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| Above: "Boundless" (2008) by Shelly Niro |
We don't always get through everything I hope to in class discussions, so moving forward, I hope to use this space to add important notes and questions for consideration.
1. Consider the ways that Thoreau’s discourse echoes Marxism and Romanticism as competing paradigms for describing "progress." While Thoreau’s criticisms of consumerism and the extravagant lifestyles of the wealthy seem aligned with Marxist critiques of capitalism, Marxists are advocates for sharing wealth, not shunning it. Marxists believe that capitalism represented a kind of progress that would be surpassed by a subsequent stage of progress: communism. On the other hand, there is an element of Romanticism in Thoreau’s references to the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, “naked savages” who are heartier than more civilized explorers, whom Enlightenment thinkers might consider to be more advanced.
2. Walden may be read as a forceful response to anyone who argues that it is not practically possible to just check out from society and live independently. Thoreau suggests that we think we need much more than we really do.
3. Consider: Do Harding Davis, Alcott, Whitman, and Douglass agree with Thoreau that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation? To the extent that they do, do they agree on who is responsible for this?
4. Consider: Is Thoreau's ultimate goal to lead a simple life or is it to elevate "mankind"? Or does he think that the first can lead to the second?
Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
1. Douglass’s matter-of-fact tone, his literary references, and his eloquence helps depict him as a serious intellectual and counters racist notions that Blacks were inferior to Whites.
Example one: “[Mr. Gore] raised his musket to [Demby’s] face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant poor Demby was no more. His mangled body sank out of sight, and the blood and brains marked the water where he had stood.”
Example two: Sails on the Chesapeake Bay
Consider: The following passage is one of the most often excerpted passages from Douglass's Narrative, partially because it makes use of several classical literary devices, such as apostrophe, antithesis, and personification.
I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.
Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer’s Sabbath, stood all alone upon the lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance; and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul’s complaint, in my rude way, with an apostrophe to the moving multitude of ships:—
“You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels, that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron!
2. Consider: Can Douglass’s experiences learning to read (knowledge empowered him and it was painful for him) be applied to high school and college students and American society more broadly?
3. Consider: Is it fair to criticize Douglass’s account of his struggle with Covey for suggesting that slaves who didn't fight back were to some extent responsible for their own suffering?
4. Consider: While in his "1845 Narrative, [Douglass] presented himself as relatively isolated from his fellow slaves, describing his fight with Covey as a heroic instance of individual rebellion; in the 1855 My Bondage and My Freedom, he depicted the fight as involving several other African Americans who came to his assistance" (The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter Ninth Edition: Beginnings to 1865, 999).
5. Consider: Does Douglass’s Narrative marginalize or minimize the struggles and the strength of Black women?
7. Consider: To what extent can Douglass’s Narrative be read as a condemnation of Christianity and to what extent can be read as a condemnation of the Christianity of the slave owners?
6. Consider: Should reading gruesome passage from slave narratives be encouraged in high school? Should it be required in college?
Melville, Moby-Dick
2. Walden may be read as a forceful response to anyone who argues that it is not practically possible to just check out from society and live independently. Thoreau suggests that we think we need much more than we really do.
3. Consider: Do Harding Davis, Alcott, Whitman, and Douglass agree with Thoreau that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation? To the extent that they do, do they agree on who is responsible for this?
4. Consider: Is Thoreau's ultimate goal to lead a simple life or is it to elevate "mankind"? Or does he think that the first can lead to the second?
Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
1. Douglass’s matter-of-fact tone, his literary references, and his eloquence helps depict him as a serious intellectual and counters racist notions that Blacks were inferior to Whites.
Example one: “[Mr. Gore] raised his musket to [Demby’s] face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant poor Demby was no more. His mangled body sank out of sight, and the blood and brains marked the water where he had stood.”
Example two: Sails on the Chesapeake Bay
Consider: The following passage is one of the most often excerpted passages from Douglass's Narrative, partially because it makes use of several classical literary devices, such as apostrophe, antithesis, and personification.
I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.
Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer’s Sabbath, stood all alone upon the lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance; and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul’s complaint, in my rude way, with an apostrophe to the moving multitude of ships:—
“You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels, that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron!
2. Consider: Can Douglass’s experiences learning to read (knowledge empowered him and it was painful for him) be applied to high school and college students and American society more broadly?
3. Consider: Is it fair to criticize Douglass’s account of his struggle with Covey for suggesting that slaves who didn't fight back were to some extent responsible for their own suffering?
