What I Am About

For most mainstream white Americans in the first half of the 19th century (as well as other times in our history), the notion of personal autonomy has been more of a question of degree.  That is, how much control does one have over one's own life, rather than does one have control over one's own life.  The answer to that question often hinged on money--more money, more freedom to do what you please.  We may value autonomy and individualism as abstract moral concepts, but to a degree--perhaps even a great degree--they are also economic concepts. 

For Frederick Douglass, however, personal autonomy was more straightforward.  As a slave, he had none, at least none that was recognized socially, politically or culturally.  His autobiography, then, functions differently than most autobiographies generated in American literature at this time.  A typical American autobiography presented the writer as an exemplum, an example of how a life should be lived in order to achieve moral and social standing.  Probably one of the best, and most popular examples of this would be Ben Franklin's autobiography.  But Franklin's readers had fundamental ways with which to identify with Franklin--they shared a culture and the values intrinsic to that culture.  Douglass had no such advantage.  For one thing, most of Douglass's readers were white, and lived in the North--there was no possible way these readers could empathize with Douglass or even begin to understand the circumstances of his life. 

This writer-reader problem is further exacerbated by the fact that for many white Americans, race and slavery were separate issues.  In our time we would struggle with this notion, but at the time Douglass wrote his Narrative one could be vehemently opposed to slavery, yet believe that Blacks were fundamentally inferior to whites.  (Though there were whites who both opposed slavery and disdained the concept of racial inferiority.)  Slavery was a human rights issue; racial hierarchies were a social issue rooted in biology.  The more contemporary idea that race itself is culturally constructed was an idea not available to Americans in the early 19th century.  (Though Melville comes close to articulating that idea in his novella, Benito Cereno.)

Common Illustration in Abolitionist Texts

Douglass also had to contend with readers doubting the authenticity of his text.  Douglass's narrative is one of hundreds of slave narratives written from about 1830 - 1865.  Slave narratives typically detailed the experiences of that author in slavery.  Their primary purpose was not literary; their primary purpose was political: to bring about the end of slavery.  Since most of the slaves who published their stories had little or no formal education (and often could not simply read or write), they needed what were called amanuenses--educated whites, typically abolitionists, who would edit or ghost-write the story.  As you can probably figure out, slavery apologists would point to this relationship as reason to doubt the credibility of the slave's story.  How does one know that the abolitionist didn't simply write the whole thing and slap a slave's name onto the text?  That's why you'll commonly see attached to the slave narratives documents certifying the authenticity of the text.  If you look at the beginning of Douglass's narrative, you'll see a letter from Wendell Phillips and a preface by William Lloyd Garrison--two culturally powerful whites.  The purpose of these documents is to let readers know that they can trust the information Douglass presents.  The hard truth is that without these documents, many readers would have seen Douglass's work as a work of fiction.

It also didn't help Douglass that he was a superbly skilled writer.  While most narrators simply related facts, Douglass uses stylistic embellishment, metaphor and symbolism, imagery, literary references--stuff that white readers would not have thought Black writers were capable of using.  As long as Black writers restricted themselves to facts, they would be fine, but the racial perceptions of the time suggested that Blacks were incapable of higher acts of imagination.  Douglass's skill, then, also brought the authenticity of the text into question, since readers could not fathom a relatively uneducated Black man being this skilled with language.

Frederick Douglass

And yet ... this was an extremely popular book, one of the best sellers of its day.  (As a whole, the slave narratives were popular.)  So in spite of all the obstacles, Douglass managed to establish a connection to his readers.  The parts of the narrative I asked you to read hopefully show you how extraordinary this was.  The first part, what I'll call Douglass's Creation Story, immediately announces to the reader why and how he is different.  Douglass begins by separating himself from his readers, not by making a connection to them.  The second part deals with a particularly touchy issue at this time--slave violence.  Little terrified whites, both South and North, more than the possibility of a slave uprising.  That's why Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion reverberated through the nation, and why Thoreau's defense of John Brown is noteworthy. 

So my question is simply how do you think he is able to do this?  Or to ask the question in a more complex way, how is Douglass able to exploit revolutionary concepts of individualism, autonomy and natural rights to establish common ground with his readers?

Bad Girl, Bad Girl, What You Gonna Do?

