BBL 3230

American Literature

WEEK 2 & WEEK 3

• THE AMERICAN NATIONAL CHARACTER AND REPRESENTATIVE THEMES

• -COLONIALISM

• -NATIONALISM

• -THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT

• -THE AMERICAN DREAM

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND• It is not known how long humans have

wandered the expanse of land that came to be known as America.

• The earliest identified inhabitants, those now recognized as American Indians, are believed to have entered the North American continent through an icy Siberian passageway that once existed between northeastern Asia and the region now called Alaska.

• In terms of recorded history, the story of the American nation and its culture begins with the 1492 discovery of the New World by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

• Christopher Columbus believed that God directed him to set forth on a westward journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

• In a journal, he wrote, “It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel His hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies.…There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because he comforted me with rays of marvelous illumination from the Holy Scriptures.”

• Columbus’ personal vision was limited to finding a water-route to India. The actual outcome had far greater impact on mankind than he could ever imagine.

• His proposal drew the interest of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

• Though the Spanish monarchs were skeptical, they yearned to break Italy’s trade monopoly with Asia.

• After a four-year period of deliberation, Queen Isabella consented to support the venture.

Ferdinand & Isabella of Spain

• On August 3rd, 1492, Christopher Columbus’ fleet of three ships set sail from the Spanish port of Palos.

• At a point where hope of success had virtually vanished, and with the crew threatening mutiny, land was finally sighted.

• On October 12th, 1492, Christopher Columbus set foot upon the beach of a Caribbean island in what was later known as the Bahamas.

• Planting a cross in the soil, he christened the island San Salvador, meaning “Holy Savior.”

• Because Columbus was convinced he had reached the Indies, he referred to the island’s brown-skinned inhabitants as Indians.

• Christopher Columbus never realized that the land he discovered was not Asia.

• In the end, the New World would not bear his name. • That honor went to an Italian adventurer, Amerigo

Vespucci, who enthralled Europeans with broadly embellished tales of his own travels to the New World in 1497.

• Vespucci was first to assert that the New World was not Asia, but rather an entirely different continent altogether. In the decade that followed, other explorations substantiated his claim, and in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, German map-maker Martin Waldseemuller named the region “America.”

• Like Christopher Columbus, Giovanni Caboto—better known as John Cabot—was born in Genoa, Italy, yet made his voyage to the New World on behalf of another country.

• In the service of England, Cabot made the 1497 discovery of the large North Atlantic island that came to be known as Newfoundland.

• The first landing on the actual mainland of North America was made by Juan Ponce de Leon, who explored the eastern coastline of the Florida peninsula in 1513.

• That same year, Vasco Nunez Balboa arrived at what is now Panama, crossing the Central American on foot to make the first European sighting of the Pacific Ocean.

• By this time, it was apparent that the earth was larger than previously imagined.

SPAIN IN THE NEW WORLD• Spain alone reaped treasures from the New

World, and with other European countries losing interest in the Americas, the Spanish seafaring fleet controlled the high seas for most of the sixteenth century.

• Spaniards arriving in the New World represented two extremes.

• 1. Conquistadors sought treasure and dominion over lands,

• 2. missionary friars were unselfish Christians who sacrificed wealth, status, comfort—and in some cases their own lives—to exemplify the compassion and servant-hood of Jesus Christ to the natives.

• The nomadic inhabitants of the Americas—those called Indians—were a people who hunted, fished, and performed rudimentary farming.

• Clustered in separate tribal communities (each with their own dialects and customs) the American Indians were rarely united.

• Tribes commonly battled one another, having experienced widespread death, torture, and enslavement long before the Spaniards arrived.

• The next influx of Europeans would differ greatly from the Conquistadors and Catholic friars they encountered.

•

UPHEAVAL AMONG THE EUROPEAN POWERS

• In 1531, England’s King Henry VIII, at one time a staunch Catholic, rebelled against the Church in Rome after the Pope refused to annul one of Henry’s marriages.

• The king founded the Church of England, establishing himself as its supreme authority, in the same way the Pope served as head of the Catholic Church.

• The Church of England adopted many of the reforms advanced by the Protestants, including the distribution of Bibles to the masses.

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547), King of England and Lord of Ireland. Established the Protestant Church of England.

• In 1585, Walter Raleigh planted 107 men on Roanoke Island, in Chesapeake Bay, off the coast of what is now North Carolina.

• Frustrated over the absence of women, the men returned to England the following year.

• On his second attempt to establish a settlement, Raleigh allowed women and children to accompany the men.

