Finis

I can't believe that another quarter is coming to an end. Looking back over these last ten weeks in Early American Literature I feel that I have learned so much. At first I wasn't sure how I was going to like this class with the blogging aspect. I hadn't blogged before and was a little worried about it. However, it has certainly grown on me. I like being my goofy self while writing about what I have learned, read, or discussed in class. I was pleased that the readings were all interesting and easy to read. What I loved most about this class was the actual class discussion. I know that I didn't say a lot during these sessions (I always feel intimidated) but I was listening and coming up with my own conclusions. I'm glad that I was in this class with so many great thinkers!!! Hearing so many different viewpoints on the subject that we were discussing helped me think more deeply (thinking deep juicy thoughts!) and make my own observations. Here are my juicy thoughts on the conclusion of this class and of my blog...

The American origin story will continue forever. We have ritualistically told the same story over and over and over again. And yet, we never tire from hearing it. Its like a child's favorite bed time story...minus the dragons, fairies, and princesses. Some of the common themes that were found throughout all the readings were control/dominance/power; captivity, struggle, slavery, freedom; self-reliance, perversity, and survival. Why are we so obsessed with these themes that haunted early America? Could it be that we are still haunted today with these same exact themes? Perhaps, it has something to do with how the American origin story appears to be composed of nothing but paradox.

We began this class with Cotton Mather's On Witchcraft and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown. The Puritans had escaped overseas from the persecution that was happening to them. They had to learn how to be survivors in their new found freedom. It seems rather ironic then to think of the things that they later would do. The Salem Witch Trials were a dark time in the early history of our country. There seemed to be a great paranoia to all things that were unknown and could not be explained by God alone. Many innocent women and men were accused of making compacts with the Devil, killing livestock, and torturing children and women. Those who refused to confess to being a witch were executed. Those we confessed were to be helped out of the claws of the Devil. There definitely is some kind of perverse undertone to this time. People were basically ordered to confess and conform or refuse to admit to a lie and be punished for it. I was also shocked at the amount of sexual undertones that could be found in these readings. We learned in class that women's bodies would be searched for witch marks by men of the church. This disgusts me. It seems to me that once the Puritans had their freedom they seemed to be "enslaved" by their religion and their religious leaders. There also seems to a strong idea of leaders of the community having a great dominance over the rest. Nothing new here, huh? Moving onward...

From On Witchcraft and Young Goodman Brown we moved on to Women's Indian Captivity Narratives and The Conquest of New Spain. It was in the narrative of Mary Rowlandson that we see the Puritans as the "bad" people, taking over the land that had once belonged to the Native Americans. Here is an idea of control and dominance over others. She was captured and held against her will, away from her home, her husband, and her children. However, she showed great strength by keeping her faith and surviving the situation that she found herself in. I believe that she is a good example of the transformation of new religious ideas that may have occurred during this time. Mary did not follow in the Puritanical beliefs that if something bad happened to you, you must have deserved it. She believed that the bad things that were happening to her were signs from God that she was a "chosen one." Not at all of the Puritan religion. An interesting point that was made in class discussion was that Mary may have found her "freedom" in her captivity. As a woman she would not have been able to see or experience the things that she had if she had not been captured by the Native Americans. The Conquest of New Spain continues with the before mentioned control and dominance over others. Diaz and his men captured Montezuma and Mexico. It was here that we discussed how the themes of violence, sex, and dominance seemed to be interwoven. Masculinity was also another giant theme in this book. Diaz and his men were trying to show their masculinity by dominating over these others and using violence against them. In class we discussed a lot about what it means to be a man. We learned that the themes of this book still continue to dominate (haha) our society today. And next...

The next couple of readings that we explored were The Coquette, Emerson's Self-Reliance, and Thoreau's Resistance to Civil Government. In The Coquette Eliza Wharton is a woman held captive by her society. She wanted to flirt and have a good time. She wanted to have some control over her life. However, this was greatly frowned upon during this time. Her story turns tragic as she refuses to conform to the ideas and standards that society has set. Eliza becomes known as a "fallen woman" and breaks the hearts of her mother and friends. The tones of this book tie in nicely with the ideas of Emerson and Thoreau. Boy, we really talked about their ideas on non-conformity, relying only upon yourself, and having true freedom from the government. One of my favorite quotes from these readings was from Emerson: "To be great is to be misunderstood." Love it. And...