In a couple of ways Foster's novel The Coquette (of which you have an excerpt) falls into some fairly common literary traditions.  First, the novel takes an epistolary form--the narrative is told through a series of letters--which is a novel form that goes back to the 17th century and the works of a writer named Aphra Behn.  The epistolary form was popular during much of the 18th century, though beginning to fade by the time of The Coquette.  (Typical American writer--late to the party.)

Second, and more interesting given the themes of The Coquette, is the novel's association with the "seduced and abandoned" story line, a story line common to sentimental romance novels.  The seduced-and-abandoned story is fairly simple: a young woman is seduced by an unscrupulous man (sometimes older, usually wealthy or at least having some social status); she believes his promises of love and marriage, gets pregnant, is cast aside (the abandoned part) and lives out the rest of her life in moral ruin.  If she's lucky, she dies, though death in these novels functions as a moral judgment.  The purpose of these novels, as you can probably guess, was cautionary, specifically to warn young women to keep their skirts on (literally and figuratively) until they could make a proper, moral marriage.  Yes, I know--why are the women getting stuck with these expectations?  Why isn't anyone telling the men to keep it in their pants?  The simple answer is that culturally (including American culture) women had long been regarded as the moral and spiritual centers of the family and of society.  A ruined woman threatened the stability of the family, and consequently, threatened the stability of the society in which she lived.  Often a religious justification would be offered for this--if Eve had just been a carnivore, none of this would have happened.  The subtext of all this, of course, is that the ones best served by these perceptions were men.  It would be ridiculous to assume that men consciously conspired to invent this notion--as with most cultural values, this evolved over time.  Nevertheless, the seduced-and-abandoned model, to get all Marxist on you, was a cultural production that served to secure power with the dominant members of a culture.

The Coquette - James Wells Champney

However, I don't think it's quite so easy to say that Foster fits comfortably into this design, and that perhaps is what makes her novel worth considering.  What strikes me about this novel is not so much that Eliza is "irresponsible" in the conventional ways that we understand that term, but that she lives within a society that has no means to accommodate someone like her.  She lives in a society that defines relationships in rational terms; note how Mr. Boyer, who just oozes excitement, speaks about how he will pursue his courtship of Eliza: "I am in no danger, however, of becoming an enthusiastic devotee [of Eliza].  No, I mean to act upon just and rational principles."  Fair enough--but Eliza's society deems him the appropriate choice, despite that fact that he bears little in common with Eliza, who, as the man who will seduce and ruin her writes, is "apparently thoughtless of every thing but present enjoyment."

Illustration from The Art of Home-Making, by Margaret E. Sangster

To ask the question to get the discussion started, is whether this novel is a critique of rationality.  We've talked in other places about the significance of the concepts of reason and rationality in the development of individualism, but have not talked about potential dangers that lie in a culture devoted to reason.  I also wonder whether this novel is less a critique of the moral character of Eliza Wharton, and more a critique of a culture that can find no place for someone like her.

Just Plain Nuts

While American writers have created characters that have become iconic in the mainstream (e.g., Rip Van Winkle, who we'll see later), very few writers themselves have become cultural icons, at least enduring icons.  The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, for example, was the romanticist equivalent of a rock god when he wrote.  The house in which he lived was frequently besieged by an endless stream of visitors trying to catch a glimpse of or even meet him.  However, that fame was relatively short-lived.  The only writer, at least in the time frame that we're considering, who has had enduring popular cache is Edgar Allan Poe.  Many of his stories and even poems have been turned into movies--most of them pretty cheesy--and "The Raven" has made it to the gold standard of popular culture, The Simpsons.  His life itself has been the stuff of legends (and movies and tv shows), particularly the final few days of his life when he went on a business trip to Philadelphia and was found, 4 days later, wandering the streets of Baltimore, delirious and wearing clothes that were not his own.  As far as I can tell, to this day no one knows where he had disappeared to or how he came to be in the condition in which he was found.  (Poe died before he was lucid enough to explain; theories range from psychotic break to alien abduction.)  As a final testimony to Poe's grip on our cultural psyche, for over 50 years now someone--no one knows who--has left roses and cognac on Poe's grave on Poe's birthday.

