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WRITING AMERICA NOTES

‘Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass’ – defining an autobiography
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The narrative is an interesting concept on someone’s life story – we as the reader
have no proof of what did or did not happen
...
The author’s memory is essentially the main role with
the story being completely constructed around it – the emotions circling that
memory define it as literature
...
Whereas, a
story that is written years after the events, this could show a bitter reaction and
therefore a stronger feeling towards what has happened
...
However, he seems to be able to describe events accurately from his
ten-year-old self
...
Having said that, we as the reader feel immersed in his
complete life story and therefore it seems necessary to his auto-biography
...
It’s a history in
the way that we’re drawn into the brutality of slavery and how barbaric the events
are now to a modern-day reader
...
For a novel, to have ‘literary
merit’ – it is essentially timeless and makes us question out own society
...


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However, Douglass never seems that bitter or vicious throughout his narrative, he is
simply describing what happened to him which is what makes the novel so upsetting
and a ‘representative’ for the brutality of slavery in America
...
He is not writing for a particular person, it seems
he is writing for himself
...


-

To the present day, the events of slavery are still trying to be understood and are as
the readers are drawn into a singular narrative about it
...
He says ‘they’ rather than ‘we’ throughout
the novel
...
It is Douglass’s retrospective understanding of the slaves
that creates a paradox – he feels connected and yet separated by each of them by
his own narrative
...
The way is claims that it really happened has been argues continuously
that it is ‘exaggerated
...


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This is shown through Douglass’s narrative and how he separates himself from the
others – even he, being a slave, does not understand or know much about the
concept of slavery
...


-

His claim is that one needs to learn about slavery and that one can become
dehumanised because of it
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Accuracy – Douglass describes the death of his mother in detail as if ‘a stranger died’
and yet he is still able to remember the vision of her rather than the actual person
...
’ Also, America is known as ‘the land of the
free’ – so this essentially questions how free any county is and shows a paradox
between freedom and slavery
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We can begin to question childhood
trauma’s that can effect this, however, the fabrication suggests that Douglass simply
needs the reader to be drawn into the narrative to experience every detail and his
honesty makes us believe him
...


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Graphic novel – the violence and brutality is powerful and horrific – it isn’t detailed
to create a dramatic writing, it is simply documenting what happened – making it
even more unbelievably brutal, because it’s honest
...
This questions if Douglass sees women in this
way or if the description of violence flags up more sympathy for the situation as it
seems somewhat worse
...
’ Is his identity dependant on the fact that he can read and
write? The novel is his own way of rebelling against the conformity of slavery and
gives him a sense of purpose
...
The Bible begins with
the story of Adam and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating
from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
...
Once expelled from the Garden of Eden, they are
forced to toil and to procreate—two “labors” that seem to define the human
condition
...
But it also results in
knowledge—specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be human
...
As for Dimmesdale, the “burden” of his sin gives
him “sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his
heart vibrate[s] in unison with theirs
...
Hester and Dimmesdale contemplate their own
sinfulness on a daily basis and try to reconcile it with their lived experiences
...
Thus, they view sin as a threat to the community
that should be punished and suppressed
...
Yet, Puritan society is stagnant, while Hester and Dimmesdale’s experience
shows that a state of sinfulness can lead to personal growth, sympathy, and
understanding of others
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The Nature of Evil
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The characters in the novel frequently debate the identity of the “Black Man,” the
embodiment of evil
...
The characters also try to root out the causes of evil: did
Chillingworth’s selfishness in marrying Hester force her to the “evil” she committed
in Dimmesdale’s arms? Is Hester and Dimmesdale’s deed responsible for

Chillingworth’s transformation into a malevolent being? This confusion over the
nature and causes of evil reveals the problems with the Puritan conception of sin
...
As the narrator points out in the novel’s concluding chapter, both emotions
depend upon “a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one
individual dependent
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” Evil is not found in Hester and
Dimmesdale’s lovemaking, nor even in the cruel ignorance of the Puritan fathers
...
Perhaps Pearl is not
entirely wrong when she thinks Dimmesdale is the “Black Man,” because her father,
too, has perverted his love
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His cruel denial of love to his own child may be seen as
further perpetrating evil
...
She is not
physically imprisoned, and leaving the Massachusetts Bay Colony would allow her to
remove the scarlet letter and resume a normal life
...
Hester’s behavior is premised on her desire to determine her own
identity rather than to allow others to determine it for her
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Instead, Hester stays, refiguring the scarlet letter as a symbol of
her own experiences and character
...
Thus, Hester very
determinedly integrates her sin into her life
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As the
community’s minister, he is more symbol than human being
...
Unfortunately, Dimmesdale never fully recognizes the