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and In the Heart of the Sea were the next two books that we read for class. Incidents tackled the themes of control, dominance, slavery, freedom, self-reliance, perversity, and survival. Wow. Linda was a young slave girl, dominated and controlled by her master. She found her "freedom" in her self-reliance and choice. Perversity could be seen in the fact that she slept with a white man to make her master angry. Linda was practicing her "freedom" and the control over her own life here. In the end we learn that Linda is indeed a survivor. She finds her freedom and is united with her children. In the Heart of the Sea was one of my favorite books that read this quarter. This book also explored all of the themes mentioned before. The masculinity of the men on the whale ship...the control and dominance over the whale...the perverseness of eating your friend...Um, yeah...In class we discussed the difficulties that would arise from being trapped on a boat with little to eat...besides each other. In the face of starvation one cannot really say what one will or will not do. For my own personal beliefs and morals, I could not kill another so that I could live for another day in agony. This was a great book. I learned so much about whaling...I had never even thought of it before. Finally...

The last couple of weeks we read Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, specifically The Black Cat and Ligeia, and Emily Dickinson's love poems. Poe's work has always fascinated me. He was such a strange guy! The themes that could be found in his work was mostly the idea of freedom, slavery, perversity, and survival. Poe explored the inner recesses of the mind and what it meant to be free or a slave to the mind's abilities. He believed that we can never fully know the self or the mind so therefore we must be slaves to it. Perversity is every where in his work. This is Poe we are talking about. Need I say more? Emily Dickinson had this theme of perversity within her work. She also had strong themes of self-reliance, freedom, and control in her poems. Both Poe and Dickinson wrote some incredible stuff. They are the literary figures that I most associate with Early American Literature. So...

These themes of the American origin story just continue to be remolded to fit every possible situation. We as a people are transformed as well. We like to believe that we have control over ourselves, and though we hate to admit, control over others as well. We like to believe that we have freedom in everything that we do and say. We like to believe that we are, to a certain extent, self-reliant. We would like to believe that we are all good and kind and pure; and yet perversity lives deep within us. Above all things, we like to believe that we are survivors. I believe that we are all of these things AND their opposites. There is no way to be completely free, to have complete control, to be completely good...We need to learn to be satisfied with the situations that we find ourselves in, look for our flaws to fix, and find a balance between being self-reliant and depending on others. At least, this is what I have concluded... And so this is the end of my blog. But not the end of the American origin story...so don't worry...

Emily Dickinson

Dear Emily Dickinson,

I'm not really sure how to start this letter to you. I suppose I'll just start by telling you that we have recently discussed your poems in my English 250 class; Early American Literature. Are you aware of the impact that your writings have had on us? Did you know that you had a talent with words? If not, just take note that your poems have been read by nearly everyone. In high school your better known poems are assigned readings. You are also one of the most well known literary figures...Woman in white. What do you think of that? I would imagine that you wouldn't like all the attention... There are several themes that keep appearing throughout all of the readings that we have done for this class. I would like to mention some of them here and relate them to you and your work. I hope that you don't mind.

First and foremost, I have need to know: why did you choose to live the life of a recluse? Was it a choice? Some people have anxiety disorders that keep them from going out into public. They are trapped inside their homes. Did you have some kind of disorder or was it a choice that you made? We talked in class about how this could have been your way of showing that you had control over your own life. We learned that you had a copy of Emerson's Self-Reliance essay and had marked two passages in it. Both passages contained themes of this self-reliance and control that you so longed to show...My life is for myself, not spectacle...What I must do is all that concerns me...Ms. Dickinson, didn't you ever get lonely? Was this power and control all that really mattered to you? I hate to be stuck in a house by myself for a really long time. I cannot imagine spending almost my entire adult life at home, never leaving. I don't think my parents could imagine it either! Was this, what I would think of entrapment, your freedom? I wonder if there were other ways to show that you had power and control over your life. Do you think that you took this idea of self-reliance a bit too far? I still don't understand your choice to live in this manner. I suppose "To be great is to be misunderstood" would be your motto.

In class we also discussed your love poems. Were you ever in love Ms. Dickinson? There has been some debate over whether or not that you had some kind of love for you best friend, Sue, who was married to your brother. This was a possible reason that you stayed at home: it was too painful to leave and have to share Sue with others. There are rumours that you had lovers and your own little liaisons. What say you to this?!! Another example of choice, power, and control, perhaps? Your love poems are, as someone in class mentioned, "sadistically optimistic." An example of one of these poems would be Poem 35:

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

You seem to be so happy and have a sense of pride in your broken heart. Is this because you learned that you were capable of love? It clearly has some kind of optimistic tones to it. However, there are also the shadows of the sadistic pleasure in pain aspect. This is kind of odd, Ms. Dickinson. I think that perhaps you were trying to suggest that it was better that you had loved and experienced this love with this other person, even though you lost it in the end. One of your other poems comes to mind while thinking of this "moving on after love" idea. Poem 49:

We outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.

