Experience in American Literature

7/30/2019 Experience in American Literature

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Herman Melville Moby Dick

In his novel, Melville makes the transition from an allegory, towards a realist novel.Melville gives us one of the first strong modern novels, but its still overshadowed by

allegories.

The character of Ahab is the representation of pride, his fanatic hunt for the white

leviathan is the product of a wounded pride. Starbuck, on the other hand, sees nature

incarnated within Moby Dick, considers the whale to be an innocent animal.

White is used as a reversed symbol. Instead of being a symbol of purity, in Ahabs vision,

the white color is a representation of evil. Ahab is represented as a mad leader, amonomaniacal tyrant of his ship.

Melville speaks here of the will of the secularized man, of a man without God, a man

who considers himself to be a God, and who, as such, condemns his crew, his followers,

to death. The entire novel is a symphony of symbols.

Among the influences of Melville, the Bible and Shakespeare have to be mentioned.While he was considered to be a very successful writer, Moby Dick was ill-received in

1851, marking the downfall of his career.

The novel is a representation of men, and their fight with the sea. Women are not present

within the novel.

Ahab, while being a symbol of many negative traits, is also a representation of the braveleader, the only one willing to lead. His death can be considered to be heroic,

unsurpassable, a death that crowns his life.

On the other hand, the confrontation between Ahab and Moby Dick is a battle between

two monsters. Ahab, as the incarnation of human will, of ego, and the whale, as the

incarnation of the unseen and natures wrath.

Although using allegories, Melville, in his novels, goes into symbolism. His messages are

symbolical. Symbols always have hidden parts, which run very deeply. The symbol ishidden, and it is only accessible to those who wish to discover it. The allegory, in

contrast, is very clear and straightforward.

Melville mocks any type of doctrine in his novel, such as the Quaker doctrine. The

sacrifice of the crew is shaded by the heroic death of the protagonist. The victory of themonster puts the idea of good winning over evil into doubts.

Ahabs death is a testament, that nothing is foreseeable in life. His death is unexpected.

The link between Shakespeares tragedies and Melvilles novel is visible in the way in

which the tragic hero has a tragic flaw.


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Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn

Twain is considered to be the first realist writer in America.

As the name suggests, realism deals with reality. In order to define reality, we must use

the general proxy and the specific difference. The term realism is indeed a very elastic,flexible term. Here, we refer specifically to the realism in literature. Realism deals with

the correspondence between truth and reality. The specific difference belongs to

something peculiar to literature and arts: the theory of imitation.A critical work published in Paris in 1857, wrote by a literary critic called Champfleury,

stated that the most popular genre in the world is the novel, and that it works with

realism, mainly the struggle of men against nature, or the life in urban landscapes. Healso gave a list of realist writers, that included names such as Dickens or Balzac. Realism

deals with details that are recognizable.

Other literary trends do not have this important feature of recognition. Realism comes

with a kind of fidelity to truth. Realism severely opposed romanticism, and the ambiguity

of its style.Coleridge, the famous British poet, stated that the convention of literature was an

intentional suspension of disbelief.While Balzac was a representative of realism, Emile Zola was the father of naturalism, a

current going hand-in-hand with the current of realism. In his words, naturalism deals

with two great ideals:

- truthfulness to reality;

- the precise representation of the nature of man, of instinct;

Modernism in writing, literature or painting, was obsessed with the ambition of style, up

until the 1940s and 1950s. Todays realism preserves the convention with realism.

According to Ernst Hemingway, Mark Twain was the creator of a race of realists in

America. However, Twain was not a naturalist writer. He was still at the very beginning

of realism.

Born in 1845, Twain lived until 1910, and so, his life covers a long period of American

consolidation. Mark Twain started out as a reporter, as a journalist. His pseudonym,Twain, was used as a name for a safety-measure when navigating on the Mississippi. As

a journalist, he was known for fighting with tradition.

Stylistically speaking, the novelty he brought along was in the language of the

newspapers. Mark Twain employs this new style, of realistic, to the point writing, whichwould importantly affect the American literature and press. Chapters in novels appeared

because of the press. Chapters were offered with newspapers.

Twain was a strong supporter of democracy. He, for the first time, introduced theungrammatical speech into American literature.