4. Consider: While in his "1845 Narrative, [Douglass] presented himself as relatively isolated from his fellow slaves, describing his fight with Covey as a heroic instance of individual rebellion; in the 1855 My Bondage and My Freedom, he depicted the fight as involving several other African Americans who came to his assistance" (The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter Ninth Edition: Beginnings to 1865, 999).
5. Consider: Does Douglass’s Narrative marginalize or minimize the struggles and the strength of Black women?
7. Consider: To what extent can Douglass’s Narrative be read as a condemnation of Christianity and to what extent can be read as a condemnation of the Christianity of the slave owners?
6. Consider: Should reading gruesome passage from slave narratives be encouraged in high school? Should it be required in college?
Melville, Moby-Dick
Chs. 15-18
1. Ishmael’s efforts to talk Queequeg out of his fasting practices raise interesting questions about the differences between cultural imperialism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and cultural protectionism.
2. Peleg and Bildad’s eagerness to hire Queequeg after he demonstrates his prowess as a harpooner raises questions about the relationship between commercial interests and religious and cultural concerns; Mrs. Husssey’s response when she thought Queequeg had killed himself suggests that her primary concern is profit.
1. Ishmael’s efforts to talk Queequeg out of his fasting practices raise interesting questions about the differences between cultural imperialism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and cultural protectionism.
2. Peleg and Bildad’s eagerness to hire Queequeg after he demonstrates his prowess as a harpooner raises questions about the relationship between commercial interests and religious and cultural concerns; Mrs. Husssey’s response when she thought Queequeg had killed himself suggests that her primary concern is profit.
Consider: If New Bedford is a model of cosmopolitanism, what role does capitalism play in its culture?
Chs. 19-21
1. Elijah is a Biblical prophet who predicted the destruction of Ahab, who was an unfaithful King, who worshipped Baal. Jezebel was Ahab’s wife.
2. Elijah’s prophesies raise questions about the role of human agency in determining the shape our lives take.
1. Elijah is a Biblical prophet who predicted the destruction of Ahab, who was an unfaithful King, who worshipped Baal. Jezebel was Ahab’s wife.
2. Elijah’s prophesies raise questions about the role of human agency in determining the shape our lives take.
Chs. 22-28
1. Elijah's prophecies and The Pequod's "blind plunge" into the lone Atlantic raise questions about fate, predestination, and human agency.
2. Consider: can Ishmael's defense of the whaling industry be read as a defense of the working class and as America as a democratic nation that depends on ordinary citizens to shape its political future?
3. To be continued ...
Chs. 29-32
1. Consider: How might thinking of Ahab as an amputee and trauma victim affect reader responses to his thoughts and behavior?
2. The Cetology chapter provides yet another example of the great variety of writing styles on display in the novel, appearing as it does among other chapters that have passages that read like poetry, others like stage plays or sermons, others narrated by an omnisicent voice, and others that read like dramatic monologues. This variety may be considered an embodiment of a fractured modern world in which the Protestant reformation, democratic revolutions, and secular humanism of the Enlightenment have ruptured once relatively stable religious, political, and intellectual structures (compare with cubist paintings like "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" [1907], which shattered conventional viewer expectations of visual representation).
3. Despite the extensive knowledge the Cetology chapter presents about whales, the narrator concludes that seeking understand these animals who live behind an "inpenetrable veil" in "unfathomable water" is ultimately futile. The human capacity for understanding is limited; the promise of the Enlightenment may be overstated.
4. Ishmael's decision to classify whales as "fish," though scientist have, in fact, categorized them as mammals, as Ishmael is aware, may demonstrate his skepticism about the classification schemes of scientific experts (and, perhaps, the Enlightenment project, more broadly speaking).
Chs. 33-36
1. The bliss Ishmael experiences on the masthead is comparable to the freedom Thoreau described when he went into the woods and removed himself from the demands of capitalist, consumer society. Both urges are rooted in Romantic criticism of "society" as a source of conformity and Romantic celebrations of nature of a source of strength and rejuvenation.
2. The crew's enthusiastic response to Ahab's recruitment speech (Ch. 36) suggests that democracies may be vulnerable to demagogues who enlist them in a campaign to attack the "Other." Compare with Napoleon's emergence as a dictator in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
Chs. 37-39
1. The "Iron Crown of Lombardy," which Ahab describes himself as wearing (Ch. 37), was also worn by Napoleon, and it was said to contain a nail from the crosson which Jesus was crucified. The reference links Ahab to both of these figures and challenges readers to reflect on whether they seem him as a tyrant, a martyr, or a redeemer.