I'm not really sure why I like this poem so well. I think that it may have something to do with the imagery that love, though we outgrow it, remains in the drawers of our hearts for all our lives. There is something beautiful in this idea. Ms. Dickinson, did you feel that Sue outgrew your love? Or were you the one that outgrew her affections? Or maybe it was a man that you were fond of...Who ever it might have been, I hope that you had some kind of happiness in your life. I know that your writing brought you some happiness but was this enough? It wouldn't be for me.

Now pardon me, Ms. Dickinson, but we also discussed the perversity of your obsession with death. Why did you have such an obsession with such a subject? Is it because of the unknown? Were you longing for death in some strange way? Death is usually a subject that most people would rather avoid. Although, you do run into one who finds it interesting...*cough*...Poe...*cough*... We learned in class that death was always around you. You were surrounded by it. Did you need freedom from being surrounded by it? Is this why you stayed at home? You'd rather write about it than actually witness it...This is another possible reason you wrote about it so often. People usually tend to write what they see and know. An example of one of these poems would be Poem 31:

Death is a dialogue between
The spirit and the dust.
"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,
I have another trust."

Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
The Spirit turns away,
Just laying off, for evidence,
An overcoat of clay.

Ugh. Deep. I do like your work but your poetry with themes of death get me down sometimes. Let me write about something happy. On Thursday, the last day of class, Tony and Alice gave their facilitation. They did a great job! They showed a film (moving pictures with words) that they had made themselves. It began by showing you (played by Maddie! So cute!) as a child with your father and your brother, Austin. Tony designed a time travel machine and visited you. It was hilarious! Alice read some of your poems and discussed their meanings. As a springboard activity the class was split into two groups and we wrote what I believe are called corpse poems. It was a lot of fun and surprisingly our poems turned out to be pretty good! I think that you would have been greatly amused.

Well, Ms. Dickinson, I wanted to write you this letter to tell you how much I learned about you and your poems. The themes of power, control, self-reliance, trauma, pain, and love all resonate within your work. You used your real life experiences as inspiration and because of this your works have survived. They have survived because of people's ability to relate to the feelings and emotions that can be found in them. Thank you for writing in such a manner that captures raw human emotion. I hope that you were happy in your life as a poet and a recluse. I'll end with one of my favorite poems that I read for class, Poem 56:

A solemn thing it was, I said,
A woman white to be,
And wear, if God should count me fit,
Her hallowed mystery.

A timid thing to drop a life
Into the purple well,
Too plummetless that it comes back
Eternity until.

Sincerely,

Lizzie

Edgar Allan Poe

The other day while I was exploring the never ending rows of books at the library, I stumbled upon one that looked as if it had gone to Hell and back. Well, almost...I'm a sucker for ancient books. I don't know how many I have collected over the years. I've lost count. I just love the idea that they have been used, held, and loved by others. Flipping through the yellowed and stiff pages you can't help but notice the pungent smell of dust, decay, age...Call me crazy, but I adore it. However, I digress. I had just finished the required readings for Edgar Allan Poe for class and should have been doing other work, but somehow I found myself stumbling around in the library. Naturally, like a moth to the light, I immediately grabbed this old book from the shelf. It's copyright is 1882. The brown cover is worn with beautiful flower engravings along the side. The title, Every-Day Topics is scrawled at the top with the author's name, J.G. Holland at the bottom. I opened the book to a random page, and what do you know! There is Edgar Allan Poe's name standing out in the midst of all the words!!!

The topic of the "chapter" was entitled "Certain Virtues and Virtuous Habits." At the beginning it reads: "Above all other things in the world, character has supreme value. A man can never be more than what his character-intellectual, moral, spiritual-makes him. A man can never do more, or better, than deliver, or embody, that which is characteristic of himself...Nothing can be more un-philosophical than the idea that a man who stands upon a low moral and spiritual plane can produce, in literature or art, anything valuable (135)." Okay, I thought, if you don't have good morals or spiritual beliefs nothing you create or write will be of any value: where is this going? I turned the dust covered page and read on: "It is claimed by a certain class of critics that we have nothing to do with the character of an artist or a writer. They forget that a knowledge of a man's character is a short cut to a correct judgment of his work. It is only necessary to know Edgar A. Poe that he was a man of weak will, without the mastery of himself-a dissipated man-a man of morbid feeling-a self-loving man, without the wish or purpose to serve his fellows-to know that he could never write a poem that would help anybody, or write a poem that possessed any intrinsic value whatever. His character was without value, and, for that reason, he was without the power of ministry. His character was without value, and nothing of value could come out of it. His poems are one continued, selfish wail over lost life and lost love. The form of his art was striking, but the material was wretchedly poor in everything of value to human life (136)." VERY interesting!!!

