavery Society, they were the first women to Dutch-American Van Wagener family, for whom
publicly lecture to audiences, including men. In she worked as a servant. They helped her win
letters, essays, and studies, they drew parallels a legal battle for her son’s freedom, and she
between racism and sexism. took their name. Striking out on her own, she
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), aboli- worked with a preacher to convert prostitutes
tionist and women’s rights activist, lived for to Christianity and lived in a progressive com-
a time in Boston, where she befriended Lydia munal home. She was christened “Sojourner
Child. With Lucretia Mott, she organized the Truth” for the mystical voices and visions she
1848 Seneca Falls Convention for Women’s began to experience. To spread the truth of
rights; she also drafted its Declaration of Senti- these visionary teachings, she sojourned alone,
ments. Her “Woman’s Declaration of Indepen- lecturing, singing gospel songs, and preaching
dence” begins “men and women are created abolitionism through many states over three
equal” and includes a resolution to give women decades. Encouraged by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
the right to vote. With Susan B. Anthony, she advocated women’s suffrage. Her life is told
Elizabeth Cady Stanton campaigned for suf- in the Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850),
frage in the 1860s and 1870s, formed the anti- an autobiographical account transcribed and
slavery Women’s Loyal National League and edited by Olive Gilbert. Illiterate her whole life,
the National Woman Suffrage Association, and she spoke Dutch-accented English. Sojourner
co-edited the weekly newspaper Revolution. Truth is said to have bared her breast at a
43
women’s rights convention when sia. Its passionate appeal for an
she was accused of really being end to slavery in the United States
a man. Her answer to a man who inflamed the debate that, within
said that women were the weaker a decade, led to the U.S. Civil War
sex has become legendary: (1861-1865).
Reasons for the success of
I have ploughed and planted, Uncle Tom’s Cabin are obvious. It
and gathered into bars, and no reflected the idea that slavery in
man could head me! And ain’t I the United States, the nation that
a woman? I could work as much purportedly embodied democracy
and eat as much as a man — and equality for all, was an injus-
when I could get it —and bear tice of colossal proportions.
the lash as well! And ain’t I a
S
woman? I have borne thirteen towe herself was a perfect
children, and seen them most representative of old New
all sold off to slavery, and when England Puritan stock. Her
I cried out with my mother’s father, brother, and husband
grief, none but Jesus heard me! all were well-known, learned
And ain’t I a woman? Protestant clergymen and reform-
ers. Stowe conceived the idea of
This humorous and irreverent the novel — in a vision of an old,
orator has been compared to the ragged slave being beaten — as
great blues singers. Harriet Beech- she participated in a church ser-
er Stowe and many others found vice. Later, she said that the novel
wisdom in this visionary black was inspired and “written by God.”
woman, who could declare, “Lord, Her motive was the religious pas-
Lord, I can love even de white folk!” sion to reform life by making it
more godly. The romantic period
Harriet Beecher Stowe had ushered in an era of feeling:
(1811-1896) The virtues of family and love
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel reigned supreme. Stowe’s novel
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among H arriet B eecher attacked slavery precisely because
the Lowly was the most popular S towe it violated domestic values.
American book of the 19th cen- Uncle Tom, the slave and cen-
tury. First published serially in tral character, is a true Christian
the National Era magazine (1851- martyr who labors to convert his
1852), it was an immediate suc- kind master, St. Clare, prays for
cess. Forty different publishers St. Clare’s soul as he dies, and
printed it in England alone, and is killed defending slave women.
