American Literature

AMERICAN LITERATURE
from the 17th to the 21st century

background information & study questions
Table of Contents
Part 1: Early days – Native Indians – The Wampanoag Creation Myths ..................................... 5
The Lenapé Creation Story (Lenapé Kishelamāwa'kān)............................................................ 5
The Spokane Creation story.......................................................................................................... 6
Part 1 Early days - Plymouth 1620: Pilgrims and Puritans ............................................................ 7
Anne Bradstreet – ‘Verse upon the Burning of our House’ study questions ......................... 9
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter study questions .................................................. 9
Part 2: Romanticism and Transcendentalism, 1830-1865 ............................................................10
Walt Whitman – Song of Myself study questions ...............................................................11
Part 3: The Civil War, 1861-1865 ..................................................................................................12
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom’s Cabin study questions ............................................13
Part 4: American Regionalism, American Gothic, and Southern Gothic Realism.....................14
Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn study questions .................................................................16
Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find study questions ...................................16
Edgar Allan Poe - The Black Cat study questions ..............................................................16
Part 5: The Jazz Age and the Lost Generation, 1920-1940 ........................................................17
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby study questions ......................................................18
Part 6: Nativism, 1910-1940 ...........................................................................................................19
William Carlos Williams - Spring and All study questions .................................................19
Part 7: The Harlem Renaissance (1920-1935)...............................................................................20
Langston Hughes – ‘I, too’ study questions ..........................................................................21
Part 8: Post-Colonialism (1950-present) ........................................................................................22
Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake study questions ...................................................................22
Part 9: The Beat Generation and the Hippie Movement...............................................................24
Study assignment Kerouac’s On The Road and Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby .........27
Part 10: Postmodernism, 1950-present...........................................................................................28
Jerzy Kosinski – Being There study questions ...................................................................29
Part 11: Apocalyptic and Dystopian literature, 1950-present ......................................................30
Cormac McCarthy – The Road study questions ..................................................................31
Part 12: Confessional literature, 1950-present...............................................................................33
Sylvia Plath - ‘Daddy’ study questions .................................................................................34
Part 13: Jewish American literature, 1950-present .......................................................................35
Philip Roth - ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ study questions ...............................................36
Bernard Malamud - ‘The Loan’ study questions ..................................................................36
Part 14: Post-9/11 literature, 2001-present ....................................................................................37
Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredible Close study questions ...................39
Mohsin Hamid - ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ study questions .....................................39
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14 American literary periods and movements:
yellow highlights: main literary fragment, integral part of curriculum for every student
blue highlights: the literature of politics, integral part of the curriculum for every student
non-highlighted: part of specialization for the pair presentations, collage, and rationale
and therefore part of oral exam for specific students;
1620-1776 Puritanism & Colonial period poem: ‘Verse upon the Burning of our House’ – Anne Bradstreet
novel: The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
poem: ‘To the Virginian Voyage’ – Michael Drayton
1750-1776 Revolutionary period politics: Declaration of Independence – Thomas Jefferson
1830-1865 Transcendentalism poem: ‘Song of Myself’ – Walt Whitman

Romanticism novel: Walden – Henry David Thoreau
poem: ‘The Fisher’s Boy’ – Thoreau
1860-1865 Civil War novel: Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe
politics: Gettysburg Address – Abraham Lincoln
poem: ‘Emancipation’ – by Emily Dickinson
poem: ‘Shiloh’ – by Herman Melville
1865-1955 American Regionalism novel: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
American Gothic story: ‘The Black Cat’ – Edgar Allan Poe
Southern Realism story: ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ – Flannery O’Connor
1920-1940 Jazz Age novel: The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Lost Generation story: ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ – Ernest Hemingway
novel: Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
1910-1940 Nativism Spring and All – William Carlos Williams

poem: ‘This Is Just To Say’ – William Carlos Williams
poem: ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ – William Carlos Williams
poem: ‘I May I Might I Must’ – Marianne Moore
1920-1935 Harlem Renaissance poem: ‘I, too’ – Langston Hughes

story: ‘Sweat’ – Zora Neale Hurston
poem: ‘Let America Be America Again’ – Langston Hughes
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1950-present Post-Colonialism novel: The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri
poem: ‘I Am The Black Book’ – Toni Morrison
novel: ‘House Made of Dawn’ – N. Scott Momaday
politics: the ‘I have a dream’ speech – Martin Luther King
1945-1965 Beat Generation novel: On The Road – Jack Kerouac