The Gilded Age was the first important novel published by Twain. It is the word,

which was put as a tag of the age of reconstruction. It highly criticized the reconstructionperiod, revolting against the genteel tradition. He was very trustful in the capacity of


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the middle-class American to judge, to make the distinctions between good and evil, as

well as laugh at the exaggerations. He introduced humor to American literature. He

wished to entertain people, but also to aggregate good taste. Humor is also used as atransparent reality, it is not secretive.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885. It has some importanttraits that remained as directing lines, perspectives for the whole development of

American literature, namely:

- the story of a life, but the most beautiful part of it, that of youth;

- youth culture on the border of the frontier, a middle-ground between civilization

and wilderness

- the question of race from the viewpoint of two young people- the idea of the rite of passage

- the idea of an adventurous life

- the symbol of people who rebel against tradition, customs;

- the feeling of optimism, of an unknown and unlocked future; of a chance tocorrect past mistakes

- simplicity in life;- the idea of the journey, of travelling;

- the cultural change in the American way of thinking, trusting the new generations,

giving credit to the young people, making them feel confident in their ownjudgments;

Henry James The Ambassadors

Henry James is considered to be the father of impressionism in American literature. In

the circles of painters and writers of France, a new trend began to emerge, a trend that

already belonged to a larger cultural movement, that of modernism.

Impressionism in itself was a criticism against realism. In other wars, it was a change of

approach, both in painting and in writing. However, impressionism in writing emerged inEngland and in the United States. Nevertheless, the cradle of the movement can be traced

to French painting. The technique in painting was changed. Instead of using long brushes,

painters started using short brushes. The most famous impressionist painters, such as

Monet, stated that they wanted to paint the light, not reality.

Starting with modernism, there is a tendency of people to invent and use new things. This

was at the heart of impressionism as well. To bring change, to change tradition became apriority. Impressionism was born in this manner, but also, from the title of a painting

exhibited in 1874. The painting was entitled Impression, Sunrise.

Henry James was born in New York, 1843. He belonged to a rich family, with a

theologian father, and an elder brother known as the father of pragmatism in philosophy,

William James. As a theologian, James senior was preoccupied with the problem of good

and evil.


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Being an offspring of a rich family, Henry James dedicated his life to study and writing.

He produced an immense quantity of novels, novellas and literary criticism, as well as

travel-notes. As a young man, he moved from the United States, to Europe, to Rome,Germany, Florence, Paris, and before his death, settling in London and becoming a

British citizen. He is referred to as the first Trans-Atlantic writer, in the sense of

observing reality from both banks of the Atlantic.

He wrote 26 novels (among which The American, The Europeans, The

Bostonians), and over 100 novellas (Goethe defined the novella as an exceptional event,presented in an exceptional way).

His literary technique was based on a desire to establish a new approach to literature. He

started to innovate the novel in his mid-career. He was very interested in finding a way torepresent a story. He wanted to change the telling of a story, into the showing of a story.

He urged the writers, and himself, to dramatize, not in the sense of writing dramas, but to

dramatize the act of showing a story, to look for the invisible, the hidden.

Another technique of his was the point of view technique. This is based on the premise

that a story can be told from multiple points of view. He is also interested in showing thestory within the story.

He puts a strong emphasis on creating complex, mysterious, modernist characters, in theform of women. Also, James considered that it is art that creates life and that the form

gives life to the content.

The Ambassadors is a novel about manners, about human relations. In the preface ofthe novel, he wrote that the compositing of the novel evolved from a seed of

suggestion. He says that the business of my tale and the march of my action, not tosay the precious moral of everything, is the demonstration of this process of vision.For James, the novel is a kind of envisioning, a projection.

Art deals with what we see, but it has to take account of a process. This is the

initiating moment, the process of seeing. There is the story of ones hero, and then,

thanks to the intimate connection of things, there is the story of ones story itself. This

is the mirror, the basic idea of telling a story can create a new story.

All art is expression says James, referring to the ambiguity of appearance, of sense.

The author invites the reader to get involved. This is a stepping-stone towardsmodernism, where more and more writers try to involve their readers in the development

of the story.

