Response 1, Week 2

Both stories for this week are available online:  "The Man of the Crowd," and "Bartleby, Scrivener."

You may wish to find out more about Poe at the Edgar Allen Poe Society of Baltimore, especially more about the circumstances of his death, shrouded as it is in "opinion and contradiction." See the site put on by the Melville society for more about his life (and death), including letters from and to Nathaniel Hawthorne and letters by his wife. 

For our purposes, both stories are about reading new characters that were disturbing and difficult to decipher in the large urban process of which they were a part.   "The Man of the Crowd" (1840) focuses on the city by "gaslight," the labyrinth of squalor, vice, and misery; "Bartleby" deals with the financial district, the center of the city by "daylight."   Both stories deal with the problem of the observer's attempt (and maybe all readers of city life and literature) to "read" the city.  Poe's story in fact begins and ends with a quotation: "it does not permit itself to be read." 

We may exhaust "Man of the Crowd" on Tuesday, so try to respond to a question we have not yet talked about for your response for Thursday.  If you wish, review once again the guidelines for the weekly log. 

"The Man of the Crowd"

1.  In the very beginning of the story, Poe's narrator aims to pierce through the crowd to uncover its systems, divisions, and hierarchies.  As the night advances, his scrutiny grows more intense, until he spots one "text":  the man of the crowd.  What words and patterns in the beginning suggest an ability to bring the scene easily into congruence or control, a notion that will be shattered? 

2.  What is "the man" guilty of, or is it the narrator's projection?   If so, how might the two be considered doubles, and how might their confrontation, in the end, be ironic? 

"Bartleby, the Scrivener" is about, among other things, issues of isolation, free will, and the effects of industrialization. It asks at least one rather profound question:  what is the extent of our responsibility to another (what would you do in the lawyer's situation?). 

3. Starting at the beginning of the story, examine the degenerative effects of the word "prefer" on the overall demeanor of the office (using the online version, use your "find" function--control+f--and type in "prefer"). How does it "spread" through the office affect the interaction of the office mates, such as Nippers?  What's the difference between saying "I will not" and "I prefer not"; then, "I'm not particular."  You might review this commentary on his preferences.  

4.  Consider the "view" Bartleby has? How does this description relate to the "view" (or Melville's view) of society at the time.  Bartleby stares for long periods of time at the "dead brick wall" at his workplace and also again while in prison. Consider how his work environment has influenced his inability to do anything else, or how it has influenced the "contract" between the employer and employee.  What do you make of the fact that he goes blind?  ("'Do you not see the reason for yourself,' he indifferently replied . . . . his eyes looked dull and glazed" emphasis added).

5.  What are you left with after reading this story? (Or, another way of asking the question is what do you suppose Melville wants you to be left with--what does this story ask us to think about?) Answers? Why does Bartleby stop copying?  Why does he stop eating?  Why the heck won't he do what he's told?  Does the ending or "sequel" help to explain anything, that Bartleby worked in the "Dead Letter Office," where all messages (all hope?) end up in the waste basket? (Have you ever heard of such a place?)  Do you think the narrator ultimately despairs, like Bartleby does?  

Response 2, Week 3

William Dean Howells has been called the "dean" of American letters for his work as a novelist and his support and criticism of American writing during the late nineteenth century. See this chronology for more information. 

Write a response on one of the following questions pertaining to The Rise of Silas Lapham.  You may want to use the the online version to find and copy passages you wish to quote as evidence for your answer. However, try to note page numbers from your book (so we may refer to passages in class). You may also wish to consult this illustrated version. Note some of the pictures of Boston, including this "bird's eye view."   See also this picture of Howells late in his career, and this picture of the Corey home (possibly).