1965-1970 Hippie movement novel: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
poem: ‘First Party at Kesey’s’ – Allen Ginsberg
1950-present Postmodernism novel: Being There – Jerzy Kosinski

novel: Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
novel: Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
1950-present Apocalyptic & Dystopian novel: The Road – Cormac McCarthy

novel: Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
song: ‘A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall’ – Bob Dylan
1950-present Confessional poem: Daddy – Sylvia Plath

poem: ‘Said the Poet to the Analyst’ – Anne Sexton
poem: ‘This Was Once A Love Poem’ – Jane Hirshfield
1950-present Jewish American story: ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ – Philip Roth
story: ‘The Loan’ – Bernard Malamud
poem: ‘Smoke’ – Erica Jong
2001-present Post-9/11 novel: Extremely Loud & Incredible Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
novel: Falling Man – Don DeLillo
novel: Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
novel: A Map of Home – Randa Jarrar
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VWO 6 READER : AMERICAN LITERATURE
Part 1: Early days – Native Indians – The Wampanoag Creation Myths
The Lenapé Creation Story (Lenapé Kishelamāwa'kān)
Our lčpâ'chik, wise ones, say, "Kunakwat, lowat, nuchink...Long, long ago, in the beginning..." at
first there was only endless space, and therein dwelt Kishelamākânk, the Creator. Nothing else
existed at this time, all was silence and there was a great peace.
Then it was that Kishelamākânk had a great vision. In this vision he saw the endless space
around him filled with stars, and he saw the sun, the moon, and the Earth. On the Earth he saw
mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, and forests. He saw the trees, flowers, crops, and grasses, and
the crawling, walking, swimming and flying beings. He saw the birth of things, their growth and
death, and other things that apparently lived forever. Then he heard songs, stories, laughs and
cries. The Creator touched the wind and the rain, felt love and hate, courage and fear,
happiness and sorrow. Then the vision passed, and it was gone!
Kishelamākânk, the Creator, had seen that which was unknown, and he thought deeply upon all
that he had seen in his vision. He came to understand that the vision would come into being.
When there was nothing around him but empty space, his mind saw nothing and so nothing
was created. Now, through thought, thinking in his mind of the vision, it started to happen.
There were first created the Keepers of Creation, four powerful Spirit Beings, to help him in his
task of fulfilling and creating the vision: the Spirits of the Rock, Fire, Wind, and Water. Into each
he breathed life and Spirit, giving each different characteristics and powers. These four beings
were:
Muxumsa Lowānewānk, our Grandfather in the North. He was placed there to control the
power of rock. He gave forth solidity and physical form to the Creator's thoughts, to his vision.
North Grandfather gives us the wintertime, ice, snow, and cold; also, our bodies, the rocks, the
trees, and all that we see around us;
Muxumsa Wapānewānk, our Grandfather of the East. He was placed there to control the power
of the wind. He gave forth breath and mind to the Creator's vision. He gives us springtime, the
breath of life, birth and new beginnings, and brings forth the light, the winds, our minds,
creativity, knowledge, music and songs;
Huma Shawānewānk, our Grandmother in the South. She was place there to control the power
of fire. She gave forth Spirit, life and growth to the vision of the Creator. She gives us the
summer, warmth, growth and maturity, our inner fire and Spirit, and gives fire to the Sun;
Muxumsa Wunchčnewānk, our Grandfather in the West. He was placed there to control the
power of water. He brought a watery and softening influence to the Creator's vision. He gives
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us autumn, gives us death, and readies us for renewal, and gave us the waters, our life's blood,
healing, intuition, emotions, dreams and visions, and rain.
These four Spirit beings, Keepers of the Creation, did help the Creator to make the stars, the