Charles Baudelaire, a famous French poet, calls his readers hypocrites, because theypretend not to know how his stories develop.


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Sherwood Anderson The New Realism

He is considered to be the inspiration of the future Lost Generation (composed byHemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald).

Generally speaking, when dealing with the concept of modernity, we acknowledgedifferent stages within modernity. Modernity, in itself may be discussed in two parts,

modernism and post-modernism.

Historically speaking, modernism begins around 1860 in Europe, but expands quickly,

especially within arts. Modernism is preoccupied with the concept of avangard,

vanguard in English. The avangard brakes up with tradition. *Matei Calinescu 5 fete al

modernismului*. The avangard produced novels that were new, a trait that was necessary,through the creation of a new language and style. It is through language that we can

understand the fictional reality of a novel.

Besides trying to bring newness to art, all artists also strived for originality. Artists

focused on creating work that could not be imitated.

Sherwood Anderson contributed to the creation of novelty by the means of theGrotesque. The term comes from a cave, and the paintings found upon its walls. It is

characterized by ambiguity, darkness, absurdity, by repulsiveness, but at the same time,

humor.

In his book of short stories, bearing the name of an imaginary town, Winesburg, Ohio,

we see a change from the 1910s realism and naturalism, a representative of which was

Theodore Dreiser. Anderson moves from the description of the great cities to the littletowns of the mid-west. In his stories, we see that life is important in little towns as well.

The characters are infused with a great power of suggestion. Anderson creates a parallel

between reality and fiction, within the same story, by using a parabol.The use of the imaginary, of the typological characters, is typical of Andersons work. He

comes back to the origins of America, to the grassroots, to emphasize the importance of

the small town. The effect of recognition is done by not mentioning all the details(elocvent omission).

Within this symbolical realism, the reader is invited to take part in the process of

identification. The intentional omission of details is used to create tension and involve thereader more. Another innovation of Anderson was to represent reality in sequences. The

accumulation of details is essential in this. Details are revealed in sequences, by the

readers intention or by chance.


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Ernest Hemingway and the American Modernism

In their ambition to become more and more authentic, modernist authors pay more and

more attention to the uniqueness of their style. The question of style for modernists is

essential.

His style derived from the reportage, as Hemingway himself was initially a reporter.

The style and the language of the reportage are different from, for example, an editorial.

It is informative, but in a subjective manner. Hemingway uses a very special economy ofwords, restricting the area of his vocabulary.

British literary critic E. M. Forster stated that prose writers are either putters in orleavers out, in order to achieve a kind of eloquent omission. These leavers out leave

empty spaces, where the reader may intervene. In other words, the writer doesnt narrate

everything, in order to make representation more efficient. Hemingway became famousfor his economy in words. He uses this economy to allow the reader to think, to imagine.

Hemingway, after serving in Italy during World War I, he moves to Paris, where he

becomes a member of the expatriate group, together with James Joyce and Ezra Pound.Gertrude Stein, a famous female writer living in Paris, also gave this group an interesting

name, that of the Lost Generation. She considered that they had no ideals, being

nihilistic.

Another tool of Hemingway is the tool of the melodrama. He often utilizes the

melodrama to create scenarios where the main character is confined to solitude. FredericHenry, in Farewell to arms, is often left alone due to melodramatic events.

Hemingway was rebellious against the bourjois values, such as honor, patriotism,institutions. This is reflected in his novels, where he ignores or mocks these values, and

emphasizes the important aspects of life, such as love.

However, he wishes to find the wisdom of life. Lt. Henry finds that love is the only way

out of this corrupt life and world, where officers of the war focus on drinking, eating andeasy women.

This is why Hemingway, indeed, rebelled against conventionalism, against social

morality, but is not entirely nihilist, searching for an alternative to motivate life.

Behind the story of his novel, we have an analysis of human condition and existentialism.

Behind the actions of Henry, we can see an anxiety to live, an impatience and desire to

live. However, his crossing of the limit and of his possibilities, his hybris, is punishedby destiny with the death of Catherine.

With the use of his style, Hemingway aimed to create tension. Dialog and repetition ofthe words are used to create images, even if the language itself is simple to understand.

Symbols are used in a new, different way, sometimes leaving room to interpretation.