"The Raven" on The Simpsons

Poe has also elicited extremes in the reactions to his literature.  Some consider him little more than a nineteenth century version of Stephen King--overblown, overpraised, excessive to the point of being a self-parody.  Others, like the French, consider him one of the greatest American writers we've produced (though they also think Jerry Lewis is a comic genius.  Go figure.) Poe would heartily concur with the French since, as he liked to point out to any poor soul who would listen, he indeed was the greatest.  (Poe was not above trashing other of his contemporaries, such as Hawthorne, in an effort to bulk up his own reputation.)  Such extreme reactions are quite appropriate given the extremeness of his literature.  He is the X-Games equivalent of American Literature.  He is much in line with what was being done by other romanticist writers in his focus on the inner life and heightened sensations and feelings.  But Poe takes that romanticist predilection to a degree that no other American writer does. Rather than simply write about the heightened sense of his characters, he takes his characters to a liminal, uncertain world between sanity and madness.  That's where Poe's juice comes from--that twilight place betwixt and between where one is not really sure what's real and what's not.  Poe's stories, then, tend to be disorienting to readers, particularly when he narrates from the first person point of view, as is the case with "The Tell-Tale Heart."  Combine these elements with Poe's fondness for a supernatural context (though note he does not write ghost stories), and he is able to create a truly idiosyncratic American literature.

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is nothing short of brilliant.  It represents Poe at his best, to a large degree because although excess and obsession are still integral to the story, here he shows a restraint and control that he rarely ever has.  This is also brilliant because it is perhaps his most unsettling story.  Throughout the story there are elements of it that are elusive.  Who is the old man?  What is the relationship between the two?  Is the narrator insane?  After all, he claims not to be.  But if he is, then why do we believe anything he tells us?  There are answers we should have but don't, reasons we should know but don't.  Consequently as readers we may feel a vague, persistent unease as we move through the narrative.  Although we conveniently sometimes refer to Poe as a horror writer, he in fact is a terror writer.  The difference?  Horror is about revulsion after the fact; terror is about dread before the fact.

Let's start with two questions, though they may actually be two sides of the same question.  First, Poe commonly tells his stories from a first-person point of view.  He likes to drop his readers into the minds of his protagonists.  What effect or impact does the first-person narration have upon this particular story?  Second, the writer insists he is not mad.  Your thoughts on that?  There are interesting ramifications to the story depending upon how you answer this question.

Who Was That Masked Man?

In one basic pattern, Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" revisits familiar territory for the author.  As is the case in a number of his stories, including "Young Goodman Brown," "The Birth-Mark" and The Scarlet Letter, "The Minister's Black Veil" features a relatively young man who holds himself to what most would regard as impossibly high standards, leading to the destruction or devastation of his relationships, including romantic relationships.  Here the Reverend Hooper alienates his neighbors, his congregation and his fiancee Elizabeth out of some sense of moral duty (though in classic Hawthornian fashion, it's never really clear why he does what he does). 

No wonder, then, that readers can commonly struggle with Hawthorne's protagonists, because the reality is that for the most part we are a lot closer to the characteristics of the masses against which his heroes stand, than we are to the hero himself.  As we have seen in other stories of Hawthorne, the confrontation between the needs of the community and the needs of the self drive the narrative.  While as a culture we may wax poetic over the value of the individual, Hawthorne seems to be pondering how much of that is lip service.  In characters like Hooper, Hawthorne creates what we might call the Individualist Extreme, one who places greater weight on a personal code than on the codes that govern a society.  We tend to admire this--abstractly.  But Hooper not only defies social codes, he illuminates their hypocrisy.

As I've indicated in other places, though, Hawthorne is never that easy.  Sure, we can admire Hooper for having a moral code and sticking to it unswervingly, but whether he likes it or not, his individual actions reverberate into the community and affect others, most especially Elizabeth.  To put it another way, his need to punish himself leads to causing pain to others, even if it's unintentional.  Furthermore, for a man who wants to be secretive about what he's done, he sure is good at calling attention to himself.  If the point was to assuage himself of his own guilt (for whatever), how in the world does wearing a veil keep his act of penance private?  And since he won't tell anybody what he's done, how do we know that he's not being over-dramatic just to call attention to himself?  So where exactly is the line between individualism and narcissism, and does Hooper cross that line? 

Still, his comment to Elizabeth, that if she really loved him his veil would make no difference, is ... reasonable.  And if the congregation genuinely appreciated him his veil would make no difference, is also ... reasonable.  As I said, nothing is easy with Hawthorne.

Learning to Speak in a Rude Tongue

If the Age of Reason provided fertile ground for the growth of the concept of the individual, the Age of Romanticism--a period of American literature that includes our next several, and spans roughly from the late 18th century to the beginning of the Civil War--harvested that concept .