it was quickly translated into 20 Slavery is depicted as evil not
languages, receiving the praise of for political or philosophical
such authors as Georges Sand in reasons but mainly because it
Photo courtesy Culver Pictures,
France, Heinrich Heine in Ger- Inc divides families, destroys normal
many, and Ivan Turgenev in Rus- parental love, and is inherently
44
un-Christian. The most touch- sent back to slavery and punish-
ing scenes show an agonized ment, she spent almost seven
slave mother unable to help her years hidden in her master’s town,
screaming child and a father sold in the tiny dark attic of her grand-
away from his family. These were mother’s house. She was sustained
crimes against the sanctity of by glimpses of her beloved children
domestic love. seen through holes that she drilled
Stowe’s novel was not original- through the ceiling. She finally
ly intended as an attack on the escaped to the North, settling in
South; in fact, Stowe had visited Rochester, New York, where Fred-
the South, liked southerners, and erick Douglass was publishing
portrayed them kindly. Southern the anti-slavery newspaper North
slaveowners are good masters Star and near which (in Seneca
and treat Tom well. St. Clare Falls) a women’s rights convention
personally abhors slavery and had recently met. There Jacobs
intends to free all of his slaves. became friends with Amy Post, a
The evil master Simon Legree, Quaker feminist abolitionist, who
on the other hand, is a north- encouraged her to write her auto-
erner and the villain. Ironically, biography. Incidents in the Life of
the novel was meant to reconcile a Slave Girl, published under the
the North and South, which were pseudonym “Linda Brent” in 1861,
drifting toward the Civil War a was edited by Lydia Child. It out-
decade away. Ultimately, though, spokenly condemned the sexual
the book was used by abolitionists exploitation of black slave women.
and others as a polemic against Jacobs’s book, like Douglass’s, is
the South. part of the slave narrative genre
extending back to Olaudah Equia-
Harriet Jacobs (1818-1896) no in colonial times.
Born a slave in North Carolina,
Harriet Jacobs was taught to read Harriet Wilson (1807-1870)
and write by her mistress. On her Harriet Wilson was the first Afri-
mistress’s death, Jacobs was sold F rederick D ouglass can-American to publish a novel
to a white master who tried to in the United States — Our Nig:
force her to have sexual relations. or, Sketches from the life of a Free
She resisted him, finding another Black, in a two-storey white house,
white lover by whom she had two North. Showing that Slavery’s
children, who went to live with Shadows Fall Even There (1859).
her grandmother. “It seems less The novel realistically dramatizes
degrading to give one’s self than the marriage between a white
to submit to compulsion,” she can- woman and a black man, and also
didly wrote. She escaped from her depicts the difficult life of a black
owner and started a rumor that Photo-ambrotype cour- servant in a wealthy Christian
tesy National Portrait Gallery,
she had fled North. Smithsonian Institution household. Formerly thought to be
Terrified of being caught and autobiographical, it is now under-
45
Objectives
By the end of this unit, you will:
• know about the author and the background information
behind the novel • thoroughly understand the passage from the
novel • be able to identify figurative language in the passage
• be able to summarize the passage • be able to analyze the
title, characters, setting, symbols, and themes of the novel
• know about foils in some depth • be able to use the passage
to support your opinions and write a literature essay
Predict
[step 1
chase
Discuss these questions with a partner.
surprise blood
1 Why can the desire for revenge be so strong? lance brave
2 Can revenge ever be a healthy action? vengeance
Why or why not? enraged wonder
sob white
[step 2 madness whale
Look at the key words from the passage from Moby Dick. shout
With a partner, discuss the meaning of the words. Based
on the words, predict the mood of the passage.
Background Information
Read the text and answer the questions.
What is "whaling"?
2 Who or what is Moby Dick?
3 Who tells the story in Moby Dick?
4 What are the names of the main characters,
and what are their positions on the Pequod?
Why is Moby Dick important to the story?
,•
~:..r ~
oby Dick takes place sometime in the late Throughout the book, lshmael meets many other
1830s or early 1840s (no exact year is given in interesting characters aboard the ship. His best friend is
:- text) and tells the story of a whaling ship, the Queequeg, a harpooner from somewhere in the South
=:-::.~od. In the past, large ships went out to hunt Seas. lshmael distrusts him at first because of his
-=..es. The people sold the whales for their blubber, or strange appearance and religious customs. The men
-'-eir meat, and, in the case of sperm whales, a soon become close friends, however. Other crew
-s:ance called spermaceti. This liquid was important members include Starbuck, the thoughtful chief mate.