Language becomes immanent, and is the proof of immanence of the style. Symbols suchas the rain, the body (as the representation of immanence), are used across the novel.


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The characters of his novel are simple people, who are dealing with difficult tasks.

Jack Kerouac On the road

Kerouac was one of the first representatives of American post-modernist literature, and amember of the Beat movement. His novels were written in the post-war period, during

the car and baby booms. He is considered to be a transition writer, between the modernist

and post-modernist movements.

In 1957, an important event in the USSR influenced events, with the launch of the

Sputnik. The young artists of these times named themselves the beatnicks. During the50s, the young generations began to assume a style of protest, both in a political sense,

and in their lifestyle, starting with fashion and clothing. The motorbikes became a symbol

of freedom, together with leather clothing, and were part of a new nomadic way of life.Roszak Theodore: The making of a counter-culture

Roszak was of the mind that these years created a new type of culture. The entire notion

of culture is reformed and transformed. The evolution of technology and its scienceproduced a new cast, that of technocracy.

Technocracy is considered to be the regime of the experts. This definition appears in afamous book published in 1964 by Jacques Ellul, The technological society.

Technocracy, in his view, is a form of society which becomes more and more integrated.

In 1911, the term manager appeared in America. The technocratic age stresses the

needs of a permanent modernization, rationalization and planning. The antreprenourship

is the main quality of a manager. The technocratic society orchestrates everything:politics, leisure, entertainment.

The beatnicks revolted against this style of life, against this soul-less world, against the

world that planned their ideas.

On the road, the novel Kerouac wrote, represents the experiences of a young man,

during the travels of a group of friends. There is no aim other than travelling, in a form ofplease, and also as a life-style.

It is a novel which takes the reader to different places across America, among which

some of the big cities as well. The characters do spend some time in these places, butthey constantly move on. This, in a way, is a detailed analysis of the different places and

cultural habits within the United States.

The novel does not have an important, major plot. This is why descriptions are very

important. We feel the tension of what happens in the novel within these descriptions, as

well as in the dialogues, which are in a way a reminder of Hemingways style.


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Friendship is an important theme within the novel. A powerful sense of friendship

persists throughout the novel. One of the greatest joys in life is to have a friend, to be able

to share everything, to have an alter-ego.

Living the moment is also an important theme of the novel. The joy and importance of

enjoying every moment, as well as enjoying life through travelling are emphasized. Thenovel is a representation of American individualism, combining the sense of freedom

with that of opportunity.

John Barth The floating opera

Barths novel, published in 1957, announced the arrival of the postmodernist novel. The

1960s represent the threshold towards postmodernism, with the 50s being a transition

period.

Postmodernism appeared in the most developed capitalist and consumptionist societies. Itgenerated a new sensibility, a new taste, and a new hierarchy of values. It appeared firstly

in architecture, with various trends, such as the revival of the gothic or roman styles. Thisrevival spread quickly to other artists, reaching painting, music, poetry, philosophy, etc.

Postmodernism also dealt with the condition of producing novelty. The writers of thepostmodernist period go back to the past, and replant the ideas of the past into the

present, with the use of tools, such as parody. This relation between past and present is

how postmodernist writers considered bringing novelty.

In postmodernist writing, truth does not appear as an objective representation. In The

floating Opera, Todd seems to invent himself every day, during his discussion about

suicide. Reality exists only inside language, within words.

A preference for the local and specific, instead of the universal, can be noticed in Todds

views and language.

The postmodernist literature focuses on storytelling. The capacity of telling a story is

highly important, including interruptions or clichs. A willingness to accept things in

their superficial appearance is also required.

Postmodernism also deals with representing confusion and anxiety, which gives birth of a

hybrid style. A great American literary critic of Arab origin, Ihab Hassan, said, in the1950s, that postmodernism may be characterized by discontinuity, indeterminicy and

immanence.

The meaning of the word post itself, represented the end of certain things during the

1950s. Ecology appeared in the 1960, with a strong criticism of civilization and the

excesses of industrialization, and the disappearing nature and humanity.


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The floating opera may be read as a parody to realism. Parody, should not be confused

with irony, but needs irony in order to exist. The Parody has a role in diminishing the fear

of the other truth. Parody deals with a preference of exposing to laughter all seriousthings. Parody makes the small step from the sublime to the ridicule.