1.  The opening scene is one of the most admired in the novel. In it, Howells seems to be indirectly commenting on the literary forms of his day. What conventions of journalism, advertising, and the rags-to-riches success story popularized by the Horatio Alger series are brought up and parodied here?  Note the joke Bartley (Bartleby?) makes:  "your money or your life," as if Lapham is only interesting because of his financial (and not moral) worth. In what way does the first chapter establish the themes and plots of the rest of the book? How does Bartley's underestimation of Silas's intelligence and ethics set up the other characters' responses to him?

2.  Comment on the Lapham family. Persis Lapham is established early in the book as a kind of conscience or moral arbiter for Silas. How does this coincide with the traditional function of women in the domestic sphere in the nineteenth century? Is her judgment accurate? inaccurate? how can we tell? What traits do the other family members share? Do any of the family members except Penelope have a sense of humor (who else in the novel has one?)? In discussing the Laphams, you could discuss the ways in which Howells compares and juxtaposes them with the Coreys. What markers of social class and taste does he use to differentiate them? In what ways do Tom Corey and Penelope Lapham transcend the limitations of their respective social classes?

3.  What is Silas's "rise"? If the concept of rise implies a fall, what is his "fall"?  Point to specific incidents and scenes when Lapham escapes a "fall" (or he rises)? 

4.  At times, Reverend Sewell seems to be a kind of mouthpiece for Howells (note that his "interview" and not Hubbard's ends the novel). Discuss Sewell's comments on Slop, Idle, Slop and his "economy of pain" (224) idea, a central ethical premise in the novel. How consistently is it followed? rejected?  In some respects, this novel might be more an "anti-romance" than a work of realism.   How so?  Note references that are markers of taste and culture.

5. Look at the central scene of the dinner party. In what ways is Silas's blunder due to his own actions? to the actions of those around him? Does Howells attempt to excuse Silas? to blame him?

6. Some critics have observed that the novel's two central metaphors are paint and architecture. Discuss the connotations of each and the ways in which they are used in the work.

Response 3, Week 4

Washington Square is often viewed as James's apprenticeship to The Portrait of a Lady, which contains similar themes of an individual trapped in and adjusting to the social customs of her class and day.  James once wrote to William Dean Howells:  "We are each the product of circumstances and there are tall stone walls which fatally divide us."  Choose one of the following to write your response on, finding scenes or passages to support your answer. Generally, #1 asks you to discuss the "realism" of Sloper and the narrator; #2 asks you to consider the "realism" that Catherine eventually adopts. 

1. There are three main characters in the novel, but James seems to also make us aware of a fourth: the person assembling the story (though not to be confused with the author himself).  During the last few paragraphs of Chapter 10, after Catherine declares her love for Townsend, the narrator tells us that this is all "that need be recorded of their conversation." Why?  He also tells us that if Catherine's aunt had been present for the conversation, "she probably would have admitted that it was as well it had not taken place beside the fountain in Washington Square" (82). Who (characterize his voice) is this person and does he seem to be reliable?  And, if much of the novel's events are "focalized" through the Dr. Sloper's eyes, does he "misread" Catherine in the way that Dr. Sloper also seems to? Do either of them seem to understand her emotional journey? (Is she really, for example, as dumb as a bundle of shawls?) How so?

2.  Comment on Catherine's growth.  Where does she start?  End up?   Point to specific places where she seems to be "realizing" something, when, for example, "for the second time in her life she made an indirect answer; and the beginning of a period of dissimulation is certainly a significant date" (47). To answer, you'll have to think about how this novel asks us to think about growth, not how we might judge her from our present perspective.  What does she have that the others do not?

3.  We had a good discussion in class about Dr. Sloper.  Some thought he was calculating, while others could understand how he wanted to protect Catherine.  Is it possible he is subtly abusing his daughter (he likes to be "entertained" by her obstinacy), despite the fact that he carries the pain of losing his wife and son?   Say more about his "protection" of her.  Worth considering is the scene on the mountain when he threatens to abandon her.  Sloper processes facts with his "thirty years of observation," allowing him to judge Morris in a single evening, seeing him as a type. And, of course, in 19 cases out of 20, he's right. When Mrs. Almond suggests that Mr. Townsend might be the 20th case, he responsds that "he doesn't look to me at all like a twentieth case."  Is the only knowledge that counts the kind that can be analyzed, seen and said?   

