Reflection

Please take a few moments and blog a reflection about the course you've just completed. Have your opinions about literature improved? Changed? How so? How do you feel about Gothic? Did anything surprise you? Did you enjoy the reading? If I should teach this class again, which readings should I omit or add? What was your favorite?

I really enjoyed being your instructor this semester, and I hope you've enjoyed the class as well. Have a great summer!

"Yellow Wallpaper," "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and "A Rose for Emily."

Since we have an assortment of readings for the weekend, I'd like you all to think about themes you see filtering through the narratives. What are the underlying messages? In order to understand "Wallpaper," you might want to read why she wrote it. Read her article: "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" (You might have to sign in and go back and re-click link.) It is very interesting. Having read her article, speculate the perception men (physicians in particular) had about women's health. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is difficult for many students, but remember that the Flannery O'Connor was a strong Christian and her works carry Christian Themes. Also, keep in mind the Southern Gothic with both "Good Man" and "Emily." Who is grotesque? Who is insane? Any revised Southern Bells? Any other elements? In "Good Man," do you note any white perceptions of Black Americans noted? In "Emily," do you note progress encroaching in on the old order? Do you note time standing still? Do you not any "Yankees" in town? If so, who? These are some ideas to feed your thoughts . . .

Writing Prompts for "Jean-ah Poquelin" by George Washington Cable

1. Discuss how Cable juxtaposes two contrasting types of male characters; Jean, who is strong, and Jacques who is gentle. Are there any similarities between either one and White?

2. Consider the mob violent charivari scene. Who are these people? Are they Northerners or Creoles? What are the feelings between colonial French-Americans and Anglo American values? Describe their conflicts. What nationality is White? I mean, where is he from? Do you see any evidence that he changes his identity as a result of his style in this particular town? Would it surprise you to know that Creoles felt that their fellow New Orleanian, Cable, betrayed them by what they saw as his excessively biting satire and critique of the Creole community in his fiction.

3. Consider and write about the changing South. In what ways does it change? Is there resistance? How does the subject of change influence the narrative. How is this story Southern Gothic. Do you see any of the Southern Gothic troupes. (PPT is in eCollege)

4. Discuss and talk about symbolism. Do you see any symbolism in this narrative in regards to the bayou, to the land, to the house, to the local?

5. Discuss how Cable uses “local color” (one of our study words) to create a sense of realism of the South. Do you feel Cable satirizes or criticizes ethnic stereotyping and/or the romantic myths of the “noble aristocracy” of the “Old South”?

6. Do a characterization study of the main characters—how are they drawn from stereotypes?

Charles Chesnutt’s Goophered Grapevine (The Atlantic Monthly 1887) and The Sherriff’s Children (Nov. 1899).

Today we talked about the element of resistance in the medieval idea of Carnival and how it has morphed into the modern-day, middle-class novel. Shortly before Chesnutt published “The Sheriff’s Children” (Nov. 1899), he published an essay entitled “What is a White Man?” How does “Sheriff’s Children” address this question? How does he "resist" popular notions of racial identity? How do you think this topic went over with readers? As you probably guess, he was criticized for highlighting issues of miscegenation; critics felt he should return to his folktales, which were so popular with readers, such as “The Goophered Grapevine.” Yet is “Goophered” benign? Critic Charles Warner argues that “[Goophered] adapts the folk practice of "masking" to counteract the racial stereotypes held by its predominantly white audience.” So then, how is Julius “performing” for his white audience? Keep in mind that there is a story within a story. Why would Chesnutt do this? Why not have Uncle Julius tell the whole story to begin with? Furthermore, Warner states that Chesnutt echoes the "stereotypical association of blacks with nature (rather than culture), Chesnutt images the haunted ("goophered") slave Henry as an extension of the grapevine.” Keep in mind again what we discussed today—that whites often saw black Americans as a commodity rather than equal human beings. Blog your thoughts.
Source: Craig Hansen Werner, "The Goophered Grapevines: Overview" in Reference Guide to Short Fiction, 1st ed., edited by Noelle Watson, St. James Press, 1994.