sun, the moon and the Earth.
The Spokane Creation story
The Creator, Amotkan made light only after all the animals had congregated to create it for
Woodpecker up it, but the pole was too hot for him. They next sent Coyote up the pole. But he
was too noisy, all the time shouting down to his children. Bear volunteered, but he found it too
cold atop the pole. The sound of thunder shattered their efforts then. It loosened a piece of red
rock, which turned into a handsome red man. He wanted a brother, so Amotkan gave him one
made from the root of an herb called spowaunch. The two brothers went to a lodge occupied
by a witch, Lady Bullfrog. She became so enamored of the brother formed of the root that she
leaped onto his face—and stuck there. In pulling loose, she tore out one of his eyes. He then
volunteered to ascend into the sky to be light for the earth, for he did not want people to see
his face, now missing one eye. Thus, he became the sun, and when people looked at him, they
had to close one of their own eyes. The other man joined his lonely brother in the sky. But
before he did so, Lady Bullfrog had jumped onto his face, too. He became the moon. Today, if
one looks carefully at the moon, one can see Lady Bullfrog clinging to his face.
Because he was lonesome, Coyote, after several failures, made Spokane man… Coyote then
mixed all these elements together [pitch, clay, hot rock, and reeds] and—adding berries,
smoke, and fire—created the Spokane man. With these same elements, he created Spokane
woman, and Amotkan, the Creator, gave her life. Man and woman soon became wild, caring
little for the safety of the others who had sprung from them. A flood came then and covered
the land, destroying all except a few people. The survivors banded together for safety, elected a
leader, and multiplied. In time, the leader divided the people into small groups. They became
the various tribes.
— Spokane creation mythos as retold in The Spokane Indians: Children of the Sun
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VWO 6 READER : AMERICAN LITERATURE from the 17th to the 21st century
Part 1 Early days - Plymouth 1620: Pilgrims and Puritans
Pilgrims come to America
In the 1600s, a religious group called the Separatists tried to separate from
the Church of England. They wanted more religious freedom. The Pilgrims
came to the New World from England in 1620.
The Pilgrims were a part of the Separatists. They were tired of the harsh
treatment and wanted to escape England. They wanted to be able to
practice their religion freely. Some of them went to the city of Leiden, The
Netherlands.
The Mayflower
Eventually the Pilgrims went to the Virginia Company and asked if they could settle in America
and start their own colony under the protection of the Virginia Company.
Originally there were two ships, the Mayflower and the smaller Speedwell. However, after a
few miles out they had to turn back because something was wrong with the Speedwell.
Everyone decided to get on the Mayflower making it crowded, dark and cramped.
Not only was the ship dark, wet and cramped. The ceiling of the ship was
only about 5 feet tall so everyone had to hunch over. People went to the
bathroom in buckets and often got sea sick. For two months, the Pilgrims
lived like this aboard the Mayflower. During late November several Atlantic
storms began to hit the Mayflower. The strong winds tore through the sails
and pushed the Mayflower far north of its intended location.
The Mayflower Compact
Since the Pilgrims knew they needed a way to keep order and create laws the men aboard the
ship developed what has become known as the Mayflower Compact. It is important because it
established the idea of self-government and majority rule in what is now The United States.
Building Plymouth
Right away, the Pilgrims went to work building their colony in Massachusetts. However the soil
was poor and rocky and little grew there. Furthermore, the harsh New England winter came
quickly. The Pilgrims were not ready. The early settlers faced many disasters, like storms, and
lightning setting their houses afire.
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The Native Squanto
Squanto acted as an interpreter between the Pilgrims and his tribe