Romanticist writers represent what we can call our first truly American writers.  Previous to Romanticism, American literature was typically anything but.  For the most part our writers simply imitated traditional British literature.  the poet Walt Whitman would be so frustrated by the complacency and unoriginality of American literature that in a letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson he would confront America, asking 

America, grandest of lands in the theory of its politics, in popular reading, in hospitality, breadth, animal beauty, cities, ships, machines, money, credit, collapses quick as lightning at the repeated, admonishing, stern words, Where are any mental expressions from you, beyond what you have copied or stolen? Where the born throngs of poets, literats, orators, you promised? Will you but tag after other nations?...  Strangle the singers who will not sing you loud and strong. Open the doors of The West. Call for new great masters to comprehend new arts, new perfections, new wants. Submit to the most robust bard till he remedy your barrenness. Then you will not need to adopt the heirs of others; you will have true heirs, begotten of yourself, blooded with your own blood.  (To read the entire letter, click here.)

The growth of the concept of the individual would first of all encourage the particular idiosyncrasy of American writers.  More importantly, though, it would encourage writers to examine the internal lives of their characters (a hallmark of romanticist literature) within an American context.  Romanticist writers developed a more intense sense of the individual.  Feelings and intuitions, the shadows of who we were at our darkest and most private moments, became the stuff of literature.  The individual becomes its own frame of reference for what was right and wrong, an idea that leads to some of the most intense conflicts in Romanticist literature.  Mostly, though, our war of independence not only separated us politically from England, but also separated us ideologically.  Hard on the heels of political independence came the questions about what made us (America) distinct, what made us not-England, what was our particular identity?  (And of course, the notion of identity owes much to the Age of Reason.) 

These questions also arose out of the extraordinary changes occurring in our national landscape.  By the middle of the 19th century, for example, transportation had improved significantly enough that we not only began to become a more mobile nation, but new lands were opening up for the taking.  We had also seen a significant increase in immigrants who were in the process of transforming this nation from a cozy "private club" into a sprawling, complex nation (which Whitman would laud).  Moreover, we were becoming a more industrialized nation, which would help transform our identity from an agrarian nation that celebrated self-sufficiency.  The question, then of who we were carried no easy answer with it, because we were so much.  The changes wrought by the Revolution were good and necessary--but they carried a price too.

To open some discussion about these changes and about the values dear to Romanticist, I've included two paintings below, both from the Romanticist period.  The first is a painting called The Oxbow by Thomas Cole, painted in 1836.  The second is called Kindred Spirits, by Asher Durand, painted in 1849.  Both paintings represent a number of different, and even conflicting values, that were in the air during the early to mid-19th century.  So what seem to be the values that emerge from each of these paintings?

The Oxbow - Thomas Cole (1836)

Kindred Spirits - Asher Durand (1849)

 

Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap - George Caleb Bingham (1850 - 51)

A Man Who Chose Not to Live in Quiet Desperation

Few writers have had as profound an impact on American culture as Henry David Thoreau, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that he has had a profound impact on the world.  Not too shabby for a goofy heir to a pencil-making fortune.  His signature work, Walden, has been a bible for those who love nature and scorn the assorted destructions of progress, industry and civilization.  A simple two word sentence from Walden--"Simplify, simplify"--has become iconic.  The work I've asked you to read, "On Civil Resistance," helped to change the world.  While Thoreau did not invent the concept, he articulated the process of civil disobedience and consequently created what stands as one of the greatest political manifestos ever written.  Mohandas Gandhi cited Thoreau as an influence in the civil resistance movement that ultimately freed India from British rule.  Closer to home, Martin Luther King, Jr. explicitly cited Thoreau as an inspiration in the development of the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Thoreau's refusal to accept a role as a cog in the machinery of government and society has helped define him as the ultimate individualist.  It didn't hurt his reputation either that he was socially awkward and introverted, and often perceived by his neighbors as one who was, at best, within hailing distance of normal.  HIs efforts at finding even a romantic companion were thwarted not only by his personality, but by his looks.  By the standards of the day he was regarded as physically unattractive.  A story about him--perhaps apocryphal--is that he once wanted to court a woman he was fond of, only to have her tell him that she would rather hold hands with a twig.  (On the other hand, his friends, such as Hawthorne and Emerson, found him sweet, a brilliant and spiritual man.  Thoreau frequently played with Hawthorne's children, who apparently were quite fond of him.)