Writing Prompts for Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson

1. Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There—this is the original title (see page 1). From all indications, Wilson’s narrative is the first novel published by an African American and the first novel published by a black woman in English. Considering this momentous work, why would it be lost to scholars for over 120 years? In reading Wilson’s narrative, do you see any reason why her biographical novel was lost to us until it was rediscovered and recovered by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1983? Or to restate the question, do you see any political indictments on a) the North, b) abolitionists and/or Christians, and c) freed or escaped black activists? Note what scholar Margo Jefferson wrote about Wilson:

Wilson was all too aware that, with New England's moral attention turned to
enslaved blacks down South, a tale of a black female indentured servant up North
was ill timed. I do not pretend to divulge every transaction in my own life,
which the unprejudiced would declare unfavorable in comparison with treatment of
legal bondmen, she declared in a preface designed to ease advanced minds and
frail egos. I have purposely omitted what would most provoke shame in our good
anti-slavery friends at home.... I sincerely appeal to my colored brethren
universally for patronage, hoping that they will not condemn this attempt of
their sister to be erudite [scholarly], but rally around me a faithful band of
supporters and defenders.

Use examples from the text to argue your stand.

Work Cited: Margo Jefferson, "Down and Out and Black in Boston," in The Nation, New York, Vol. 236, No. 21, May 28, 1983, pp. 675-77.

2. How is this work different than the ones we’ve read thus far in this course? Why would Wilson write her story, a crucial testimony in the voice of a black American, in the form of a fiction rather than autobiography? Why use the 3rd person when speaking about her own history? Do you see Gothic elements? In what ways does it or does it not fall into the Gothic genre?

3. Do you see Wilson using elements of the sentimental and the melodramatic in her narrative? How so?

4. Henry Louis Gates writes, “It is the complex interaction of race-and-class relationships ... which Our Nig critiques for the first time in American fiction.” In this class, we’ve talked about how oppressed characters resisted oppression sometimes in subtle ways. In what ways does “Our Nig” resist oppressive authority? Consider what Our Nig has to say about race, class, and sex (gender) during "antebellum" (pre-Civil War) America? Why is it that women are so often, in our readings, the persecutor of other women?

5. In what ways does Frado/Wilson associate herself with personal power and salvation?

6. What does the text have to say about motherhood? Consider the many mothers in the text--beginning with "poor Mag." In other novels, we have the missing mother trope, but here, we have mothers, but what kind?

"The Fall of the House of Usher" Trailer from 1960 Staring Vincient Price

What do you think of this film clip? Please feel free to comment in "my" comment box!

See Prompts for tonight just below. LD

Prompts for "House of Usher"

Select one prompt and focus on "meaning making" from the text.


1) In “The House of Usher” how does Poe use the setting (and trivial things like the painting, books, and songs) to mirror the inner turmoil of the R. Usher? Pay attention to the description of the house, the character of which the narrator links with the character of the family (113). How does the House's character mirror the family? Have we seen this before in our readings? We'll see it again . . .

2) How is feminine beauty described in “House of Usher”? Would you call Usher a Byronic hero? How is the relationship between the brother and sister described? Is there significance in their being twins? Is there implied incest? If so, how does it affect the narrative and the reader of the narrative?

3) Is Madeline dead when she is placed in the coffin? Do you think she is murdered? If so, why? Do you detect any irony in the ending? What do you make of her disease? (“affections of a partially cataleptical character”) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalepsy).

4)What kind of narrator is used in this piece? Is he reliable? Speculate as to why Poe would use this type of narrator for his work.

5) How is Poe’s Gothic different from the other Gothic narratives we’ve read/watched thus far this semester? Also, how is the short story different from the novella (“Lois”) and novels?

See this link for a definitions of difficult words in “House of Usher”: https://secure.layingthefoundation.org/english/vocab/novels/Fall%20of%20the%20House%20of%20Usher.pdf