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English Final Notes

Terms in this set (79)

How does the title, "Cacoethes Scribendi" relate to the story?
She just keeps writing even when she needs to stop but it's an unsurpassable want to write. She writes anything and everything no matter what it is or if it is improper. She writes every aspect of the lives that are around her no matter if they are inappropriate or not.
In the opening paragraphs of "Cacoethes Scribendi," what are we given to understand about the lives of village women in America? What, apparently is the destiny of women?
Very boring life because they are just waiting around for one particular guy waiting to come into town. The men are in Boston out working. They sat around doing "housewife" things. The destiny of women is to get married and possibly have a family ("domestic angel")
Write a list of the many superior attributes of Ralph Hepburn that make him so popular with the young women. What can we make of this as satire?
Kind, good humor, intelligent, good looking, toned, good visual artist (sketching), good writer, musically talented, good fisherman, made a violin (good at woodwork), good farmer, makes his own farm tools, has a good traditional values, he's humble, he domesticated squirrels.
On page 669 and 670, we learn about Mrs. Courland hearing the call of authorship. How does this affect her sisters and her daughter? Why is a "blue stocking" a disparagement?
The sister's start writing and get published but Alice, who is probably best writer out of all of them, doesn't want to make her private life known to the public. Women authors are typically referred to as a blue stocking in a negative way.
How does young Courland unknowingly become "famous" the first time? How the second time?
The first time she is written about by her aunts and her mother and they wrote about her life which made her famous the first time. Now when she walks through town she feels as though she has lost some of her privacy and that people in town were watching her and whispering about her when she walks by but she is unaware as to why. She does not know that her mother and aunts are writing about her.
Mrs. Courland: "...you have no idea how easy writing is."
Alice Courland: "Easy writing, but hard reading, aunt."
Why might Alice be right? Why would Mrs. Courland, nevertheless, always find a market for her work?
She is saying that her aunt is not thinking about her arrangement of the writing and is just throwing stuff down. There is a ready market for any kind of art emerging from America. the idea is that if you throw enough spaghetti at the wall some of it will stick. Literacy rates have been increasing, middle class has been growing, technology has gotten better so it has gotten easier to publish and print things, people have more leisure time.
List the evidence in "To Sir Toby" that this poem was written during the age of Enlightenment.
abolition arose from the Enlightenment thinking; mythology allusions; written in heroic couplets
List the evidence in "The Indian Burying Ground" of the myth of the Nobel Savage.
1. the old ideas aren't gone
2. in spite of all the learned have said: glorifying the way they treat the dead based on the way the new people do "air of nobility"
3. Indian queen: he compares this Indian Queen to a biblical reference. He is recognizing her as a person where they used to not be recognized as people but instead as savages.
4. Ruder race: referring to either race. You have to look at it from both angles Native: sees them in a noble light but still calls them a ruder race.
How is Nature portrayed in "The Wild Honey Suckle? What does it indicate about the persona's view of life, the universe, and everything?
1. the title of the poem is a plant
2. the entirety of the poem is about nature
3. uses eloquent language
4. spiritual connection with nature than with a divine person
5. progression of honey suckles existence from birth to death (spring to winter)
6. View of universe: life is delicate like a flower in the scope of everything
7. For when you die you are the same: biblical reference ashes to ashes dust to dust
8. Romanticized view of the world
Why is there this sudden interest in preserving Native American culture?
They are no longer a threat; they are a distinct difference maker between Europe and America
What evidence in the story of Mishosha indicates the likely influence of Judeo-Christian culture and an apparent change in native attitudes toward the environment.
First Native Americans see themselves as equal with the land where as the boy in this story is telling the animals and the land what to do which is more like the attitude of the settlers that first came to the land and view the land as something to be dominated. In the fight of the magician he says "you were given to me by God in order for us to eat." which reflects a change in their attitude of their environment. In the Native story of the boy not respecting nature the lady reduced him to nothing but dust. He was the evil one for not respecting the land.
From where does the magician Mishosa appear to get his power? AS a story of generational change, what is this story saying?
He gets his power from nature. he makes all the sacrifices to nature so that nature will give him something in return. Power is located in nature in the case of the old man he is sacrificing to nature to get power which represents the old view of nature (wrong view). The young man represents the appropriate use of nature.
Using evidence from the text, explain the thesis of Apess' essay.
