Congratulations! You are now sort of half-way through your response papers for the trimester. Perhaps I should take a moment of your blog-reading time to express how impressed I’ve been with the progress made by those who are turning these in every week. I think your work this trimester has proved that the best way to learn how to write is, well, to write. If you don’t believe me, click on the “Student Blogs” link above, which will direct you over to our class Netvibes page where you can read the latest posts and see how far we’ve come.
Anyway, here are some humble suggestions for your writing this week:
Analyze either story (“Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle”) or its characters from the perspective of one of the “Americanist” terms we developed in class. Be sure to clearly define the term (Work, Community, Pride, etc.) in your paper, apply your ideas to the text, give examples from your own experience that explain your views, and compare/contrast this week’s story with previous texts we’ve read. Also, take out the trash, do my laundry (hand-wash the delicates), go to the store for some milk, and don’t forget to pick up your sister form her tuba lessons at 6. (PS: Don’t read that last sentence–it will just confuse you.)
Write a new chapter in the life of Rip Van Winkle. This time, he sleeps 230 years and wakes up in 2007. Tell the story in the first-person, from his perspective. Be sure to capture his “voice” by using the words and phrases he would use, and observing those details of life around him that he would be most interested in. Be sure to address the issue of “progress”: Does Rip approve of the changes that have occurred in America? Does he care?
“Nature,” plays a huge role in both of these stories. Irving almost makes “Nature” itself into a willful entity in its own right. Quote passages that show the character and “purpose” of Nature in Irving’s stories, and then, well, say something about it, I guess. What should you say? Don’t ask me, I’m just the teacher.
How might either or both of these stories help early citizens of the United States to cope with the nightmare of war they had just lived through? How does each story convey meaning and purpose to people who might feel a bit traumatized and confused after the brutally violent revolution of which they were first-hand witnesses? Do the stories serve a “mythical” function to create meaning and convey values to citizens of the new republic?
That’s all I can think of for now. It’s not like I have all day to sit around pondering this kind of stuff. I’m sure you can think up something better, but if not, I give these topics to you, free of charge.
How can I be so generous?
I guess I’m just a really, really good person. Yeah, it feels nice.
I think I mentioned last week that our class invented a new form of literary criticism, which we have dubbed (or, in some sense, dubya-ed) “Americanism.” We came up with our ideas based on our reading or Native American origin myths, Puritan sermons, and Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. This is obviously kind of a limited group of texts on which to base a theory, but we’ve got to start somewhere. I’m sure we’ll keep adding to the theory as the class progresses, but right now we think it has something to do with the following issues.
[Students: As you write response papers this week on the Washington Irving stories, keep in mind that you can choose one or more of the following terms to focus your response.]
“Americanist” ideas:
Work (progress, innovation)
Community (selflessness, responsibility)
Pride
Nature (reverence? fear? resource?)
Myth (“purposeful” life)
Optimism (irony?)
Law (obedience; justice, mercy)
Destiny (predestination or free will?)
Exploration (curiosity, love of the “new”)
So, that seems like a lot of stuff, but we’re trying to embody a whole, unique culture somehow. Maybe as we go through some more texts we’ll be able to narrow down the focus a bit and eliminate some of those question marks.
Well, it is with great relief that I can declare to all you cybernauts that I have been cured of the little Strawberry Shortcake “issue” I suffered from for most of last week. So far, no jingles for children’s toys have achieved that kind of connection with Washington Irving, so I think we can call me officially cured.
Yes, this week has been all about Washington Irving. We’re reading the two most common Irving stories, “Rip Van Winkle,” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The main reason I chose these old standbys is that I have never read them and I wanted to know if they are, as they say, “good.”
Here’s the usual spiel on Washington Irving: He was the first acknowledged master of the “American short story” genre, and gained huge popularity at home and abroad as such. He was particularly interested in speaking to a European audience in order to convince those Old Worlders that America actually did have “history” and an environment suitable for the creation of great art. Although he is known for his whimsical storytelling, Irving’s main goal was to portray the folk culture of the young republic in a semi-documentarian way, thus elevating that culture (and his portrayal of the culture) to the status of high art.