• ~aki ng perfume, among other things. Whaling was a who is alone in opposing the captain's strange ques• 'n-
-~aro us but exciting job. The narrator of Moby Dick is revenge; Stubb, the always-cheerful second mate: a;::
, :~ 1g man called lshmael. He comes aboard the ship Flask, the third mate, who believes that notnwg :~
· '"~Q for work and an adventure. What he doesn 't sacred.
- :a is that the sl1ip's captain, Ahab, is unhealthily lshmael tells the story from his point of view for r.:-:s: ,::=
cssed with a white whale called Moby Dick. the novel. At times, however, his narrative vo,r=
--:~ gh the whalers catch whales throughout their trip,
disappears and a more omniscient (all-
:- remains fixated on the prospect of finding and knowing) narrator appears. This gives a
-~ Moby Dick. Eventually the men do encounter the
unique flavor to this American classic.
- :- They pursue him for three days, and are attacked
:--=.. times. On the third day, the whale sinks the boat
:- ;eryone dies except for lshmael.
El
L Listen & Read
20 Listen to and read the passage from
Moby Dick. First, read for general
understanding. Then, reread the
passage. As you read the second time,
note down what the characters say
about Moby Dick.
In this passage, from Chapter 36, Captain Ahab has just told the men on the ship that
he will give a piece of gold to the first person to spot Moby Dick, the white whale.
11 captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and "God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half sho -
Flask, had thus far been eyeing his superior with "God bless ye, men. Steward! go draw the great meas -=
increasing surprise, but at last seemed struck with a of grog. But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; v -
thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Mo
"Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick-but it was not Dick?"
Moby Dick that took off thy leg?" "I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Dea:-
"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of ~
Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round ; it was Moby Dick business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, n-
that dismasted me; Moby Dick that brought me to this my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will
dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted with a vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Capta-
terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantuckf'
moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that market."
razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever "Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; th _
and a day!" Then tossing both arms, with measureless requirest a little lower layer. If money's to be th=
imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him measurer, man, and the accountants have computed the·
round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the great counting-house the globe, by girdling it wi
Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let m::
give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premiu
chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all HERE!"
sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out.
"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that fo(
What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think
methinks it rings most vast, but hollow."
ye do look brave."
"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "tha::
"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen,
simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be
running closer to the excited old man: "A sharp eye for the
enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seem!
white whale; a sharp lance for Moby Dick!"
blasphemous."
J
- Respond
3 Respond to the passage by answering these questions with a partner.
1 Was your prediction about the mood of the passage correct? Explain.
2 How did the author create the mood? Think about the words of the characters.
3 Who are the important people in this passage?
4 How do you think Captain Ahab feels in the passage?
...
- Understand
Read the questions and choose the correct answers.
1 Which of the following places does 3 Why does Ahab want to kill Moby Dick?
Ahab NOT say he'll go to find Moby a because the whale is worth a lot of
Dick? money
a Good Hope b because he lost his leg to the whale
b the Horn c because the whale is very rare
c perdition d because there is a prize for catching the
d Nantucket whale
2 Who does not give Ahab total support? 4 What does Ahab as k the st ew ard t o brin g
Stubb the men?
a
the harpooneers a a large meal
b
the narrator b a golden coin
c
Starbuck c a round of drinks
d
d new, sharp weapons
·gurative Language
Work with a partner. Find one
example of a simile, one
example of a pun, and one /
/
example of personification in
/
t he passage.
J
Lsummarize
6 First, fill in the graphic organizer based on the passage you read.
Character(s)
Now, use your graph ic organizer to summarize the passage with a partner.
Lusten
8 Q listen to a lecture about Moby Dick. Then, answer the questions.
1 What is the speaker most ly talking about?
a why lshmael is a biased narrator
b why Melville shouldn't have picked the narrator he did
c why it's important to discuss narrators
d why lshmael was a good choice for narrator
0 Think About lt
Using the underlined parts of the passage,
write a paragraph explaining what you
know about Moby Dick. Include as many
details as possible.