But don't be misled by this picture of a loner individualist.  Indeed, Thoreau was very much the individualist.  But his goal was not to lay out a plan for how to isolate oneself from one's society, but instead to figure out how an individual can engage in meaningful social action and change.  Even in Walden, Thoreau never advocates retreat as a permanent response to society.  Thoreau believed that one did have power as an individual, but because, as he writes, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," it was difficult to wake up to one's own power and affect change.  Perhaps more importantly, Thoreau was attempting to provide a means of power to the disenfranchised.  If you are not a significant member of society, where do you get power?  His night in jail attempts to answer that question: your power comes from your refusal to do something.  (Sound familiar?)  (By the way, Thoreau ended up spending only one night in jail because his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson bailed him out.)

                                                               Reconstruction of Thoreau's Cabin at Walden Pond

One question to think about with Thoreau has to do with his advocating that one refuse to vote.  That would seem to counter everything we believe as a culture about the significance of voting.  How can Thoreau lay claim to having any kind of say in the direction of this country if he's refusing to participate in a fundamental aspect of the democratic process?

A second question centers around his rather blunt--and even disrespectful--comments about the government.  We know he advocates resistance.  Is he advocating the destruction of governement?  Is it possible to have a society full of Thoreaus and still have a functioning society?

For those interested, as I mention in my comment, here is a link to Throeau's speech, "A Plea for Captain John Brown."

Life, Liberty and What?

In our culture, there is no document more central to our reverence for the individual than the Declaration of Independence.  The crucial line, "We hold these truths to be self-evident," is in itself a manifesto for how humans were perceived in the Age of Reason:  truth was available to every individual, and not the privilege of a special few.  "Self-evident" simply means that one did not need an authority figure--say, clergy or government--to dole out the truth to the ignorant.  By virtue of being a sentient human being, an individual had the capacity to learn the truth for himself or herself.

This was Natural Law, as opposed to the laws made by institutions.  Now Thomas Jefferson (the primary author of the document) was not suggesting that man-made laws were irrelevant; rather, he was asserting that Natural Law trumped human law.  Human law did matter--but only when it illuminated and complemented Natural Law.  If human law contradicted Natural Law, well, then you have reason for--revolution.

     Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson, however, was hardly working in a vacuum when he composed this document.  In fact, the Declaration of Independence articulates fundamental principles that were abounding during the Age of Reason.  The notion that all men were created equal was not new to Jefferson or the Declaration.  The concept that a government can only work through the consent of the governed, and when the governed did not give their consent, they had the right and duty to rebel, basically restates John Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1689).  In fact, much of the Declaration--including some of Jefferson's phrasings--borrow substantially from Locke's writings about government and society in the 17th century.

However, there is a significant change that Jefferson makes in the Declaration that sets that document apart, and depending upon one's point of view, has brought much delight or much dismay to the American experiment.  One of Locke's more famous quote forms the basis for one of the most famous quotes from the Declaration; as Locke wrote, “Man... hath by nature a power.... to preserve his property - that is, his life, liberty, and estate [my emphasis] - against the injuries and attempts of other men.”  Unless we've been living in a closet, if we're American we should recognize two of the three elements of that trilogy.  And again notice that like Jefferson, Locke asserts that our power comes "by nature," not by human law.  So Jefferson clearly knows his Locke (no surprise, considering he was one of the smartest and most well-read people in our entire history).  But Jefferson also diverts from Locke in one meaningful way--he substitutes "pursuit of happiness" for "estate."


So there are two questions I'd like you to think about regarding the Declaration of Independence.  First, what do you think is the significance of adding a phrase about the pursuit of happiness to our revolutionary document?  The issue was not so much what Jefferson thought of property (he was for it), but that somehow he (and the others who signed the document) believed there was something important about codifying the right to pursue happiness.

                                                                            Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence                                                                                           

Second, we all are familiar with the phrase "all men are created equal," and as I've said, that's not a concept original to Jefferson.  We also know that these words exist in a document written while institutionalized slavery was quite prevalent in this country.  (We may or may not know that Jefferson had originally included language outlawing slavery, but removed it in order to get the pro-slavery signers to sign.  Even without their signatures, Jefferson still would have had a majority, but he believed the Declaration would be effective only if he had unanimity.)  The knee-jerk response is that Jefferson was simply a hypocrite.  But can you think of ways in which the existence of slavery could be justified (or perhaps the better term is rationalized) in a nation which declares in writing that all men are created equal?