American Lit Unit 1 Project

ENG 224 Fall 2020 Dr. Ellis

REALISM UNIT PROJECT

This take home test is due by 9 a.m. on Monday, September 14th; please upload your answers to Blackboard.

There are 4 questions on this test but you only have to complete 3. Everyone must complete the first question. Then pick 2 out of the remaining 3 questions (questions 2-4).

There is no word minimum or maximum for each answer: each answer should simply be as long as they need to be in order for you to feel like you’ve fully answered the question.

This test is untimed but is designed to take no more than 3 hours. It may take longer if you haven’t already completed the work in this class and/or attended the class discussions and taken good notes.

This test is open book. That means you can consult your course reader, class notes, and any of the course materials posted to Blackboard. I would strongly encourage you not to search the web for help answering these questions; the best source for help answering these questions is the course material. Please review the course policy on plagiarism in the syllabus.

If you’d like to discuss your thoughts on these questions with a peer in the class, you’re welcome to do that. We only require that you do not copy each other’s work. Your answers must be in your own words. Note that this may mean that you and your friend receive different grades on an answer you both discussed: how well you articulate your thoughts and analyze your evidence is an important factor in your grade. Two students with the same basic answer may nonetheless execute those answers very differently.

Finally, a note on how to do well:

This test is open book because I am not primarily interested in quizzing you on content (eg. what are three features of Regionalism? What story features yellow journalism?). Instead of testing for content, this test is designed to test your critical thinking skills—your ability to close read and interpret literary texts, your ability to make connections between the language or ideas in a literary text and that text’s literary or historical context.

Because we’re looking for demonstrations of your ability to synthesize and interpret information, not just to regurgitate it, stronger answers on this test will be those that offer clearly-expressed and nuanced interpretations that are well-supported by concrete textual and/or historical contextual details. So beware overly general answers—broad claims not backed up by evidence, quotations, and analysis may not net you a passing grade. The more detail you can provide and interpret to substantiate your general claims, the better.

QUESTION 1: REQUIRED

1. Realism’s challenge to Popular Romantic American Stories

In this unit on literary Realism we’ve talked about how Realist authors (including Regionalists, “Classical” Realists, and Naturalists) sought to combat what they saw as overly romantic or unrealistic stories about American life by offering readers more accurate depictions of life as it really is for ordinary Americans.

Question:

Below is a list that pairs a Realist text with a popular romantic American story. Please explain how each of the following Realist texts challenges the popular American story its paired with here. You can answer in a paragraph per pairing (so 3 paragraphs total—more if you like). Please be sure to support your claims with quotations from the texts where applicable.

Realist Text Popular Romantic 19th c. American story

“We Wear the Mask” “America is a nation of universal freedom and equality. The abolition of slavery by the Civil War ended the inequality and suffering of Black Americans, as evidenced by the fact that Black people can be seen smiling and laughing, even singing and dancing.”

“The War Prayer” “American is a nation whose greatness is best measured in its history of territorial conquest and its ability to amass an empire by winning wars.”

“Under the Lion’s Paw” “America is the land of opportunity for those who are willing to put in the effort. Since with hard work anyone can rise from rags to riches, the rich deserve their money and the poor deserve their poverty.”

QUESTIONS 2-4: PICK TWO

2. Close reading and literary contextualization: Howells

Passage:

All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to take, for the completion of her ideal of him. He was very nearly perfect as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself…. Before her reasoning went her emotioning: her nature pulling upon his nature, her womanhood upon his manhood, without her knowing the means she was using to the end she was willing. She had always supposed that the man who won her would have done something to win her; she did not know what, but something. George Gearson had simply asked her for her love, on the way home from a concert, and she gave her love to him, without, as it were, thinking. But now, it flashed upon her, if he could do something worthy to have won her—be a hero, her hero—it would be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning.

Question:

What is the difference between what Editha thinks are her reasons for supporting the war and what Howells’ story suggests are her true motivations for wanting George to enlist? How does the story’s interest in highlighting this discrepancy (between what Editha says she believes and what she actually, if perhaps unconsciously, believes) help us to recognize this story as an example of Realism, and even more specifically “Classical” Realism?

In answering the first half of this question, please provide a close reading of the passage quoted above, quoting from the passage and analyzing the words/phrases that you’re quoting. In answering the second half of this question, you should also support your claims with evidence (quotations or paraphrases) drawn from the text of this story, but you’re not limited to this passage for examples: feel free to cite moments elsewhere in “Editha.”

3. Close reading and historical contextualization: Dunbar

In his poem, “We Wear the Mask,” written in 1896, Paul Laurence Dunbar suggests that Black Americans developed a coping strategy in the decades following the Civil War whereby they showed the white world a “mask” of smiles and light-heartedness, even though they were really experiencing great suffering. In many ways, Dunbar’s dialect poem, “Little Brown Baby,” seems to be an outwardly light-hearted poem. But in our discussions of “Little Brown Baby,” we also discussed how this poem might be double-voiced—how it might appear to say one thing about Black life in 1890s America, but also, more subtly, say another.

Question:

Please explain the double-voiced or “masked” nature of the language in “Little Brown Baby.” In what ways (or, in what moments) does this seem to offer a light-hearted, smiling portrait of rural Black life in the 1890s American South? And in what ways (/in what moments) does the poem perhaps point to a darker reality? Finally, how can the poem’s historical context—it was written after the abandonment of Reconstruction—help us to interpret its meanings and its use of double-voicedness?

In your answer, please be sure to quote from the poem and analyze the quotations you cite. If you wish, you may also quote from “We Wear the Mask.” In citing the context of Reconstruction, please be a specific as you can—don’t just offer generalities about the era, but, where appropriate, support those generalities by citing concrete examples of facts and events in this era.

4. Close reading and comparative literary history: Garland and Howells

One of the things that distinguishes “Classical” Realism from Naturalism is that “Classical” Realist works tend to try to convince us to reform our individual moral choices whereas Naturalist works tend to try to convince us to reform a larger structural system in society.

Question:

Drawing examples from the texts of both short stories, please contrast the individualist focus of William Dean Howells’ “Editha” with the systemic focus of Hamlin Garland’s “Under the Lion’s Paw.” In other words, please explain where/how you see the text of “Editha” choosing to focus our critical attention on Editha Balcom’s personal moral failings rather than on the failings of the larger system of popular publishing that’s led her astray (eg. yellow journalism and romantic novels). And please explain where/how you see the text of “Under the Lion’s Paw” choosing to focus our critical attention on the larger system of financial laws which allow Jim Butler to legally steal the labor of the Haskinses, rather than on the personal moral failings of Jim Butler himself.