• The new group of 114 people landed at Roanoke in July 1587. The island served as gateway to a large expanse of land that Raleigh called “Virginia” in honor of Elizabeth, England’s celebrated “virgin queen.”

• On August 18, 1587, the Roanoke settlers celebrated the birth of Virginia Dare, the first English child born on American soil.

JAMESTOWN COLONY

• Queen Elizabeth I, last of the Tudor family monarchs, died in 1603, passing the English crown to her second cousin, James I of the Stuart family.

• Encouraged by English businessmen and adventurers, King James, in September 1605, granted a charter to two business groups committed to colonizing Virginia.

• The London Company was licensed to settle southern Virginia, at that time extending from the Chesapeake Bay to the James River, while the Plymouth Company was licensed for northern Virginia, extending through most of what is presently the New England seaboard.

• The London Compay dispatched three ships to repopulate the settlement. They arrived in May of 1607.

• A mercenary soldier, Captain John Smith, was commissioned to bring order to Jamestown. He decreed that anyone who did not work would not eat.

• While waiting for crops to grow, Smith sustained the settlers on food seized from surrounding Indian camps.

• Over time, the raids grew increasingly violent, eventually leading to Smith’s capture by the Indians.

• Tribal chief Powhatan took pity on the starving Jamestown settlers, returning John Smith to his people, along with a large supply of corn.

• (Through repeated tellings of his story, Smith eventually included the popular—but unlikely—scenario in which he was spared the executioner’s blade after Powhatan’s twelve-year-old daughter, Pocahontas, intervened.)

• During that time, a Dutch ship arrived in Virginia, offering the services of thirty Africans as low-cost laborers.

• Their acceptance opened colonists to a mindset that eventually permitted slavery in America. Relations between the Jamestown settlers and neighboring Indians began to deteriorate after the 1619 death of Chief Powhatan.

• In 1622, hostile tribes massacred 347 Virginians. In the seventeen years that followed, more than 4,000 settlers lost their lives in Indian raids.

• Recognizing Virginia’s potential as a money-maker through tobacco, England’s King James revoked the Virginia Company’s charter in 1624, declaring the land a royal colony, henceforth governed by agents of the crown.

COLONIZATION FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM• The Church of England was the only legal

religious denomination of the English people, and by law, every household was ordered to pay a tithe (ten percent of income) to the national denomination.

• For one to hold a government position, or be accepted at a prominent university, membership in the Church of England was mandatory.

• What to believe and how to worship were matters dictated by England’s monarch.

• Though prison awaited those protesting the corruption of England’s church, one group of devout Christians stood firm in their faith.

• Branded as “Separatists,” these believers called for the church to return to its biblical model. The Separatists also promoted the idea of each individual having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ—a concept beyond the scope of Church of England doctrine.

• Facing persecution at home, a congregation of roughly three hundred Separatists from Scrooby, England fled to Leyden, Holland during the first decade of the 1600’s, only to enter a culture more corrupting to their children than the one they escaped.

• By 1620, stories of Jamestown’s survival and success inspired the notion of a Separatist settlement in America. In such a place they could remain true to their faith without sacrificing English social customs.

• On September 6, 1620, the Mayflower departed Plymouth, England. The harrowing, 66-day journey through stormy seas finally ended and the "pilgrims" (as they were called) landed in a settlement near the mouth of the Hudson river.

• On November 11, the Pilgrims disembarked at a land they named Plymouth, after the last English town they saw.

• The Plymouth settlers learned of the best places to fish, and were instructed in the planting and harvesting of crops.

• By the following autumn, the Pilgrims acquired a bounty of food.

• In October 1621, they invited their Wampanoag and Massasoit Indian neighbors to join them in a celebration feast, thanking God for the harvest.

• The event would serve as the origin of the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

• Overseas, turmoil intensified over doctrinal issues in the Church of England. One faction within the body called for reforms to purify the church.

• Though King James I had been tolerant of these “Puritans,” his son, Charles I, who ascended to the throne in 1625, refused to allow anyone to question church policy.

• To avoid persecution, the Puritans followed the example of the Separatists, setting their sights on America.

• A convoy of eleven ships, containing approximately seven hundred passengers, sailed from England in November of 1630.

• Upon arrival in Massachusetts, John Winthrop was elected governor.

• He considered his colony to be the biblical “City upon a Hill,” with hopes of showing the world—and especially the Church of England—the benefits of a Puritan society.

After Columbus – The Puritans

Jamestown, Virginia

Puritans

LITERATURE-Puritans & Pilgrims• The Puritans and the Pilgrims both migrated to North

America to escape religious persecution due to their views about the Church of England.