The two stories we read, in fact, Irving claims to have found among the writings of an amateur historian, Diedrich Knickerbocker, who, if he was real, would have been one of the nation’s first ethnographers, I suppose. (Ethnographer: Fancy word for a person who goes around writing down the stories, and describing the activities, of some particular group of people.) Knickerbocker is, of course, a persona created by Irving to lend, paradoxically, both credibility and whimsy to his stories: credibility, by means of an elaborate explanation of the stories’ provenance (where they came from and why the are true); whimsy, since the whole thing is an elaborate, ironic fabrication (or, lie, if you will).
So now I have read the two old standards taught as the first examples of American storytelling, and what do I think? I like them. I was especially pleased that Irving resists creating a good vs. evil duality in any of his stories. In both of these stories, characters seem pulled along by fate (often associated with willful “Nature,”), with only the slightest token resistance. The outcomes of the stories see characters equally blessed and cursed–and both “blessings” and “cursings” can be redefined as their opposites from different perspectives. That seems pretty modern–and pretty honest–to me.
The stories also have their weaknesses. From the restless student’s perspective, one wonders how much of a supposed ghost story can actually be dedicated to descriptions of North American birds and traditional Dutch cooking. As I mentioned above, Irving was trying to elevate this folksy stuff to a new artistic level, but a fat lot of good that does to a 16-year-old that wants to see some heads rolling. The stories also suffer from a perspective limited to that of the European, white male, with all the assumptions of dominance that this gender/ethnic classification implied in the 18th century. It sometimes seems like Irving is making fun of the typical male’s sexism, yet he betrays his own limited perspective by his inability to construct a plausibly complex female character. Also, his description of the black “house servants” lurking around the edges of “Sleepy Hollow” narrative shows he has no appreciation for the deep problems inherent in a racist society.
On that last issue, there’s good news and bad news. The next great American movement we’ll study, the Transcendentalists, recognized the problems Irving glossed over. The bad news? The group was still dominated by white, European males who, however “enlightened,” simply couldn’t fully “transcend” the limited perspective linked to their gender and ethnicity. The bottom line is, a more diverse group would produce better, more interesting ideas. But that’s a problem for next week.
Well. This has been a most business-like post. You can download the stories from the link at the bottom of the post. They make a nice, Autumny read, so check ‘em out.
So, as you all know, Friday night was the annual KUER RadioWest broadcast and a presentation of silent film at the Capitol Theater. It was great, and the Capitol Theater was completely packed. There’s a lot I could write about Charlie Chaplin and City Lights, but I will limit my comments to the following observation of last night’s events.
There were two moments during City Lights during which the audience lost all emotional control. Because I was literally weeping with laughter during one scene, I couldn’t really see the screen and consequently noticed that many people in the audience around me were literally howling–men, women, and children all roo-ing like my family’s old Beagle, Esme, who oft sang her lamentations to the full moon. These people in the audience weren’t really even making noises of joy or sorrow, but simply vocalizing primal, animalistic sounds. For a few minutes, the audience was completely out of control, experiencing some sort of cathartic explosion of emotion.
The first time this happened was during a scene in which the drunk Chaplin repeatedly insults and challenges gentlemen in a night club, half-removing his jacket in a totally ridiculous fashion in response to each incident.
The next time this happened was about 2 minutes into the scene below. The amazing thing is, the end of the scene leaves the audience completely stunned and silently mourning for the tragedy of the little tramp’s failure. Seeing the movie this way felt a lot like riding a roller coaster, and the camaraderie among the audience when the movie was over was not unlike climbing off the coaster train with that vague sense that you’ve all just been through something together.
Anyway, check this out, and imagine 2,000 hysterical people sitting behind you screaming their guts out:
So, a lot happens every week in class that doesn’t make it into this blog. This week there was one issue brought up in a student’s response paper that I thought was particularly interesting.
This student was writing about aspects of her everyday world that held particular mythic meaning and power. This topic stems from the idea that many of the Native American stories we read not only explained the origins of the people who told them, but also taught them how to read the natural world around them for signs of higher meaning and purpose.