The novel also makes a parody to existentialism, to the seriousness of this philosophical

question of suicide.

Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

Nabokov translated his works into English, and as such, was recognized as an American

writer, receiving American citizenship, and working as a professor of literature within the

United States.

He took a critical position towards the American consumerism of the 1950s. His non-

American past allowed him to have a unique, unbiased point of view.

In the 50s, we also have the first marks of a new cultural trend, that of the post-modernism. Nabokov was not a realist writer. From the very beginning of his writings, he

was influenced by modernist literature, and he is known for his stylistic achievements,which add up with the importance of the theme within Lolita.

He was interested in the grotesque of the post-modernist work. Many instances in Lolita

reflect this interest in the grotesque, as well as a tendency for irony, with the creation of aspace of distance, a space of contemplation and reflection, a space of indirectness.

The novel is the story, the confession of a sinful man. He falls in love with a teenager,

signifying the idea of desire.The dilemmas of the main character remain the following: did he really love Lolita, or

was it only his desire that drove his actions? Is he mad, paranoid or maniacal for desiring

an underage woman?

The idea or the romantic love is mocked with the use of parody and irony. An image of

how desire clouds the mind can be seen.

The idea of salvation through love also appears. Nabokov played with a common theme

of consumerist literature. Lolita becomes a statue in his eyes. He beautifies her (aesthete).

The novel also deals with the contradictory idea of desiring something, and ultimately

discovering that your desire is gone, or simply hollow. This is the idea of consumption, a

common idea found within post-modernist literature.

Lastly, memory was very important for Nabokov. This was the reservoir of his fiction.

The past of Humbert Humbert is lightly touched, but is essential to understand hiscondition within the novel. The present is turned into the past, it becomes inscribed into

the past. This is connected with the absence of a future.


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John Updike Rabbit, Run

Updike is famous for his novels, but he is one of the few writers that assumed all genres,including poetry, critical essays, personal essays and drama. He was a constant presence

on the American literary stage, and as such, fulfills the portrait of the full writer.

He started his literary career in the 60s, with the publication of his first novel, Rabbit,

Run. Harry Angstrom, the protagonist of the novel, is named to suggest a Swedish

name, but also to reflect anxiety and unrest.

The 60s was a period when existentialism bloomed. It appeared in France, and quickly

expanded to Western Europe. In existentialist views, modern existence was considered to

be lacking meaning. Albert Camus and J.P. Sartre were representatives of existentialismin France, the first writing two novels in which the absurd feeling of life is dealt with,

The Stranger and The Plague.

In creating such a character, Updike wanted to present a philosophical version of life.Anxiety is represented as the incapacity of discovering transcendence. Life without

transcendence is an important theme in Updikes novel.

Post-modernist writers, such as Updike, chose to speak about the normal, middle-class

people, instead of the high-class people previously used in literature. His middle-classcharacter, Harry, chooses to run from the constraints of life. He is a salesman,

representing a material world.

In presenting the themes of his novels, Updike coupled the theme with the style. Thestyle becomes the messenger of this ordinariness, with the use of the present tense. The

action happens in the moment of reading. The other solution, chosen by the writer, is to

use short phrases, phrases to the point, dealing with images.

By running away, Rabbit is trying to find a limit, and pass it, in order to gain experience.

At the same time, epiphany is a moment of truth, as James Joyce described it.

Rabbit receives a very serious blow, when his daughter drowns accidently. This event

haunts him his entire life, and he cannot shake it. The theme of the death of the innocent

appears here. The death of his daughter is a sign of an ominous destiny.

Other critics and scholars, such as Kathrine Hume, in her book American nightmare,

said that Updikes Rabbit embodies the values of the 1960s, of the crisis. Updike wantedto represent the impossibility of finding his way out of the constraints and circumstances

of life.

We also meet the question of happiness as the authentic life. Anxiety is not complete, if itdoes not provide the character a sense of guilt. Although abandoning his family, Harry

pays for his mistakes by very powerful feelings of guilt. This is where anxiety manifests

itself. Guilt is the reward for freedom.


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Experience in American Literature