If you are going to count up the sins of the skins then there is probably more sin residing on white skin. All people of all races are equal in the eyes of God and should be equal in the eyes of men but they are not.
Myth of Noble Savage
Basic Belief: because Native Americans are removed from the trappings and evil influence of civilization and live in nature and are in contact with God. Europe is in decay, we are blessed to be in America where we are going to start over and get it right this time. We separated ourselves from God. When they get to America and see the Natives frolicking around they thought the new world was the New Eden where Adam and Ever were and God walked with them. In this way the Natives must be closer to God than the Europeans were.
Contradiction: they should treat the noble, close to God people, with respect instead of calling them the names they called them in all their writings. They don't call them these things anymore because they aren't viewed as threats anymore and the relationship between the natives and the new people changes.
On page 764,what does Apess suggest is the underlying fear of Euro-Americans? How is his closing argument similar to Equiano's?
he is afraid if they don't keep the Native's under control then the Native men are going to come after the white women. Protecting the sexuality of white people which is why they are resisting the women's suffrage movement. His argument is similar to Equiano's because he is referring to white Christians.
How does Apess allude to the Myth of the Noble Savage on page 761? How does it support his overall argument?
If you are a Christian then your religion won't support this and if you believe in the Myth of the Noble Savage then this doesn't make sense either.
In the opening lines, whom does the persona suggest that Nature will talk to?
People who have a love of nature. You have to like nature enough to want to get out and look at her. Using communication in a non religious sense. You have to be able to spend some time and deliberate
"She has a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty; and she glides into his darker musings, with a mild and healing sympathy that steals away their sharpness ere he is aware."
What is Bryant saying about nature in his poem "Thanatopsis?" How is this different from the Puritan or from the Enlightenment views of nature?
Puritans: it is a wilderness and a place to be feared.
Enlightenment: nature is to be studied; scientific view
Bryant: Nature is a beautiful thing to be enjoyed; has a therapeutic quality. Not something to be feared; not wilderness; not interested in nature scientifically; he is looking at it in a therapeutic view romanticized view of nature (a lot of emotional content); focus on the beautiful parts of nature; not a lot of talk about the ugly parts of nature (dead animals on the ground) but instead focus on the parts that are beautiful and make you feel good.
If "Thanatopsis" is a poem that offers consolation on the subject of death, then what is it saying that could be construed as comforting? Give examples please.
It's not just you that nature has a grudge against; everyone goes through it. Compares death to going to sleep in a warm and cozy bed. Death is inevitable so there is no sense in worrying about it (don't worry about what you have no control over). What is his view in this poem of what follows death (question brought up in class) clearly a bit different than earlier views.
How does Bryant treat the themes of religion or spirituality in this poem? Are there examples in the text?
Talks about a "mysterious realm" could be talking about after life or could be interpreted in many different ways. "mix with the elements" other side of argument stating that there is not after life and the people mix with the elements of the Earth when they die and are buried. You are still going to be you when your body is gone and your soul has departed to the spirit in the sky. Sense of spirituality but not a sense of religious spirituality. In line 31 he states that "earth is eternal resting place."
What point in this poem might mark it as distinctively American
1. We want to be distinctively American and not copy European art
2. Not super feminine; we want to be manly
3. Harsh reality (in your face approach of death); doesn't beat around the bush but is instead very direct.
4. Nature/land/scenery/natives/slaves; talks about not going to your grave as a slave; main element in american art is scenery; esthetic qualities of nature; romanticism is happening in Europe at this time which is influencing the America's; (Tended to favor emotions over rationality; appeals to emotions to get you to do something (evoke something); interested in things metaphysical not grounded in one particular faith interested in spiritual matters though; European publishers are publishing Asian philosophy and test so these American writers are reading these works and incorporating these thoughts into their works and interpretations of the world); romantic movement hops over Atlantic and starts in America with a new twist; (focus on scenery [ornamentation for your grave and it's free]; death is a manly subject [in your face]; reference to slaves; Bryant says no matter how powerful you are or where you come from we all end up in the same place [death is the great leveler]; you will dies just like everyone else on the planet; there is no special treatment when it comes to death; there is not place you can go where someone has not died; the idea of death as a great leveler is not new but it takes a new idea; America is promoting democracy [democracy in Europe thought democracy in America cannot do anything great because it's just common people arguing until they find something they can agree on which won't be much]; Teleology: all things come to an end for some reason
"A race, that long has passed away, built them;-a disciplined and populous race heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek was hewing the pentelicus to forms of symmetry, and rearing on its rock the glittering Parthenon."