truth of what Hester has learned: that individuality and strength are gained by quiet
self-assertion and by a reconfiguration, not a rejection, of one’s assigned identity
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The town represents civilization, a rule-bound space where
everything one does is on display and where transgressions are quickly punished
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In
the forest, society’s rules do not apply, and alternate identities can be assumed
...
When
Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the woods, for a few moments, they become happy
young lovers once again
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It is her place
of exile, which ties it to the authoritarian town, but because it lies apart from the
settlement, it is a place where she can create for herself a life of relative peace
...
Daylight exposes an individual’s activities and makes
him or her vulnerable to punishment
...
These
notions of visibility versus concealment are linked to two of the book’s larger
themes—the themes of inner versus socially assigned identity and of outer
appearances versus internal states
...
During the day, interiority is once again hidden from public
view, and secrets remain secrets
...

Chillingworth is cold and inhuman and thus brings a “chill” to Hester’s and
Dimmesdale’s lives
...
The name “Pearl” evokes a biblical allegorical
device—the “pearl of great price” that is salvation
...
It also aligns the novel with popular
forms of narrative such as fairy tales
...
The letter’s meaning shifts as time passes
...
” Finally, it becomes indeterminate: the Native Americans who come
to watch the Election Day pageant think it marks her as a person of importance and
status
...
But, compared with a human child, the letter seems insignificant, and
thus helps to point out the ultimate meaninglessness of the community’s system of
judgment and punishment
...
Additionally, the instability of the
letter’s apparent meaning calls into question society’s ability to use symbols for
ideological reinforcement
...


The Meteor
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As Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl in Chapter 12, a meteor
traces out an “A” in the night sky
...
The meteor is interpreted differently by
the rest of the community, which thinks that it stands for “Angel” and marks
Governor Winthrop’s entry into heaven
...
The Puritans commonly looked to symbols to confirm divine sentiments
...
The incident with the meteor obviously highlights and exemplifies two
different uses of symbols: Puritan and literary
...
Pearl is a sort of living version of her mother’s scarlet letter
...
Yet, even as
a reminder of Hester’s “sin,” Pearl is more than a mere punishment to her mother:
she is also a blessing
...
Thus, Pearl’s existence gives her mother reason to
live, bolstering her spirits when she is tempted to give up
...
” Until then, she
functions in a symbolic capacity as the reminder of an unsolved mystery
...
The form of the narrative consist of incredibly long sentences that seem
to construct a journey that takes the reader from two extremes within just one
sentence
...
There is also a slight element of the ‘sublime’
within the novel just when describing the huge scale of things
...


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The gruesome idea of cannibalism relates back to the melancholy themes – the using
of the whale’s foreskin as protection for gutting out the rest of it shows a dark
humour as well as an emotional vision from the whale – a sense of emasculation
...
’ He makes the reader
constantly combine extreme themes throughout the novel and has us work hard in
order to establish a deeper meaning
...


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Bart’s article also makes gender assumptions about the novel – for example,
throughout the novel, it is patriarchal and male-dominated, however, objects that
seem to be valuable such as the boats, are constantly seen as being female, as well
as the sea
...


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The lack of femininity allows the themes of gruesomeness and cannibalism to be
fully exposed because of the male-dominance
...


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The aggressive nature of Ahab is what stirs the plot along – Ishmael is in stark
contrast to this as he is rational and doesn’t take anger or vengeance to the
extremities of Ahab
...


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Is Ahab what Ishmael wants to be? – Ahab seems to represent what Ishmael cannot
do, he being the mind that thinks things through and Ahab being the physical body
that wishes to conquer
...


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The whale – representing a movement in society, essentially a floating signifier for
different meaning
...


-

The quest for Moby Dick is essentially the quest for power whether for ender or race
and that the oppressed will eventually overcome the oppressors
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-

There are also symbolic meanings of Ahab being the Devil and that his actions are
brutal but he claims to be a great leader – like the ‘fallen angel
...