• They created very little literature because writing was viewed as satanic in both cultures.

• All that was written in Puritan New England were works to glorify God and record journeys for historical purposes. The most famous poets of this period include Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor.

• William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, kept a journal of the events that took place on the journey over on the Mayflower and life within the colony. Jonathan Edwards, a minister during the Great Awakening wrote the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

Anne Bradstreet Anne Bradstreet (1(1612-1672) 612-1672)

• Father was John Dudley, a nonconformist soldier

• 1630, sailed with family to America• His coworker, Simon Bradstreet, married Anne

when she was 16 and he was 25• Anne was well tutored in literature, history,

Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, and English.

• In her memoirs, she wrote of America: "I found a new world and new manners at which my heart rose [up in protest.]“

• Bother her father and husband were governors of Massachusetts, allowing her some luxury of lifestyle.

• Though her men had social prominence, "any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or intelligence in the community at large found herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by the Colony's powerful group of male leaders."

• Her husband, in quest for more land and power, constantly moved them to the edges of the dangerous frontier.

• Through this dangerous life, Anne and Simon had 8 children, all of whom lived through childhood, which was rare enough in mire populous areas.

• Anne herself was frequently ill and constantly expected death, but survived to be 60 years old.

• Because of the tendency of the Puritans to ostracize female intellectuals, Anne was hesitant to publish any of her poetry.

• Her brother took some of her early poems to England (legendarily against her will) and published them as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America when she was 38. It sold very well.

The Nine Muses

Daughters of Titan & Mnemosyne• Calliope (Chief of the muses and muse of epic song)• Euterpe (muse of lyric song)• Clio (muse of history)• Erato (muse of erotic poetry)• Melpomene (muse of tragedy)• Polyhymnia (muse of sacred song)• Terpsichore (muse of dance)• Thalia (muse of comedy and pastoral poetry) • Urania (muse of astronomy)

• Her later poetry was published posthumously, and contained a much more well-developed poetic voice.

• Her Apologies, especially, dripped with sarcasm in her response to the male opinion of women in society.

• Anne was a radically feminist poet, challenging the banishing of women to the private sphere of life and questioning the idea of an unforgiving Puritan god.

Criticism

• Anne’s poetry was heavily influenced by Guillaume du Bartas, who was heavily favored in the 17th century. He impacted the format and stylistics of her earlier poetry, especially before she developed her real independent voice.

• Since she stuck to this traditionally accepted courtly style, her Tenth Muse was well-acclaimed among critical circles.

• Anne was viewed as an intriguingly feminist writer, merging her sometimes overtly sexual imagery with the concepts of both her love for God and for her husband and family.

• She examined the paradoxical reconciliation of a woman in the Puritanically repressive role’s carnal love for her husband and her more stately and respectable relationship with God and the church.

• This led to a more in-depth examination by feminist critics in the mid-20th century of her individualist take on more traditional doctrine.

-NATIONALISM -THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT -THE AMERICAN DREAM

Missouri Compromise

Sectionalism

The Industrial North

• The Industrial Revolution (mid-1700s to mid-1800s) included the birth of modern industry and the social changes that accompanied industrial growth.

• The Revolution began in the British textile industry when inventors created water-powered and steam-powered weaving machines.

• The steam engine was crucial to the British Industrial Revolution, mostly due to improvements James Watt made late in the century.

• The British made laws to prevent their knowledge of these industrial machines from spreading, but Samuel Slater violated those laws by building a textile mill in Rhode Island, launching the Industrial Revolution in America.

• By 1810 there were more than 60 textile mills in New England.

• Industrialization led to urbanization, as the percentage of the population who lived in cities doubled within 30 years.

Cotton and the South

The Cotton Revolution

• Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which separated the seeds from the usable parts of the cotton, made large-scale cotton production possible.

• The cotton gin was simple, but had a major impact on life in the South

– The booming textile industry in the North bought cotton to weave into cloth that was sold to Americans.

– The British Industrial Revolution raised the demand for cotton, making Southern cotton very valuable to grow.

Slavery Spreads

• Even with the use of the cotton gin, farming cotton required a large number of workers.

• The first cotton farms were small and didn’t use enslaved African Americans, but wealthier farmers soon bought huge plantations and needed additional workers.

• Planters knew that the more enslaved African Americans they used, the more valuable cotton they could grow.

• Between 1810 and 1840 the number of enslaved African Americans in the U.S. more than doubled to 2.5 million.

Anti-Slavery Efforts in the South

• Some African Americans in the South were freemen, or African Americans who had been emancipated.