What is Bryant doing with these and the verses immediately following? Why is he doing it?
He is talking about mounds and the Mounds (Mississippi Indians) that build mounds were there before the Native American's he is with now. (2 races before Europeans got there 1. mound builders 2. red man) Why is he bringing Greece into this? He is saying that America has all the natural beauty, but we may not have the antiquity of the ancient Greeks but we have the antiquity of the ancient mound builders. This idea gives instant ancient antiquity equivalent of the antiquity of Europe.
"The red man came the roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce, and the mound-builders vanished from the earth."
What is the theory Bryant is bringing forward here? What are its implications?
The mound builders were here first (they were like agricultural people, musical people, make and use instruments, peaceful, lovely) and the red men were fierce, savage and warlike. The reason the mound builders aren't there anymore is because they were almost completely knocked out by the red men. When you encounter these red men, you are entitled to kill them because they are murderous people. The people that wiped them out are currently inhabiting the land so he is portraying the red men as land takers to make the new American's not look so bad for coming in a taking this land from them. Manifest Destiny: God has chosen these people to make a civilization on this continent
"I listen long to his domestic hum, and think I hear the sound of that advancing multitude which soon shall fill these deserts."
What is Bryant saying here? What element of American mythology is continuing to develop?
bees are humming (represents the Euro-Americans) bees are colonizing insects.
The idea of Manifest destiny is continuing to develop.
In what ways is Bryant using nature in his poem "The Prairies;" that is, what is he saying about the earth, spirituality, human beings, or other points by his references to nature?
He is taking what is clearly an advantage to say something distinct about America, scenery. He is using nature to explain it. Using it to symbolize a sublime; aesthetic effect of visualizing nature; symbolically to represent a history unfolding.
Why is written language so essential to the shaping of hearts and minds?
you are geographically able to share with people across distance and across time.
How is the Declaration of Sentiment an amplification of the American Declarations of Independence?
The DOI states that everyone is equal and boasts about equality (in the eyes of God) the DOS wants equality before the law and not just in the eyes of God
How is it an extension of Enlightenment principles?
Social Contract (give government permission to set laws and rules as long as you are able to participate in it) women were not allowed to participate because of the idea that women were less rational and more emotional than men.
"I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed."
What did it mean to be a woman in the early 19th century US?
No vote
Subject to laws without representation
curtailed civil liberties
civil death of the married woman ( when a woman married the laws assumed that her identity was consumed by the man's identity; all property you owned before you got married that land became your husbands land not shared)
occupational boundaries (jobs were considered inappropriate for women to have therefore they had less access to money so if you have less money it is hard to get freedom)
extremely limited access to higher education
double moral standards (women were held to a higher moral standard than men)
What are our assumptions or the expected conventions of memoirs and other forms of autobiographical writing?
Honesty ( the person's life story is told by this person)
Bias statements (want to make himself or herself look better)
How would we characterize the relations between the Sac and Fox Nations and the French, British, and Americans?
1. Father: refers to the leaders as a father as if they are going to be the ones providing for their people. Is he using the word father to identify their authority over their own people or is he referring to them as his provider?
2. Trading: animal stuff and popular fashion stuff; French have this thing for fashion and tend to acclimate themselves to the native environment like wearing buck skin when they were with the natives
They are playing the natives to try to "vote the other groups off the island" by making alliances with them to get the other ones out of the country. Like the show survivor. They saw the people as a group to help them get what they wanted at a time and to boot other groups out.
Where does the idea of manifest destiny originate?
John Winthrop's "The City Upon a Hill" idea; Puritan community in the 17th century
What does it mean to be "manifest"?
to show; when something is revealed to you; their Calvinist background and their underlying anxiety about whether or not they are saved or not; the revelation of God's will is the way we are using manifest in this text.
On pages 18 and 19, Blackhawk recounts the story of how his people's land was traded away. In light of this and the rest of his memoir, how is this a counter-narrative to that of Manifest Destiny?
4 drunk guys went to get someone out of jail and sign away the acres there people are living on. These people did not have the authority to do this. If Blackhawk had an idea of how real-estate worked he could have gotten that contract thrown out. These people had more guns and more people than the natives so they could get their way easily. it is not a very Godly thing to take land from people when you don't have the right to do so.