Response 4, Week 5. 

Stephen Crane has described Maggie as an attempt to show that one's environment is a tremendous thing.  Around this time, Karl Marx has written that one's environment determines one's consciousness, and Social Darwinists are writing of a struggle to survive the environment, which may be based on laws of natural selection. You should sense a cultural change from the other works we have read, and almost a sense that the literary imagination senses some weakness in its own inherited powers and vision; it seems to sense that its familiar ways of universalizing and generalizing art not longer stand in the same relation to a new urban reality, so writing begins to draw on new models of reality which have been given by new maps of society and its processes. 

By now, I hope you have the idea of what to do in these responses.  You're on your own to choose a topic or point of view.  You may wish to write more on one of the patterns we drew out in class--perception, conflict, submission, measure/excess, speech/gesture, grotesque, colors/impressionism, or cycles--or discuss your own.  Be sure to cite some specific passages in your response. 

Here are some interesting resources, one on the historical context of the Maggie, and see the "Events at the Time the Novel was Written" from this page.

Response 5, Week 7

Response 6, Week 8

Using realism and naturalism or your own notes and ideas, develop a working definition of American Realism. Then rank the novels we have read so far in order as examples of the "American Realism" you have just defined. Briefly justify your placement, and also attend to the problems with the terms. 

Response 7, Week 10

Frank Norris's McTeague:   A Story of San Francisco, appeared in 1899, six years after Crane's Maggie, though it (and not Maggie) was hailed as "the first important Naturalistic novel in the United States" in comments by William Dean Howells, who thought it brought a new mode into American literature with the "effect of a blizzard."  Norris was influenced by the French naturalist, Emile Zola, as they both were by the science of the day with its emphasis on detached, direct observation, almost as if operating on or dissecting their characters.  Indeed, we might discuss if you were "grossed out" by such a display, as Norris seems to want to disorient or unsettle some readers.

Norris was writing at a time when, because of Darwin's influence, human beings' "animal passions"--latent and active--were receiving much attention. A contemporary of Freud, Norris was also developing his major themes when the refinements made available by civilization were being considered by many as a veneer for these drives; speculations abounded at the turn of the century regarding a brute-like "second self" within the individual, as in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). Norris does not posit the existence of Freud's Id, but like Jack London, he does focus in McTeague and elsewhere on the emergence of the "brute" within.

You are free to go your own way (I don't want to restict free-will in a course on naturalism), but here are some possibilities for your response for Tuesday.  

1.  It can be tempting to read this story and its chase for gold as a critique of greed, but there seems to be more to it than that.  What does the critique-of-greed-explanation leave out?

2.  With the title he chooses, Norris seems to invite us for a pleasant tour of the city, but he gives us something else: the pathological dependence of masochistic wives upon their sadistic husbands. Are you disturbed by the amoral tone of the book?  With what gender-based assumptions is Norris working when characterizing the wives as submissive and the husbands as aggressive? 

3.  The symbolism in this novel can come across rather un-subtly, such as the mouse trap snapping shut at the end of chapter five.  Gold (oops--I almost typoed God) is one of the more obvious symbols.  Trace its progression through the novel, considering McTeague's gold tooth, Maria's gold plate, Trina's bringing her gold coins in bed, and McTeague's final search for gold, while carrying his (gold?) canary in a gold cage. 

4.  Norris has written this in a tongue-in-cheek style similar to Crane. I think we laughed in class at some of Crane's lines (stuck on yer shape?).  Did you laugh here?  Is there any moment in the story that you would consider a genuinely comic development?  Is it irresponsible to represent such a subject as wife-beating in a comic tone?

5.  This may seem an obvious question, and my be related to question #1, but why does McTeague kill his wife?  What are the possible reasons?  