the Massasiot. The Native Americans began sharing their agricultural
(farming) practices. In exchange for teaching the Pilgrims how to
plant crops, hunt and fish, the Pilgrims traded what little they had.
Yet, not all interactions with the native Indians were friendly. See
Mary Rowlandson’s famous Narrative of the Captivity. In the 1980s,
a TV series was made about the first settlers, called Centennial.
The Pilgrims Celebrate
Sometime in the fall, the Pilgrims held a celebration for

the blessings of a good harvest. Thanks to Squanto, the
Pilgrims were surviving in their new environment. This
celebration would become known as Thanksgiving, a
national holiday celebrated until today.
Puritanism
Puritanism is a religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries that sought to
“purify” the Anglican Church of England of remnants of the Roman Catholic Church, which was
seen as corrupt. Puritans became noted in the 17th century for their spirit of moral and
religious earnestness that shaped their whole way of life, and through church reform they
wanted to make their lifestyle the pattern for the whole nation. Their efforts to transform the
country contributed both to civil war in England and to the founding of colonies in America as
working models of the Puritan way of life.
Puritanism can be defined by the intensity of the religious experience that it fostered. Puritans
believed that it was necessary to be in a close, “covenant” relationship with God in order to be
saved from one’s sinful condition; they felt that they had been chosen by God to spread their
form of pure religion with a fervent evangelical drive. This led to the rejection of much that was
characteristic of Anglican ritual at the time, these being viewed as “popish idolatry.” In its place
the Puritans emphasized preaching from both the Bible and from everyday experience, trying
to live godly lives both as individuals and as a community.
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Anne Bradstreet – ‘Verse upon the Burning of our House’ study questions
1) What do you know of the context of the poem?
2) What events are described in the poem?
3) Have you ever lost some possession that was emotionally valuable to you?
4) Can you tell that Bradstreet has a deep, Puritan religious faith based on this poem?
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter study questions

1) How can The Scarlet Letter be read as a commentary on the era of American history it describes?
2) How does the style of writing and the use of language contribute to this?
3) Can you point out some of the elements in the passage that could be interpreted as symbols, and
could you guess what these symbols stand for?
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Part 2: Romanticism and Transcendentalism, 1830-1865

Often considered the first period of American creativity, the Romantic period is set in the
historical context of westward expansion, the increasingly heated nature of the slavery question,
and strained relations between the North and the South which eventually led to the Civil War.
Romanticism tended to place the individual at the center of all life and art, making literature
valuable as an expression of individual and unique feelings. Romanticism sometimes tended to
regard nature as alien, but more often a revelation of truth, and a reflection of
man. Romanticism sought to find the Absolute, the Ideal; it was a movement in which artists
reacted to the constraints of Realism and moved toward the individual as a creative being. The
language of this period is less formalized than in previous periods.
Within Romanticism, the movement of Transcendentalism emphasized the importance of

nature and the dignity of manual labor. The most influential Transcendentalist was Ralph Waldo
Emerson, who published a startling nonfiction work called Nature, in which he claimed it was
possible to dispense with organized religion and reach a spiritual state by studying and
responding to the natural world. Another of the Transcendentalists was Henry David Thoreau
who, after living mostly by himself for two years in a cabin by a wooded pond, wrote Walden, a
memoir that urges resistance to the meddlesome dictates of organized society. His radical
writings express a deep-rooted tendency toward individualism in the American character.
The poet Walt Whitman is also regarded as a Transcendentalist. His greatest work was Leaves
of Grass, in which he used a free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length to depict the all-
inclusiveness of American democracy. For example, in “Song of Myself”, the long, central poem
in Leaves of Grass, Whitman writes: "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and
lands, they are not original with me ..." Whitman was also a poet of the body – "the body
electric," as he called it. Whitman was the first to smash the old moral conception that the soul
of man is something 'superior' and 'above' the flesh. His work was very controversial in its
time: Leaves of Grass was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
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Walt Whitman – Song of Myself study questions
1) What are the romantic elements presented in Song of Myself?
2) What poetic devices are used in Song of Myself?
3) In what terms could you describe Whitman’s relation to nature?
4) What roles do institutions such as churches and schools play?
5) What is the relationship between the ‘Walt Whitman’ who narrates the poem and the ‘Walt
Whitman’ who wrote the poem? Can we assume that the two are the same person?
6) Some people say that Song of Myself is a typical American poem. What elements in the
fragment indicate that it is?
7) Song of Myself is sometimes described as an ‘American epic’, like Homer's Odyssey or
Virgil's Aeneid. What makes this poem ‘epic’, or do you disagree with this judgment?
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Part 3: The Civil War, 1861-1865