On page 23, Blackhawk is distinguishing between acts of conscience and acts of dogma (the principle laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true). What exactly is he saying about the distinction and how it applies to his situation?
The people who are forcing them off their land are governed by dogma whereas the natives are governed by conscience. The white settlers are not perspective of what to do. He and Mary Rowlandson are both wondering why their life is the way that it is. They both assume it is the Great Spirit that is manipulating the events in their lives.
What is Blackhawk saying or implying by the way he describes the different strategies of the Native American and the Euro-Americans in battle (p.31)?
The British and the Americans aren't as worried about saving their warriors but the Natives goal is to kill the enemy and save their own. Natives would do raiding parties (inflict damage, take hostages, kill enemies, then leave without having a lot of casualties) whereas the British and Americans would just stay there and continue fighting no matter how many men they lost
What is Blackhawk's point at the bottom of page 44 when he begins by stating that "[we] can only judge of what is proper and right by out own standard of right and wrong..."
There is a discrepancy between what white people would say something is ethical behavior and what they would actually do. the white people could act terribly their entire life and would say they were sorry for it in their last breath of life and everything would be fine but the Indians act in good ways all of their life.
What are Blackhawk's ideas about land and property on page 56? Discuss this in light of our earlier conversations about such cultural differences.
Land is not a commodity as the British and American's view it as. Land cannot be sold because he says that as long as we are here we have a right to use the land because it was provided by the Great Spirit
On pages 68 and 69, Blackhawk brings up the differing legal perceptions on the parts of the First Nations and the American settlers about the Fox revenge on the Menomonees and about the forced evacuation of the Sacs. How does this bear on the idea of the U.S. as a nation of laws. (If you are trying to create a nation with people who have so many differences and you try to make a law for them all to abide by what do you have to do to these laws to make sure this works?)
Founding fathers tried to create a concept of no matter what our differences are there should be enough similarity between the people for them to be able to share the same plot of land. Laws have to apply equally with no double standards. The Fox members that retaliated against the group that attacked them were asked to be handed over to the American court to be tried for murder. At this time Native Americans were not American citizens so technically they did not have the right to interfere with the rights and rituals of the Native Americans. Why was this such a big deal to the white fathers for them to try this group of natives that if went out and killed another group of natives? Sense of moral superiority, don't want things to escalate, in fear for their own sakes.
What are your thoughts regarding Blackhawk's plan for African Americans as laid out on pages 96 and 97?
he says that if you don't want people to reproduce then separate the males and females
The United States is creating its official narrative in the decades between its second constitution and its Civil War. How does Blackhawk's narrative fit in with this and how does it resist this?
Narrative: there is some remorse on his part but by the end of the narrative it seems as though he is conceding to the inevitable
Counter narrative: with Columbus or de Vaca's narratives
List the 3 influences that Emerson described affecting the American scholar and give examples. What are the 3 duties of this scholar?
1. Nature: nature is teacher that instructs individuals who observe the natural world to see how similar their minds and nature are. The first similarity is circular power found in nature and in the scholar's spirit. Order is another similarity between the scholar and nature. At first the mid views a chaotic and infinite reality of individual facts, but then it begins to classify these facts into categories, to make comparisons and distinctions. Person discovers nature's law and can understand them because they are similar to the operations of the intellect
2. The past: the influence of books. Books contain the learning of the past; however, he also says that these books pose a great danger. While it is true that books transform mere facts vital truth, biased by society's standards when it was written. Each generation should approach the past as if it were fresh and make its own judgments by it instead of being controlled by it
3. Physical labor: not acting is cowardly. Action is the natural duty of a thinking person (American focus)
What point is the short paragraph near the top of the page 818 making? How do you see this point fitting into the developing American culture at this time? Is there unintended irony present?
still beating the drum of his independent thought. Work is fir everyone. manual labor. Dignity is in labor of every citizen. Slaves, servants, peasants did labor in past, so the well of saw labor as something that is undignified. And Emerson comes around and said that dignity is in labor. This creates a cultural shift. Aphorism: any kind of statement that is thought to be the truth that is encapsulated in a short witty statement. The unintended irony: Emerson is an intellectual and is not a laborer so there is irony in this paragraph.
In the paragraph about "Man Thinking" on page 818, what particular qualities does Emerson suggest are needed in such a character?