-...
,
'
k lt Over.
Share your paragraph with a partner. Then,
read your partner's paragraph. Compare and
contrast your two descriptions. Add additional
information to your description as needed.
Then, as a class, discuss why you think
Melville decided to name the
book after the whale.
Ill
J
lshmael narrator
Starbuck practical
Stubb joker
third mate
b. 0 listen to the second half of the lecture and use words from the phrase bank to fill in
the Venn diagram.
time
place
~~-___........_.
Talk lt Over.
A5 a class, discuss your answers to the previous questions.
11
L Analyze the Symbols
18 Match lt.
Moby Dick, the white whale, is the most important symbol in the novel. The whale means
many different things to different people. Below are two columns. One column has some
meanings of Moby Dick. The other column has lines from the book. Look at the two lists. Then,
pick which lines you think go along with which ideas.
\ A Ahab has "piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and
l
I hate felt by his whole race."
I•
ffiJ death \ B Ahab says to Moby Dick, "To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at
0] superstition ' thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."
@evil
c Ahab asks another sailor, "Hast seen the White Whale?" and the man responds,
m:=J revenge
"No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all."
D The whale's whiteness reminds lshmael of the "one visible aspect of the dead
which most appals the gazer ... the marble pallor lingering there."
~
20 Talk lt Over.
As a class, discuss the following question.
Based on what you know about the book, which meaning do you think is most important? Why-
Which theme do you think is most important in this passage and why?
23 Talk lt Over.
Discuss your answer to the previous question with a partner.
J
n literature, a foil is a character that is different objectives and goals. Starbuck's calm way of behaving
I than another in an important way. The author uses and logical thought process makes Ahab look and
foils to illuminate certain character traits in both sound all the more out of control and crazy. His
characters. In some cases, foils are very simple. For insistence on whaling for profits shows how un -
example, one character might be honorable and good reasonable Ahab's thirst for vengeance is.
and the other might be evil and cruel. Most of the time, This contrast is made all the stronger, however, by the
however, foils are much more complex. Foils may similarities between the two men. This is a sig n of a
share some similarities with one another. These powerful foil character, since it is only really possi ble
similarities often serve to highlight characters' to contrast two things
differences. In fact, a character might have more than which are similar in
one foil. Each foil can emphasize different aspects of a some way.
character's personality.
Starbuck serves as a foil to Ahab. In the passage, the
two men act very differently. They have different
• angry
• wants money
• insane
• position of authority
• whaler • calm • wants revenge
• has experience • in control
In groups of four, discuss your answers to Ex. 25. Then, as a group, talk about what Mo by Dick
represents to each man.
ite
Authors use foils to emphasize certain traits in a character. What trait or
raits do you think Melville wanted to emphasize in Ahab through his foil ,
Starbuck, and what difference in attitude do they have towards Moby Dick?
for video activities
Using your answers from the sections above, write a 250- to 300-word essay
& essay writing
ab out how Starbuck works as a foil to Ahab in the novel.
11
chapter
into the United States between 1860 and 1910.
5
Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino contract labor-
ers were imported by Hawaiian plantation own-
ers, railroad companies, and other American
business interests on the West Coast.
In 1860, most Americans lived on farms or in
the rise of realism: small villages, but by 1919 half of the population
1860-1914 was concentrated in about 12 cities. Problems
of urbanization and industrialization appeared:
poor and overcrowded housing, unsanitary
conditions, low pay (called “wage slavery”),
T
he U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) between difficult working conditions, and inadequate
the industrial North and the agricultural, restraints on business. Labor unions grew, and
slave-owning South was a watershed in strikes brought the plight of working people to
American history. The innocent optimism of national awareness. Farmers, too, saw them-
the young democratic nation gave way, after selves struggling against the “money interests”
the war, to a period of exhaustion. American of the East, the so-called robber barons like J.P.