Anyway, this student said that whenever she heard a particular song, she thought of the guy who wrote the song, who was also the lead singer of the band that famously recorded it. She said the life of this man held more than the usual meaning–that the stories of his life actually held the “mythic” power to inspire her to re-examine her own values and strive to embody those values better and more intensely.
The funny thing about this idea is that granting mythic power to another person, and looking to them for inspiration and instruction, goes a few steps beyond what the Iroquois and others’ we read about did. It’s more like what the ancient Greeks did, with stories about their gods and demigods living on Earth, interacting with people, inspiring and, well, confusing them.
So, is rock and roll music the new religion of the post-Boomers? Is this what John Lennon was talking about when he said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus?
I think there’s something to this, and I can prove it. A few weeks ago I happened to read an inspirational article on another blog about the same guy my student wrote about, and this blog post included video of the band playing one of their most powerful and “mythically” motivational songs. Take a look, and tell me you’re not moved. If you don’t feel the power, I’m guessing you were born before, say, 1950 or so, so you’re old enough to have “real” religion still. Most of my students claim to be godless heathens, but when I played this in class most were genuinely moved. Check this out (and feel free to skip the first 1:15 or so of the video, unless you’re interested in seeing the sway the “demi-god” has over his audience):
So, if you don’t like Benjamin Franklin, this week’s response paper may pose a bit of a challenge to you. Also, if you don’t like Benjamin Franklin, you’re probably kind of a bad person, and you might want to have that checked out.
Anyway, here are a few possible topics for those procrastinators out there surfing this site on Sunday night wondering what to write about.
Set up your own criteria for Best American Ever and then come up with your own nominee. Compare your candidate to Benjamin Franklin, discussing specific aspects of their lives and their values.
Choose one of the aphorisms from PoorRichard’s Almanac and illustrate it with stories from your own life or people you know. The strength of this paper depends on your strength as a storyteller. Use all of your storytelling powers to suck the reader in, paint a vivid picture in detailed description, and all that stuff.
Write your own aphorism in the style or spirit of Poor Richard’s Almanac and illustrate it with stories from your own life or people you know. Use all your storytelling powers blah blah blah. (see above)
Come up with your own top values in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin’s list of his top 13 values in his autobiography. Summarize each value in one “powerful” word, give it a short explanation, and then provide detailed analysis convincing the reader why this particular value is so important.
Skip the assignment, don’t hand anything in for the third week in a row, keep coming to class 3 or 4 times a week where you will sit silently, with your head down, without acknowledging the presence of the teacher or your fellow students, and pretend that it’s all okay.
I really like the first 4 topics, although I know lots of you find option 5 especially enticing. Git off yer butts and write!
As some classes know, for the past three days I’ve had a horrible tune running through my head. The song is based on the jingle for the Strawberry Shortcake dolls which were being foisted on children throughout the 80’s. If you’re too young to remember these commercials, here’s a commercial for Strawberry’s citric friends Lem & Ada, accompanied by the, uh, charming jingle:
Okay, so this was one of the later versions of the song, so the lyrics had evolved, but you get the idea. Now, in my head last weekend this innocent little jingle morphed into the following abomination:
Benjamin Franklin, my you’re smelling nice,
The cute little girl made of sugar and spice!
I feel this is totally disrespectful of the man I have personally nominated “Best American Ever.” Not only that, it’s driving me mad. I tried to exorcise this petite, freckled, fruity-aroma-ed nightmare from my brain two days ago by forcing myself to stand in front of the class and sing the jingle in my prettiest voice. I hoped that the emotional trauma of the performance (my trauma, not that of the class) would shock it out of my system. It didn’t work. So now it’s on the blog, for all the world to see. Pray for me, people, I need help.
Anyway, we had class this week.
Here’s a picture of Benjamin Franklin.
In class we looked at this picture and tried to infer, or make educated guesses, about details of his character, based on details in the portrait. We talked about his fur collar (the “rough-refined American” persona he wanted to portray to Europeans), his wry half-smile (his sense of humor and irony contrasted with the Puritanical piety we’ve been discussing), his glasses (he loved science and technology, plus had the money to afford specs and the time & ability to read), and other features of the picture.