1. Self trust: implying that a lot of people don't have trust in themselves. You wouldn't need self trust if you have dogma because the dogma has put forth something that is undoubtedly true. Emerson does not agree with this idea of not having to think because it has already been done for you with dogma.
2. Observant: to connect with nature
3. Make sacrifices: if you are going to be independent minded you're going to run into trouble because that is not what people want. They want you to conform. America should be the place with the freedoms to do their own thing and listen to their own voices.
"The world is his who can see through pretention. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance, by your sufferance." What does Emerson mean in this quotation? What contemporary historical circumstances might he have been thinking of?
Sufferance: to allow it
Where is he going to locating pretention, deafness, blind custom? In the church (dogma); people that are snobbish about class distinctions; Pst comes to us in laws like the laws of tradition and the laws that are being written down for us now; books; tradition
These things are not necessarily good they may be bad but if they are bad and they continue because it is because nothing has been done to stop it (slavery, indian removal, European cultural influence; universal suffrage
"Why according to Emerson, are [b]ooks the best of things, well-used; abused among the worst?" How would one well use or ill use a book
Books are the best access to ideas of the past and act as a guide (good use) If the book comes to take the place of your own conscience. If the ideas in the book become dogmatic (bad use)
"To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,--that is genius." p. 825
In the opening paragraph of "Self-Reliance," Emerson claims this as his thesis. How could this possibly be an accurate claim?
what if what is true would be harmful to other people? you are somehow connecting to the over soul so if everyone is tuned into the underlying truth. Where people disagree is that people aren't all tuned into the underlying truth
"God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." p.825 What is Emerson's point here?
Brave people are doing God's will and cowardly people don't do God's will. It is easier to conform because you won't get shunned or bullied and Emerson would call you a coward but if you are willing to go through the controversy and stand up for what you believe even if it isn't the popular belief then Emerson would call you brave.
"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of its members." p827
What does Emerson mean by this statement? How could it be so? How can "manhood" be retained or regained?
Society tends to give us a lot of rules and traditions to follow. This is Emerson's way of saying that society tends to tell us that "you don't need to ask yourself if what you are doing is right or not because we are telling you that it is" through tradition or rules set forth by society. To get back your "manhood" you have to reconnect with your conscience and listen to what it says and to follow what it says
"Good and bad are but means very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it." p.827
What are the implication of this claim? How might Emerson defend his position to the New England Puritans two centuries before him?
You are going to transcend to your conscience and your conscience is going to take you past what society has labeled as good and evil. This is the kind of stuff that would have him thrown out of the New England colonies.
"If, therefore, a man claims to know and speak of God and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe him not." p. 833
Why is Emerson skeptical here? In this essay, how does he propose people make correct moral and ethical decisions?
He is saying that if someone is quoting scripture to you to make you believe something that goes against your conscience then believe your conscience and not the scripture (old testament tells slaves to obey their masters)
On pages 837 to 840, Emerson lists four obstacles to self reliance. What are they and how are they obstacles?
1. Prayers: interferes with what a conscience may be
2. Traveling: relying on someone else's coverage
3. Self-culture: to know yourself and replace that with traveling to other cultures
4. Society
What is a contraband?
illegal substances/property
something that you have taken from someone else
refer to Robert as contraband which refers to him as property
Miss Dane discovers Robert's desire for revenge on his brother the captain and asks herself: "...the world offered him no honors, no success, no home, no love. What future would this crime mar?"
How does living in a culture of slavery and war and rap throw off measures of conventional morality?
There is a notion of living in a war time and during that time things are different in terms of morality because people are numb to things you would encounter in normal life. In a peaceful situation people are normally getting a long so if revenge by murder is done people freak out but in a war time with the same situation then people don't freak about this action as much as they would when times seem to be all peachy. Given that Robert's wife had been raped by his brother and that he had been enslaved by his father it makes it easier to sympathize with Robert. It would be different if his revenge was wanted against a person who had done nothing to him.
On page 1340, Robert strongly implies why Captain Fairfax hates him. Discuss the confused emotions and moral miscalculations that might process from all of this.
Rationalize and jealousy
Robert is rationalizing his want fot revenge, Fairfax is rationalizing, and Faith is rationalizing the implications of Robert committing this crime. Fairfax is jealous that Robert looks like his dad and of his luck with finding a wife. Fairfax is disturbed by the fact that Robert is in the eyes of the law a slave and looks more like his father than he does. Which shows the rest of the world that his father was raping/sleeping with his slaves (crossing racial lines, been and adulterer) Fairfax raping Robert's wife may be a way of getting back at Robert.