• These men and women faced legal and social discrimination, yet still played a large role in anti-slavery activities.

• Many freemen helped enslaved people escape, and many bravely spoke out for freedom for all African Americans.

• In 1831 the deadliest slave uprising in American history took place. Nat Turner and his accomplices killed dozens of whites before the uprising was put down by a local militia.

• Other enslaved African Americans chose to attempt escape, trying to reach the free states of the North, Canada, or Mexico.

• Over the years, a constantly changing network of escape routes developed called the Underground Railroad. Sympathetic whites and freemen provided help to escaping slaves. Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery herself, helped many on their journey to freedom.

• Many abolitionists were women.

• Sarah and Angela Grimké, daughters of a Southern slaveholder, were abolitionists.

• They moved to the North to support abolition and women’s rights.

The Abolition Movement in the North

• Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery, was a leading abolitionist.

• He published an 1845 biography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

• The number of enslaved people trying to escape increased in the 1830s, possibly encouraged by an anti-slavery movement in the Northern states.

• The Second Great Awakening’s focus on morality caused many Northerners to see slavery as wrong and ungodly.

• Many joined reform societies to stop slavery

• 1833: William Lloyd Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society.

• It was the first group to call for an immediate end to U.S. slavery.

• In five years, had over 1,500 chapters in the North.

• Though the majority of white southerners did not own enslaved people, the minority who did found abolition outrageous, as if it were an attack on their livelihood and, to some, their religion.

• Slaveholders argued that slavery was essential to cotton production, which was a powerful argument even in the North, because cotton accounted for 55% of American exports.

• In fact, most Northerners supported slavery as well, since freedom for slaves meant more competition for jobs.

• Still, the pressure to abolish slavery in the U.S. was undeniable.

• This led to the American Civil War in 1861-1865

Opposition to Abolition

What is the American Dream?

• The term "American Dream" first was used by the American historian James Truslow Adams in his book "The Epic of America" published in 1931.

• At that time the United States were suffering under the Great Depression.

• Adams used the term to describe the complex beliefs, religious promises and political and social expectations.

• "The American Dream" has become a widespread term to describe the American Way of Life in general, but it is by far not that easy."

• The American Dream" always has something individual.

• That is, why till today no one succeeded in giving a universally acceptable definition of the term.

• For a lot of people "The American Dream" is connected to becoming wealthy and the ability to achieve everything if one only works hard enough for it (From rags to riches).

• For others it is much more and is beyond materialism.

• For them it is the dream of living a simple, happy and fulfilling life and the most important features being faith and equality.

• "The American Dream" also is about liberty and America being the country of unlimited opportunities.

American Dream Literature

• As America has evolved, its citizens have struggled to define and capture the "American Dream."

• Countless works of literature have been written on this topic, among which the most prominent are Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

• Each of these classic works presents its own take on the American Dream and the factors that lead a man to achieve it, or fall short of it.

Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, often regarded as one of the finest American novels, describes the humorous yet enlightening adventures of a poor country boy, motherless and with an abusive father, who takes to the river with a runaway slave in an effort to escape the oppressiveness of society.

• For Huck, and consequently for Twain, the American Dream means being free to come and go with the river, to have no constraints or restrictions, and to enjoy the wide-open Western frontier.

• The beauty and freedom of this dream is shown almost as a neccessity for Huck, and certainly for Jim the slave, when contrasted with the metaphorical and literal slavery each finds himself in at the opening of the novel.

• The American Dream thus becomes a celebration of freedom, not only from physical structure and rules, but from the prejudices of Southern society in the age of slavery.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

• Nearly forty years later, the American Dream took on a new shape, though not a wholly different one, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby.

• This story about a young Long Island millionaire who is ardently in love with a now married woman raises probing questions about the value of money and high society.

• Through the character of Gatsby, Fitzgerald eventually shows that, while the rags-to-riches American Dream seems fantastic and wonderful, it is in reality shallow, as well as devoid of true joy and love.

• Ultimately, the main character of the novel decides to move back to the West, rejecting the gilded ugliness of the New York metropolis.

Death of a Salesman-Arthur Miller

• In 1949, renowned playwright Arthur Miller crafted his own version of the failed American Dream in his famous play Death of a Salesman.

• In his depiction of the Loman family Miller presents all the anxiety of a modern American family hemmed in by industrialization and cut off from its roots in the free soil of the frontier.

• After a lifetime of trying and failing to obtain the American Dream for himself and his family, Willy Loman ultimately commits suicide so that his son will have his life-insurance.

• This play asks the age-old question: What is the American Dream, and, is it even possible or desirable to attain it?