Course Description
Who and what is an American? These questions, still unresolved, have driven both creativity and conflict in the United States from the Civil War era to the present. Beginning with Abraham Lincoln’s call in the Gettysburg Address for Americans to complete the “unfinished work” of testing these definitions, then moving forward to the present, this course considers the vibrant and diverse body of texts that constitute literatures of the United States. We will read work that breaks rules and innovates new forms, exploring issues such as race, gender, and class relations; sexuality; immigration; Native survivance; war; and citizenship. Featured authors will include Edward Albee, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Luis Valdez, and Zitkala-Sa, among others. This course satisfies the US Literature and Diversity and Global Literature requirements for the English major and minor, serves as an English course for the Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities major, and satisfies a requirement for the Secondary Education English concentration.
Student Course Description
The answer to “who and what is an American” may never be determined based on this country’s complex and dynamic history. This course explores the diversity of American Literature from the Civil War to the present. Analysing form alongside the content may give us deeper insights into the perplexing identity of Americans. Through investigating noteworthy texts we can investigate issues surrounding race, gender, class, immigration, citizenship, and the ever-changing society in the United States.
Synopsis
To what lengths would a mother go to save the fate of her child? In a comedic twist of irony, Roxy, a slave, and her tragic mulatto son, Chambers, fight against the social climate of the Southern United States in a twist of questionable motherly heroism. With a society that condemns innocent lives to slavery, even if it is only 1/32 of his heritage, Chambers must rectify his wrongs without anyone finding out his true identity.
David “Pudd’head” Wilson, lawyer and fingerprint hobbyist, does not conform to the discrimination and rampant slavery in this minute Mississippi town. As he makes his way in a new place attempting to launch his own law practice, Wilson finds himself tangled in the disorder of the town and their beliefs.
In this work of American Literary Realism, Twain seeks to criticize the laws, customs, and perspective on race in the 1850s South in a comedic, role-swapping, perception-bearing, ongoing detective investigation, commentary on the construct of the color line filled with ironic disguises and scenarios. In the tragic case of Pudd’nhead Wilson, the line between social assimilation and repelling from the norms he opposes runs closer than he envisioned.
Promotional Blurbs
What Twain has done is a marvelous thing
Breaking barriers with these twisted tales,
Roxy, like Oedipus, her fate did bring,
Strange irony, social custom prevails,
Make plain a comedy exposition,
Predicated on perception of skin,
First Families, the White Man’s ambition
A fiction of the mortal blood within.
Uninhibited, we can understand,
against the complex issue near at hand.
Mark Twain has captured an ongoing plight,
With magnificent words he joins our fight.
Yet do I gape at this contribution,
In pursuit of social evolution.
– Countee Cullen
Twain’s novel underscores the unique and unassuming lives and complex moral choices of a suppressed mother. I particularly praise Twain for the sophistication found in Wilson’s character. He exemplifies the regionalistic aspects of this Mississippi township, originating from an emancipated state, thus navigating a new society with dissimilar views. I also adore Roxy’s unassuming complexion; her presence contests any conjecture surrounding the town’s perception and expectations of a slave. Wilson, too, aids in highlighting Roxy’s inconspicuous appearance, such wonderful personalities.
– Zora Neale Hurston