Referring to any of the relevant texts we have read this semester, including "The Brothers," discuss what a moral environment is and what these writings suggest about it.
Environment: the stuff around you; culture and traditions around you
Cultures and traditions that influence your morality then it is a moral environment
People are using the Bible to try to figure out what to do and how to act in certain situations
Faith spends most of the story trying to prevent people from dying (on the side of life) wants to cure rather than kill. She tries to make Robert more of a person who is aware of his identity. She wants to talk him out of murdering Fairfax. She was more concerned about what would happen to Robert if he murdered Fairfax, because of what would happen to him legally since he just gained his freedom, concerned about what would happen to his soul, trying to be a moral compass to Robert. She is trying to establish what moral actions are in respect to everyone.
Referring to any relevant texts we have read this semester, including "The Brothers," discuss how the development of the idea of America has revolved around the axis of individual liberty
Harriet Jacobs: whole jist of her story is that she is trying to get free and bring her family back together.
Puritans: religious freedom from Europe
Persistent theme from the very beginning
Alcott: her father made a lot of tours of western territories when his daughters got older which meant he was out of the house a lot. So she had to look after her sisters because her mother wasn't well. She volunteered as a nurse during the civil war where she contracted Typhoid Fever and had to go back home. The treatment during this time was to give the patient mercury (poison). She got over Typhoid Fever, but then suffered from mercury poisoning. Walk Whitman was also volunteering as a nurse during the war. For Alcott and Whitman seeing this very physical of the crisis of the country shaped the rest of their literary outcome.
"...I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's not trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's war." p. 1114
What is the man with the walking stick saying here and how does it introduce a central theme in the story?
Guy in the woods has a snake staff that looks like it is moving; King Philip's war is found in Rowlandson's work too; The people he thought were so good were actually evil because the guy in the woods says that he knows his family. In his critique of his own ancestors Puritan past: he had the rug pulled out from under him because he thought what he was doing was bad and was saying that his family would be ashamed of him because of what he was going to do but then the guy with the staff tells him that his family was actually bad by saying that he had been with his family in the past. He is pointing out the hypocrisy: there was a puritan community that wanted to make themselves pure but the things they were doing to make themselves religiously pure were not pure.
"...still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil." p.1118
"The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man." p.1119
What is the narrator suggesting in likes like these? How is this point of view similar to the Puritans? How might it be different?
There is evil in someone and it is more threatening then when the evil is out in the open; the influence is not as bad as the action; evil looks worse when people are doing evil things than when it is personified in the idea of the devil; idea that people are inherently evil (Calvinist idea)
How are the wilderness and the native Americans living in it depicted in this story? In what sense are all the people in the story represented as equal?
The place of evil. Where they are having pagan rituals. Where premarital sex (Scarlet Letter). If you are doing evil things you must do them in the wilderness where evil things happen. Native American priests are at the place of the Pagan Rituals when he gets there. It is counter to the idea of the native american's are the other ones the evil ones were in this story they are part of the evil conspiracy that is going on between the Native American priests and the puritan leader's practicing these Pagan rituals. They are all equally participating in the evil ceremony in the woods.
"There," resumes the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping assembly." p.1120 Hawthorn had always been interested in the nature of sin- what it was, what its effect was, why out preoccupation with it, and what the effects of our preoccupation might be. What does a passage like this, in the context of the whole story suggest about Hawthorne's thoughts on the subject?
Goodman Brown's generation has looked upon their ancestors as being really holy and held them at such a high religious standard. he has been comparing his holiness to his ancestors. Man with the staph is saying that this generation hasn't back slid but they were in fact always an evil group of people. Sin might be hypocrisy sin seems to be something that originates by human nature then humans are the one criticizing sin
How is this story religious allegory (story with 2 or more levels of meaning: literal and figurative?
his wife's name is faith; starts out as a man who leaves his "faith" to go into the woods so he abandons his faith only to later see "faith" in the woods so his "faith" abandoned him.