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Melville creates several homosexual undertones through Ishmael and Quequeg and
the lack of women suggests the need for strength suggests the need for strength and
brutality for an epic novel like this
...
By the early 1880s,
Reconstruction, the plan to put the United States back together after the war and
integrate freed slaves into society, had hit shaky ground, although it had not yet
failed outright
...
The
imposition of Jim Crow laws, designed to limit the power of blacks in the South in a
variety of indirect ways, brought the beginning of a new, insidious effort to oppress
...
Slavery could be outlawed, but when white Southerners enacted
racist laws or policies under a professed motive of self-defense against newly freed
blacks, far fewer people, Northern or Southern, saw the act as immoral and rushed
to combat it
...
But even by Twain’s time, things
had not necessarily gotten much better for blacks in the South
...
Just as slavery places
the noble and moral Jim under the control of white society, no matter how degraded
that white society may be, so too did the insidious racism that arose near the end of
Reconstruction oppress black men for illogical and hypocritical reasons
...
The
result is a world of moral confusion, in which seemingly “good” white people such as
Miss Watson and Sally Phelps express no concern about the injustice of slavery or
the cruelty of separating Jim from his family
...
As a
poor, uneducated boy, for all intents and purposes an orphan, Huck distrusts the
morals and precepts of the society that treats him as an outcast and fails to protect
him from abuse
...
More than once, we see Huck choose to “go to hell”
rather than go along with the rules and follow what he has been taught
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On the raft, away from civilization, Huck is especially free from
society’s rules, able to make his own decisions without restriction
...
By the novel’s end, Huck
has learned to “read” the world around him, to distinguish good, bad, right, wrong,
menace, friend, and so on
...


The Hypocrisy of “Civilized” Society
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When Huck plans to head west at the end of the novel in order to escape further
“sivilizing,” he is trying to avoid more than regular baths and mandatory school
attendance
...
This
faulty logic appears early in the novel, when the new judge in town allows Pap to

keep custody of Huck
...
At the same time, this decision comments on a system
that puts a white man’s rights to his “property”—his slaves—over the welfare and
freedom of a black man
...
Again and again, Huck encounters individuals who seem good—Sally Phelps,
for example—but who Twain takes care to show are prejudiced slave-owners
...
Sherburn’s speech to the mob that has come to
lynch him accurately summarizes the view of society Twain gives in Huckleberry Finn:
rather than maintain collective welfare, society instead is marked by cowardice, a
lack of logic, and profound selfishness
...
Since Huck and Tom are young, their age lends a sense
of play to their actions, which excuses them in certain ways and also deepens the
novel’s commentary on slavery and society
...
Twain also frequently draws links between
Huck’s youth and Jim’s status as a black man: both are vulnerable, yet Huck, because
he is white, has power over Jim
...
Though its
themes are quite weighty, the novel itself feels light in tone and is an enjoyable read
because of this rambunctious childhood excitement that enlivens the story
...
It is clear that these con men’s lies are bad, for they hurt a

number of innocent people
...
As Huck realizes, it seems that telling a lie
can actually be a good thing, depending on its purpose
...
” At other points, the lines between a con, legitimate
entertainment, and approved social structures like religion are fine indeed
...

Superstitions and Folk Beliefs
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From the time Huck meets him on Jackson’s Island until the end of the novel, Jim
spouts a wide range of superstitions and folktales
...
Much as we do, Huck at first dismisses most of Jim’s superstitions as
silly, but ultimately he comes to appreciate Jim’s deep knowledge of the world
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Parodies of Popular Romance Novels
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Huckleberry Finn is full of people who base their lives on romantic literary models
and stereotypes of various kinds
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The deceased Emmeline Grangerford painted
weepy maidens and wrote poems about dead children in the romantic style
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These characters’ proclivities toward the romantic allow
Twain a few opportunities to indulge in some fun, and indeed, the episodes that deal
with this subject are among the funniest in the novel
...
Twain shows how a strict adherence to these

romantic ideals is ultimately dangerous: Tom is shot, Emmeline dies, and the
Shepherdsons and Grangerfords end up in a deadly clash
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Alone on
their raft, they do not have to answer to anyone
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Petersburg
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Despite their freedom, however, they soon find that they are not completely free
from the evils and influences of the towns on the river’s banks
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Then, a thick fog causes
them to miss the mouth of the Ohio River, which was to be their route to freedom
...
As Huck and Jim move
further south, the duke and the dauphin invade the raft, and Huck and Jim must
spend more time ashore
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Each escape
exists in the larger context of a continual drift southward, toward the Deep South
and entrenched slavery
...
As Huck and Jim’s journey
progresses, the river, which once seemed a paradise and a source of freedom,
becomes merely a short-term means of escape that nonetheless pushes Huck and
Jim ever further toward danger and destruction

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