Then we read a selection from his autobiography. This reading contains Franklin’s plan for becoming a more “perfect” person. His initial idea, drawn from his understanding of Socrates, was that if someone learns the truth, then they should be able to act wisely. In other words, knowledge leads to goodness. Being America’s first uber-nerd, Franklin really runs with that idea. He creates a list of his top 13 values, and then makes a book where he can keep track of his offenses against those values. It’s all very systematic and organized, but he immediately finds that it doesn’t work quite like he thought he would. He wears out the pages of his book writing in demerits and erasing them again, and there are certain “values” he can never quite master. He begins to wonder if the whole “knowledge leads to goodness” thing might not be true after all.
But here’s the cool part. At the end of the passage we read he says that basically all of the happiness and goodness of his life (which is a lot of happiness and a big fat barrel of goodness) can be traced back to his little values ledger book. Although he was never able to master most of the values, the struggle itself made life more meaningful and gave him the discipline to achieve far more than he would have without it.
I find that idea of the “successful” failed experiment incredibly powerful. I think the most successful people on earth (however you define success) are the ones that can turn a defeat into a productive experience–often, in fact, a victory. We see this in sports all the time, when a losing team shows more determination, energy, and skill than a team with a comfortable lead, often leading to a spectacular, come-from-behind victory. Golly, do I love sports. But there are plenty of other examples of this from other realms of life.
Anyway, I digress. The next day we looked at Franklin’s other famous literary product, the Poor Richard’s Almanac series. This serial publication contained a collection of facts and figures about temperatures, planting seasons, and animal husbandry, plus some aphorisms (or proverbs, or maxims) about how to live a more enlightened life. While the information about animal husbandry has gone by the wayside (or, possibly, underground?) the aphorisms have stood the test of time, as evidenced by their inclusion in our giant red Textbook of Good Stuff Written in English.
In class, we studied a bunch of the 1733 edition aphorisms, and each member of the class had to come up with a story from their own life to illustrate (or contradict) one of Franklin’s sayings. It turns out that these proverbs can be a little tricky. They each have a literal meaning, but to truly understand them you’ve got to figure out their symbolic meaning. It’s the symbolic extension of an aphorism’s meaning that makes it sort of universally applicable.
Take this little nugget of wisdom, for example:
Fools make feasts and wise men eat ‘em.
Now, it is certainly true that I have cooked a lot of meals for people, and that some of those people are “wise men,” but not all of them. (You know who you are!) But this literal view, and its implication that I am a cooking “fool” is too limiting. The thing about aphorisms and proverbs is that they have a rich symbolic meaning that goes far beyond this literal interpretation.
Here’s one way to see the aphorism from its “symbolic” perspective:
I am a teacher. I spend my whole life dreaming up ways to get kids to be creative, produce great art and writing, work hard, and gain the ambition and skills they need to succeed, however they choose to define success. But I’m the fool: I’m a teacher–not a writer, or artist, or filmmaker, or CEO, or whatever–not a person who gets to create a product and enjoy using it. I’m just “cooking” meals–preparing the curriculum for those “wise” people who will take advantage of my teaching services–those who will eat the metaphorical “meal” of learning.
Now, the fact that I am a mere teacher-not-a-doer alone doesn’t necessarily make me the biggest fool in the world. It gets worse. You might say that the “wise men” eating the fruits of my labors are the citizens and taxpayers of Utah who, while avoiding any financial sacrifice whatsoever, have managed to get tens of thousands of service-minded people into very difficult jobs that pay less than a living wage. How have they been able to do this? Well, I’ll do what they do: Blame teachers. Teachers are “fools” for caring about what they do and genuinely wanting to help children. This makes teachers less likely to walk off the job en masse in protest of the insult they call a “salary,” leaving scores of children to re-live Lord of the Flies at a teacherless school each day. This has resulted in a situation where society “wisely” (or perhaps, “cunningly”) devours the sacrifice of us fools. And yes, we Utah teachers are fools. But we have hearts–doesn’t that count for something? What is the value of a human heart?