What transcendentalist ideas might it contain?
antidogmatic
How is this story cultural criticism
criticizing the contemporary times where people are labeling what is good and what is evil
How is this story about individual psychology?
it lets us see the effects of dogmatism, sin, the effects good and evil have on the person; Goodman Brown ends up being skeptical of everything at the end of the story
What is our understanding of Blackhawk's view of his home when considered the context of the early Native American origin and creation stories?
he seems patriotic; they both think the great spirit gave them the land; he has a memoir
Compare William Apess's point in his essay "An Indian's Looking Glass for the White Man" with those made in Blackhawk's memoir. Where and why are their perspectives similar or different, and what does this comparison say about respectability politics?
They both try to bring out the contradictions the American society has towards Native Americans; How can you call yourself a Christian and do these things to people; all people are equal in the eyes of God but not necessarily the eyes of man; his audience was white people; Blackhawk's audience was native americans at some points in the book but he is also trying to reach this other culture.
How does Blackhawk's memoir affect our reading of Phillip Freneau's "The Indian Burying Ground" and William Cullen Bryant's "The Prairies?"
Puts a face to the Indian burial ground because Blackhawk talks about how he doesn't want to leave the place where his ancestors were buried. So after reading this and Blackhawk it makes you feel a little more for the Native American's having to leave their ancestors; Blackhawk brags about what he has accomplished.
using evidence from the text, describe Blackhawk's character or personality
1. Arrogant: bragging about all of his accomplishments
2. he doesn't hate all white people just the bad ones
3. Determined: war story circle
4. good friend for avenging his friend's son's death
What is Roderick Usher's state of mind (what symptoms does he display) and how is he trying to improve it
He is crazy; talk of incest between him and his sister; he paints and plays the guitar to deal with his anxiety (artistic therapy); he is a hypochondriac
What is that poem in the middle of the story about if we read it allegorically?
This place used to be a nice place but now it is creepy; describes essentially what is going to happen; foreshadowing what will be revealed to the narrator about the sister; the poem revels that Roderick seems to be afraid of being afraid
On page 1178, the narrator describes one of Roderick's paintings. What does it appear to represent? What may it reveal about the artist and what does it add to the story?
it si a conceptualization of a tomb of some sort; it reveals Roderick's fear that he is trapped and has a fear of being buried alive
How does the narrator affect our opinions about the environment of the story? How does his environment appear to affect Roderick?
The narrator gives details to scare the audience; we know that his mental health isn't the greatest; the narrator gives inside details to make everything spookier
In the climatic scene, how do we explain the apparent return of Madeline?
She was probably not alive since she was locked up really well and buried alive; she was either a hallucination or a ghost.
"I had walked but a few paces when the consciousness of being free and alone struck me"
What is remarkable about Margaret Hull's observation? How does this affect her observations of space around her in that paragraph
she feels stuck in her class; she notices the first time she is free and alone because it is the first time in the story that she makes a decision for herself instead of doing whatever she is told to do by her aunt. Her perspective on life changes and she sees the things around her in a different view because her Aunt isn't there breathing down her back and making her see things the way she wants them to see them
"Every person's individuality was sacred to me, from the fact, perhaps, that my own individuality had never been respected by any person with whom I had any relation-not even my own mother." To put this statement in context,w hat changes are happening in American culture between the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars? (Social, political, economic, religious, scientific perspectives should be considered.)
this is the time where women's rights were being fought for (woman's suffrage); abolition of slavery; the men tell you when to do everything
What are we to make of Margaret's epiphany at the end of the story? What does it suggest has happened? How does she feel about her husband?
She realizes that she is in a marriage of convenience instead of passion. She states that he is a scandal. He only took the job so he could work the case and get Eliza the money and he would also get a fair share of money for his law firm. She hates him when she realizes that he has been controlling her
Why does Margaret's Aunt Aliza say, "It is only my part to see that she is, or is not, Cinderella?" Does this shed light on why she asked for Margaret to come with her to Newport?
She is saying that she is the one who is going to decide whether or not he ends up with Margaret so he has to go through her to get to Margaret; she asked Margaret to come to be a bargaining chip
What is your opinion of Aunt Eliza? Id she a woman negotiating her freedom in a patriarchal world? Is she a villain? To what extent can we attribute her actions, and thus her accountability, to her alone and to what extend to her moral environment?
she is conniving, weird, controlling, smart; she used Margaret 100% by not only dangling her in front of the lawyer but then she gave her to him; she is doing things that a man would normally do; she is almost portrayed as a slave owner; she has the land the money and the slave in Margaret. She picks who she is going to marry; she is acting in an atypical way based on how women act in this environment
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