2. Chapter 37, 38, and 39, offer a variety of attitudes towards fate and human agency. Ahab is determined to be the master of his own fate. Starbuck is torn between the professional loyalty he owes to his commander and the duty he feels to his own conscience and the stated (commercial) mission of the Pequod. Stubb cheerfully accepts the fact that his fate is predetermined.
Chs. 46-49
1. In Chapter 44, we read a description of Ahab suffering from “trances of Torment,” which suggests that he may be suffering from a mental illness (obsessive thoughts). In Chapter 46, Ahab demonstrates a keen awareness of how his behavior might be perceived as unhealthy by the sailors. He may be unwell, but he is not completely detached from reality and self-awareness. He understands how he is seen by others.
2. In Chapter 47, Melville turns a description of the mat-making process into a reflection on fate, human agency, and predestination, where the warp represents God’s will/predestination; the sword represents chance; and the shuttle represents free will. All work together. All play a role. This chapter also includes passages that are richly poetic.
3. Consider: Does describing Fedallah's crew as "tiger yellow creature" and comparing them to "infidel sharks . . .with "eyes of red murder" undermine the kind of cosmopolitan tolerance that is celebrated in other parts of the novel?
Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
1. Given the way Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a successful (and racist?) franchise, consider: to what extent can we hold the original text and its author accountable for the text’s subsequent cultural life? Are the seeds of the novel’s troubling cultural afterlife embedded in the text?
2. James Baldwin hated Uncle Tom’s Cabin because of its sentimental and unrealistic portrait of the character of Uncle Tom, which he considered to be both emasculating and dehumanizing. Jane Tompkins (Sensational Designs, 1985) celebrated it because it offered a radical political alternative to a patriarchal status quo. Frederick Douglass praised the novel for igniting outrage against the institution of slavery. Andrew Delbanco (The War Before the War, 2018) says that Stowe is a "proto-Marxist" because although Stowe intended her novel to to be about how “conscience," in fact, "material interests" repeatedly prevail in the novel.
1. Given the way Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a successful (and racist?) franchise, consider: to what extent can we hold the original text and its author accountable for the text’s subsequent cultural life? Are the seeds of the novel’s troubling cultural afterlife embedded in the text?
2. James Baldwin hated Uncle Tom’s Cabin because of its sentimental and unrealistic portrait of the character of Uncle Tom, which he considered to be both emasculating and dehumanizing. Jane Tompkins (Sensational Designs, 1985) celebrated it because it offered a radical political alternative to a patriarchal status quo. Frederick Douglass praised the novel for igniting outrage against the institution of slavery. Andrew Delbanco (The War Before the War, 2018) says that Stowe is a "proto-Marxist" because although Stowe intended her novel to to be about how “conscience," in fact, "material interests" repeatedly prevail in the novel.
3. Don’t miss the many examples of Stowe’s sarcasm in Chapter Twelve (and elsewhere).
4. Consider the limitations of textual power to constrain interpretation in the context of the discussion of the Biblical support for slavery on La Belle Riviere.
Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
Chs. 1, 7 10
1. The Dictionary of North Carolina Biography entry on Dr. James Norcom, Sr., the man referred to as “Dr. Flint” in Jacobs’s narrative, is chilling in the way it describes Norcom as an upstanding, accomplished and otherwise normal member of society (his career as a slaver is tacked on at the end).
2. Jacobs’s book is the first slave narrative authored by a Black woman in America.
3. In time, scholars came to believe that Jacobs's book was a novel. Some believed it was actually authored by Lydia Maria Child, the well-known white writer who helped Jacobs edit and publish it. In the 1980s, research done by historian Jean Fagin Yellin established "that this was an autobiographical narrative and not a novel" and as a result, the book enjoyed "belated acclaim"
Chs. 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
1. On one hand, the slave is treated as animal property: a brute resource to be exploited for profit. Yet, on the other hand, after Linda escapes, Dr. Flint's obsession with finding and capturing her surpasses the bounds of commercial or market rationality: ". . . Dr. Flint cared even more for revenge than he did for money."2. Dr. Flint's deranged protestations about the way Linda treats him suggest that he believes that his treatment of her was truly admirable. The human capacity for flatttering self-delusion is staggering.
3. Flint's plans to build an isolated cabin where he could rape Linda without his wife being able to catch him in the act remind us that the institution of slavery did not just deprive slaves of wages for their labor and treat human beings a commodities to be exploited. It facilitated mass rape of black women by white men.
4. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl helps illustrate how slavery's abuses extended far beyond whipping and other forms of corporal punishment.
5. Jacobs's feelings of gratitude to the slaveholding woman who helps her challenges readers with a worldview that allows both for exteme villainy and extraordinary moral complexity.
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