That little rant illustrates my final point about Ben Franklin. Although a lot of old square people have made second careers out of quoting these maxims to their grandkids in order to get them to cut their hair, turn down that music, stop skipping school, get a job, watch that language, chew with your mouth closed, scrub behind your ears, etc, etc., Benjamin Franklin wasn’t like those old fogies. He was a subversive. Look at a long list of these aphorisms and you can’t miss it. He loved turning conventional wisdom on its head and making us re-evaluate our, well, values. His wisdom often turned against conventional wisdom and encouraged people to do things their own way.
From that perspective, it’s easy to see that little aphorism I quoted earlier as a nice little Marxist slogan, all ready to be painted on factory walls and freeway overpasses.
Anyway, that’s Ben Franklin. You can download a selection from Poor Richard’s Almanac down below.
I bet you’re all dying to see a chart we made in class comparing the “values” we gleaned from the Iroquois myth compared and contrasted with the Puritan “values” we inferred from the Jonathan Edwards sermon.
Well, today’s your lucky day, because here it is!
This makes kind of a nice companion chart to one we made a few days ago that compared details from the two groups’ creation stories. When you put the charts side by side you can see pretty clearly illustrated the idea that I hope has been drilled into everyone’s head over the past two weeks: Myths are not “stories that are not true,” but rather stories that define and communicate a society’s values.
The Puritans’ set of values seems pretty simple on its face: Follow the law (the Bible), work hard, be humble, etc. It’s really just the old “Protestant work ethic” that many (perhaps MOST) people consider the functional core of the American dream. That may be true, but the more we find out about Puritans the more paradoxes start to emerge. For example, why did they sometimes seem so obsessed with the justice of the Old Testament God yet profess dedication to the mercy ideals of the New Testament? How can the doctrine of predestination motivate anyone who isn’t already naturally inclined to do so to get their butt up off the couch and get to work with that famous “Protestant work ethic”?
Of course, there are many responses to these paradoxes, and when we describe the daily life of the average colonial Puritan, the way they arranged their lives to try to resolve some of these paradoxes start to look awfully familiar. For example, Puritans understood that they were not able to judge the souls of their neighbors, to decide which of them might be truly “elect.” Yet, practically speaking, routine decisions about compliance with the rule of the law/church had to be made and enforced by community authorities. This reliance on outward appearances and behavior meant that, whether one was convinced one was “elect” or not, it was crucial to act like it. Does this strike a familiar chord with you observers of contemporary America? Now, combine that idea of “appearances revealing ‘elect-ness’” with a prevalence of cheap credit, and you see how we can blame the Puritans for the Great Depression, Black Tuesday, Black Thursday, Black Monday, the dot-com bubble, the housing bubble, and the wart I have just starting on my left ring finger.
Okay, maybe not the wart. Or Black Thursday, since I think I made that up. But I think that other stuff has just a little something to do with our “Puritanical” need to keep up with “Brother and Sister Jones.”
The Puritans were also great, and their strictness and respect for authority and total homogeneity of culture might have been the very things that allowed their colonies to survive and flourish as the incubators of the new republic. I don’t think most of us contemporary people would like to live in a Puritan colony, but tomorrow we’ll see how people like Benjamin Franklin were able to carry over some of the truly great developments of the Puritan colonies into the (small-c) constitution of the United States.
For those of you out there who haven’t spun off your own personal crazy ideas for your response papers this week (due Monday by 3:45!), here are some topics and questions we’ve been talking about:
Myth
Describe in detail one of the myths of your “people” (your family, friends, ethnic or cultural group, etc.). Tell the story in as much thrilling detail as you can. After that, examine your own “myth” with the questions we’ve been asking in class: What kinds are behavior in the story are called “good” and “bad”? What is the purpose of life? What are the responsibilities of the individual to the group?
The Iroquois story talked about why geese fly in the V formation (to honor their ancestors who rescued the “Woman who fell from the sky”). Is there a powerful symbol, or reminder of your origins (like the geese were to the Iroquois), that you see in your world every day? Describe the symbol, where it came from, and talk in depth about what it means to you and your “people.” (You can really stretch on this topic. Think about all of the crazy things that mean something to Americans–anything from McDonalds to the Ford Crown Vic.)