idealism remained but was rechanneled. Before Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. Their eastern
the war, idealists championed human rights, banks tightly controlled mortgages and credit
especially the abolition of slavery; after the so vital to western development and agricul-
war, Americans increasingly idealized progress ture, while railroad companies charged high
and the self-made man. This was the era of the prices to transport farm products to the cities.
millionaire manufacturer and the speculator, The farmer gradually became an object of ridi-
when Darwinian evolution and the “survival of cule, lampooned as an unsophisticated “hick”
the fittest” seemed to sanction the sometimes or “rube.” The ideal American of the post-Civil
unethical methods of the successful business War period became the millionaire. In 1860,
tycoon. there were fewer than 100 millionaires; by
Business boomed after the war. War produc- 1875, there were more than 1,000.
tion had boosted industry in the North and From 1860 to 1914, the United States was
given it prestige and political clout. It also gave transformed from a small, young, agricultural
industrial leaders valuable experience in the ex-colony to a huge, modern, industrial nation.
management of men and machines. The enor- A debtor nation in 1860, by 1914 it had become
mous natural resources — iron, coal, oil, gold, the world’s wealthiest state, with a population
and silver — of the American land benefitted that had more than doubled, rising from 31
business. The new intercontinental rail system, million in 1860 to 76 million in 1900. By World
inaugurated in 1869, and the transcontinental War I, the United States had become a major
telegraph, which began operating in 1861, gave world power.
industry access to materials, markets, and As industrialization grew, so did alienation.
communications. The constant influx of immi- Characteristic American novels of the period
grants provided a seemingly endless supply — Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,
of inexpensive labor as well. Over 23 million Jack London’s Martin Eden, and later Theodore
foreigners — German, Scandinavian, and Irish Dreiser’s An American Tragedy — depict the
in the early years, and increasingly Central and damage of economic forces and alienation on
Southern Europeans thereafter — flowed the weak or vulnerable individual. Sur-
47
vivors, like Twain’s Huck Finn, Finn, a poor boy who decides to
Humphrey Vanderveyden in follow the voice of his conscience
London’s The Sea-Wolf, and Drei- and help a Negro slave escape to
ser’s opportunistic Sister Carrie, freedom, even though Huck thinks
endure through inner strength this means that he will be damned
involving kindness, flexibility, to hell for breaking the law.
and, above all, individuality. Twain’s masterpiece, which
appeared in 1884, is set in the
Samuel Clemens Mississippi River village of St.
(Mark Twain) (1835-1910) Petersburg. The son of an alcoholic
S
amuel Clemens, better bum, Huck has just been adopted
known by his pen name of by a respectable family when his
Mark Twain, grew up in the father, in a drunken stupor, threat-
Mississippi River frontier town ens to kill him. Fearing for his life,
of Hannibal, Missouri. Ernest Huck escapes, feigning his own
Hemingway’s famous state- death. He is joined in his escape
ment that all of American litera- by another outcast, the slave Jim,
ture comes from one great book, whose owner, Miss Watson, is
Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry thinking of selling him down the
Finn, indicates this author’s tow- river to the harsher slavery of the
ering place in the tradition. Early deep South. Huck and Jim float on
19th-century American writers a raft down the majestic Missis-
tended to be too flowery, senti- sippi, but are sunk by a steamboat,
mental, or ostentatious — par- separated, and later reunited.
tially because they were still trying They go through many comical
to prove that they could write as and dangerous shore adventures
elegantly as the English. Twain’s that show the variety, generosity,
style, based on vigorous, realistic, and sometimes cruel irrationality
colloquial American speech, gave of society. In the end, it is discov-
American writers a new apprecia- ered that Miss Watson had already
tion of their national voice. Twain freed Jim, and a respectable fam-
was the first major author to come ily is taking care of the wild boy
from the interior of the country, Huck. But Huck grows impatient
and he captured its distinctive, with civilized society and plans
humorous slang and iconoclasm. to escape to “the territories” —
For Twain and other American Indian lands. The ending gives
writers of the late 19th century, the reader the counter-version
S amuel C lemens
realism was not merely a liter- of the classic American success
(M ark T wain )
ary technique: It was a way of myth: the open road leading to
speaking truth and exploding the pristine wilderness, away from
worn-out conventions. Thus it was the morally corrupting influences
profoundly liberating and poten- of “civilization.” James Fenimore
Illustration by Thaddeus A.