6.  Who seems to be the audience for McTeague?   How is Norris's status as an upper-middle class Anglo-American male relevant at a time when the "immigrant problem" was a national debate? What are the attitudes toward class and race inscribed in this text? 

7.  How much was known about the extent of wife abuse during the turn of the century?  (OK, you can't answer that one yet, but paper topic?  Charlote Perkins Gilman would have something to say about it.) 

Wharton

Lily's first line in The House of Mirth seems to capture the novel in a nutshell. "What luck" she says to Selden when first seeing him: "How nice of you to come to my rescue!" The first part of that line opens the theme of chance, risk and fate; whether Lily wins or loses at cards or stocks, she understands that she must play the social game. The second part of the quote captures how Selden is incapable of rescuing her when she is truly in need.  Notice also that Lily is between trains . . .  In Selden's digs, she makes the connection between private space and goodness: "If only I could do over my aunt's drawing-room, I know I should be a better woman." The line seems an admission of the rootlessnes and self-doubt that will permeate the novel. She won't understand her remarks until her next visit to Selden's library toward the end of the novel.

Though her manner is grand, her sense of her own worth is frail that all settings in the novel, even the warm domesticity of Nettie Struther's kitchen, propel or repel her; and she is ever conscious of her decorative value, estimating the diminishing value in her face and figure in the marriage marketplace. She looks at the books in Selden's library and their "ripe tints of good tooling and old morocco," "with the pleasure in agreeable tones and textures that was one of her inmost susceptibilities." Surfaces, decor, will allure her and repulse her. Upon leaving the Benedick, she becomes most aware of appearances, as she runs into the landlord, Rosedale, who serves to remind her that her actions never go unwatched: she never escapes the constant gaze of society.

This response and the next are for extra credit only. You should be concentrating on your critical review and your critical analysis.  Find out more about Edith Wharton in A Life in Pictures and Text.

Here are some questions you may wish to consider:

1. What are the ways out of determinism in the novel? Nettie's "victory"? Is the death scene a fleeting victory?
2. Does Lily Bart achieve a victory?
3. Does Lily Bart gain an understanding of herself or her self?
4. Does she transcend her surroundings in any way?
5. To what degree is she responsible for her own destruction? That is, to what extent does society shape or control her; how much does she bring on herself?  
6. Are the male characters in HOM satisfying? 
7. How many perspectives on society emerge in the novel? Consider Lily, Gerty, Selden, Rosedale, Aunt Peniston, Nettie Struther, Bertha Dorset, Carrie Fisher 
8.  How would you classify the novel? Realistic, naturalistic, a romantic tragedy, hybrid? Is there sentimentality in the end (and is that bad)?

Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

A very good resource and site.

Chalotte Perkins Gilman, Herland.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent social critic and feminist writer in the United States of the period from the 1890s through the 1930s. In Herland, originally published in 1915, Gilman creates a utopian society made up entirely of women, creating around this homosocial society a culture, political system, and familial arrangement that grew out of the society of women, rather than simply the absence of men. While other American utopian novels, such as Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, were prominently read for years after their publication, Herland was largely forgotten until it was republished in the 1970s. Gilman's readers in the 1970s found in Herland a fresh and funny satire, full of insights that still speak to the condition of American women even after eighty years.  Here are some questions worth considering, and here are some more.

1. According to Gilman, how did men outside of Herland gain control over women economically, socially, culturally, sexually? How did the women of Herland avoid that fate? Do you agree with Gilman's assessment of the origins of gender restrictions?

2. Explain how Gilman associates the basic concepts of Western culture which she sees as problems--such as "nationalism" and "patriotism"--with the culture of men. What were the counterbalancing positive traits women's culture provided, according to Gilman?

3. Is a narrative about race visible in Herland? What race are the women who live in Herland? Is there any racial difference? To what might you attribute Gilman's treatment of race?

4. In what ways is the "feminist utopia" of Herland feminist?