Puritans
Write a sermon in the style of Jonathan Edwards (you can even use some of his words and phrases to really tap into his “spirit”) on a particular topic about which you feel strongly. Make sure to single out the specific audience you’re “preaching” to, and describe in detail what will happen to those who will not heed your advice.
Can you think of a modern day American “Puritan”? The Puritan influence (the plain-talking, highly obedient, simple living, etc.) is around us everywhere and is something which, in combination with other, less-genteel tendencies, that makes America unique. Discuss a “Puritan” you know or have seen in the popular media. Try to figure out why they are the way they are, what “myths” they live by, and how they fit into the American “dream” and contemporary culture.
Alright, there’s a lot of other stuff to write about, and please feel free to let your minds wander far afield from these topics, as long as you can come back to what we’ve talked about in class this week.
I’m not really angry. And I don’t really mean to compare myself to the irate deity conjured up by Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon of a similar title. I’m just slightly obsessed with the hellfire and damnation stylings of those nutty Puritans.
But let’s back up just a bit. For the past few days, we’ve been wrapping up our examination of Native American origin myths, and our discussions of the power of myth in general. The last story we read (download: Native American creation myths) was from the Iroquois tradition. The Iroquois are a large and culturally varied group, but their origin stories all have certain elements in common: A pregnant woman is cast out of the Sky World (usually falling through a “tree-hole” of some sort) and falls to this earth, which is all water. Various animals help her out, until she finds herself floating on a turtle. She then helps create all the land we live on by dancing and singing for a long time. Her child is born, a daughter, who is then impregnated by some sort of natural-world demi-god. She gives births to dueling twins (a “mischievous” twin, and a “useful” twin), and is killed in the process. Her mother buries her body, which becomes the main source of the earth’s fertility. The twins go on to have many wacky adventures.
We examined this particular myth for the values it transmits, and came up with a list of possible Iroquois values something like this:
Desirable qualities:
selflessness (sacrifice self for good of all)
hard work
ceremony (“religiously” significant singing and dancing)
respect for the law
empathy, forgiveness
patience
acceptance of fate
The story also portrayed some “undesirable” qualities, such as
jealousy
dishonesty
pride
although I think it is quite important to note that, in the story, every example of a character acting in one of these “undesirable” ways leads directly to some productive, important development in the creation of the world as we know it. In fact, that may be the most important thing we can take from our study of this story: This myth informs a culture that accepts human weakness as a potentially creative force. Far from trying to eradicate all human and natural weakness from the world, this story shows how a people can incorporate the “messy” parts of life into a constructive world view.
Anyway, yesterday we crashed the Iroquois myth into the myth of the next main group of people we’ll be learning about, the Puritans.
Now, as far as texts and myths go, the Puritans did produced a quite a lot of “stuff,” but not a huge variety of stuff. Their central myths were provided by the Bible, and their main output consisted of sermons and teachings about the Bible. But even so, their contribution to the culture and unique literary style of America is profound. We’ll be coming back to the Puritan influence again and again through the course of this class.
The first and only “purely Puritan” text we’re going to look at is that old warhorse, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” by the preacher Jonathan Edwards. We’re reading it to collect two kinds of ideas: First, what are the ideas and values promulgated by the Puritans’ myths? In other words, when we consider the Puritans’ creation and origin stories, what kinds of behavior are considered good or bad? What is the purpose of a Puritan’s life, and what are their responsibilities to society? The second thing we’re looking for is a working definition of the Puritan literary “style”: What specific literary techniques do the great Puritan thinkers and writers use to describe the world around them?
I’ll post more about this as we discuss it on Friday. For now, here’s the Jonathan Edwards text for you to peruse.
Irving stories, “Rip Van Winkle,” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The main reason I chose these old standbys is that I have never read them and I wanted to know if they are, as they say, “good.”
I’m not really angry. And I don’t really mean to compare myself to the irate deity conjured up by Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon of a similar title. I’m just slightly obsessed with the hellfire and damnation stylings of those nutty Puritans.
Anyway, yesterday we crashed the Iroquois myth into the myth of the next main group of people we’ll be learning about, the Puritans.