As I read this I thought of Emerson and Thoreau. Self-Reliance came immediately to mind. Holland, the author of this book, is basically saying that Poe was different, an odd duck, one of these things that just doesn't belong. "To be great is to be misunderstood." Holland called Poe"a self-loving man." However, he also called him a man "without the mastery of himself." Wait a minute! So, Poe was interested in his own personal business and control over his life but he could not master himself? I find this to be a very interesting contradiction of what we had discussed in class with Emerson and Thoreau. I'm not sure what to think about this. The opinions of Poe, his character, and his work, at the time the book was written, seem especially harsh. And Poe had been dead for nearly thirty-five years!!! Now, I suppose we should keep in mind that this book was written almost one hundred and thirty years ago, so opinions have greatly changed. I think that today Poe is considered to be one of the most fascinating literary figures of all time. People today, I would imagine, wouldn't care about Poe's character in the same way that Holland so obviously did during his time.

Now, in class we discussed his short story, The Black Cat. We talked about Poe's narrators and how unreliable they really are. Poe showed through his frightening short stories that every mind is capable of madness and vulnerable to itself. In The Black Cat the narrator is fully aware that he is surrendering to the dark side of his mind. However, he seems unwilling to stop this transformation. The narrator gives us many excuses for his behavior and the ill-treatment of his beloved pet, Pluto. He blames intoxication, demons, and finally just doing wrong for wrong's sake. Even as he hangs Pluto he doesn't appear to show much remorse or guilt. We debated whether or not the narrator supports Emersonian and Thoreaian ideals. The narrator offers explanations of hanging the cat and killing his wife but doesn't defend these explanations. We concluded that he begins anti-and then turns powerfully Emersonian. However, I do not think that Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the character of Poe's narrator. Poe, on the other hand, was making a point that there are not strong enough ethical safeguards built around these ideas. This brings us to the next idea. PERVERSITY. This is the total domination of evil. The narrator is tempted and knows that it is bad but still wants to do it. Something in the self is drawn to this destructiveness of everything. The narrator says on page 232: "...I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart-one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?" Holy Mackerel! Is Poe suggesting that there are parts in each and every one of us that refuses to be controlled? That we can't trust the self because we can't even fully capture it all?!! Scary idea Poe!!! He continues with this idea that these bad things that we want to do we need to be weary of. We also need to be weary of the self-reliant philosophy. Hmm...About that...To finish up with The Black Cat, we also thought of how this perversity, or finding pleasure in the violence that the piece of self exercises, is a type of enslavement. This is not freedom. The narrator turns against his own pleasures and abuses what he loves by exercising his own power over...His cat...His wife. The narrator in this short story is clearly insane, and yet, he embraces his insanity and perverseness.

On Thursday we discussed another short story of Poe's: Ligeia. I adore this piece. Before getting into deep class discussion we teamed up and went around campus, asking random people if they thought that love conquered all. Most people said NO. Wow. Thank you for that dash of cold water!!! How depressing. I felt like I should find a carton of Ben&Jerry's cookie dough ice cream, a pillow, and a bunch of chick flicks with this "unrealistic" love being conquered nonetheless. Is Poe suggesting in Ligeia that love conquers all, including death?!! Conquest doesn't have to be an ugly thing? The narrator in this short story has a love that is so dangerous!!! He is extremely obsessed with Ligeia. This obsessive, unhealthy, domineering love is one of great excess. The narrator also views Ligeia as an object. His love for her like that of idolatry. Their love is greater than God?!! Isn't God love?!! Hmm... It was also mentioned in class that it seemed as if he was making her up!!! I agree 100%. He can't remember many things about her (like her last name), other than her general appearance and how she made him feel. At the beginning of the story he even says: "I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia (26)." Umm...most people normally remember when they they first meet someone, especially if they have a very close relationship later. Another great point was made: the love and obsessing was less about her and more about the feelings were brought up in the narrator when he thought of her. Once more we come across this idea of PERVERSITY. He wants what is not good for him. The narrator wants these feelings of pleasure. However, simultaneously these feelings are undoing the self. It could also be seen as Ligeia being the perverse character, demanding that he love her, worship her, etc. Does one character have more control or power over the other? Or do they both have some kind of power?

So...Poe...I can't really say if he had a poor character or not. But I'd have to disagree with Holland when it comes to his work having no value. Poe's material is full of the explorations of the psyche and the dark things that may live there. I think that Holland and the people of his time found Poe's work to be frightening and were not able to understand. Therefore, they concluded that his character as well as his work were without any value. Poe today, however, is a most interesting character. Although all his material is bleak, dark, and downright scary, I still appreciate his interest and artistic ability as a writer. Especially, the exploration of the truth and reality of the insane. So, my dearest Mr. Holland, you might have thought Poe's work nothing but trash, but nowadays it seems to give possibilities to the endless questions of the mind that we cannot answer.

Holland, J.G. Every-Day Topics. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1882.