tially at odds with society. The Miksinski, Jr. Cooper’s novels, Walt Whitman’s
most well-known example is Huck hymns to the open road, William
48
Faulkner’s The Bear, and Jack Kerouac’s On the FRONTIER HUMOR AND REALISM
T
Road are other literary examples. wo major literary currents in 19th-cen-
Huckleberry Finn has inspired countless lit- tury America merged in Mark Twain:
erary interpretations. Clearly, the novel is a popular frontier humor and local color, or
story of death, rebirth, and initiation. The “regionalism.” These related literary approach-
escaped slave, Jim, becomes a father figure es began in the 1830s — and had even earlier
for Huck; in deciding to save Jim, Huck grows roots in local oral traditions. In ragged frontier
morally beyond the bounds of his slave-owning villages, on riverboats, in mining camps, and
society. It is Jim’s adventures that initiate Huck around cowboy campfires far from city amuse-
into the complexities of human nature and give ments, storytelling flourished. Exaggeration,
him moral courage. tall tales, incredible boasts, and comic working-
The novel also dramatizes Twain’s ideal of men heroes enlivened frontier literature. These
the harmonious community: “What you want, humorous forms were found in many frontier
above all things, on a raft is for everybody to regions — in the “old Southwest” (the present-
be satisfied and feel right and kind toward the day inland South and the lower Midwest), the
others.” Like Melville’s ship the Pequod, the raft mining frontier, and the Pacific Coast. Each
sinks, and with it that special community. The region had its colorful characters around whom
pure, simple world of the raft is ultimately over- stories collected: Mike Fink, the Mississippi riv-
whelmed by progress — the steamboat — but erboat brawler; Casey Jones, the brave railroad
the mythic image of the river remains, as vast engineer; John Henry, the steel-driving African-
and changing as life itself. American; Paul Bunyan, the giant logger whose
The unstable relationship between reality fame was helped along by advertising; western-
and illusion is Twain’s characteristic theme, ers Kit Carson, the Indian fighter, and Davy
the basis of much of his humor. The magnifi- Crockett, the scout. Their exploits were exag-
cent yet deceptive, constantly changing river gerated and enhanced in ballads, newspapers,
is also the main feature of his imaginative and magazines. Sometimes, as with Kit Carson
landscape. In Life on the Mississippi, Twain and Davy Crockett, these stories were strung
recalls his training as a young steamboat pilot together into book form.
when he writes: “I went to work now to learn Twain, Faulkner, and many other writers,
the shape of the river; and of all the eluding particularly southerners, are indebted to fron-
and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get tier pre-Civil War humorists such as Johnson
mind or hands on, that was the chief.” Hooper, George Washington Harris, Augustus
Twain’s moral sense as a writer echoes his Longstreet, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, and Joseph
pilot’s responsibility to steer the ship to safety. Baldwin. From them and the American frontier
Samuel Clemens’s pen name, “Mark Twain,” is folk came the wild proliferation of comical new
the phrase Mississippi boatmen used to signify American words: “absquatulate” (leave), “flab-
two fathoms (3.6 meters) of water, the depth bergasted” (amazed), “rampagious” (unruly,
needed for a boat’s safe passage. Twain’s seri- rampaging). Local boasters, or “ring-tailed
ous purpose combined with a rare genius for roarers,” who asserted they were half horse,
humor and style keep Twain’s writing fresh half alligator, also underscored the boundless
and appealing. energy of the frontier. They drew strength from
natural hazards that would terrify lesser men.
“I’m a regular tornado,” one swelled, “tough as
hickory and long-winded as a nor’wester.
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