The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness. While the Revolution
of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of
nation it would be. The war resolved two fundamental questions left unresolved by the
revolution: whether the United States was to be a confederation of sovereign states or an
indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation, born of a
declaration that all men were created with an equal right to liberty, would continue to exist
as the largest slaveholding country in the world.
The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave
states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that
had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first
Republican president, pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in
the deep South formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The Lincoln
administration and most Northerners refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They
feared it would discredit democracy and eventually fragment the no-longer United States
into several small, squabbling countries.
The event that triggered war came at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861.
Claiming this United States fort as their own, the Confederate army opened fire on the
federal garrison and forced it to lower the American flag in surrender. Lincoln called out the
militia to suppress this insurrection. Four more slave states seceded and joined the
Confederacy. By the end of 1861, nearly a million armed men confronted each other along a
line stretching 1200 miles from Virginia to Missouri. But the real fighting began in 1862.
Huge battles took place in Shiloh in Tennessee, Manassas and Fredericksburg in Virginia, and
Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. By 1864, the original Northern goal of a limited war to restore
the Union had given way to a new strategy of total war to destroy the Old South and its
institution of slavery and to give the restored Union a "new birth of freedom", as President
Lincoln put it in his famous Gettysburg Address (see later this chapter).
For three years, from 1862 to 1865, Robert E. Lee's southern army staved off invasions and
attacks by the Union army, until Ulysses Grant became general in chief of all Union armies in
1864. Grant finally brought Lee to bay in April 1865. In the meantime, general Sherman led
his army deep into the Confederate heartland of Georgia and South Carolina, destroying
their economic infrastructure while general Thomas virtually destroyed the Confederacy's
army at the battle of Nashville.
By the spring of 1865 the Confederate armies had surrendered, and when Union cavalry
captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865,
resistance collapsed and the war ended. The long, painful process of rebuilding a united
nation free of slavery began.
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Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by the active abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published
in 1852, it is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s, and in doing so it helped
lay the groundwork for the Civil War. The novel featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering
black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The rather sentimental story
depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as
destructive as the enslavement of fellow human beings.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century. In the first year after it was
published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States; one million copies in Great
Britain. In 1855, three years after it was published, it was called "the most popular novel of our day."
The impact attributed to the book is great, reinforced by a story that when Abraham Lincoln met
Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln is said to have declared, "So this is the little lady who
started this great war."
The book helped popularize a number of stereotypes about black people. These include the
affectionate, dark-skinned "mammy"; the "pickaninny" stereotype of black children; and the "Uncle
Tom", or dutiful, long-suffering servant faithful to his white master or mistress. In recent years, the
negative associations with these stereotypes have, to an extent, overshadowed the historical impact
of the book as an anti-slavery tool.
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom’s Cabin study questions

1) How are the two men in the fragment described? What is the difference between them? Are we
drawn to identify with one of them more than the other? How does the description of these
characters correspond to what you read in the introduction to the novel?
2) How is the black woman described? Is the description that of the author, or the narrator, or the
character observing her? Judging on what you know about the position of slaves, who would be
likely to suffer more from the oppression of slavery, the men or the women? Explain your answer.
3) Did the author, in designing her characters to make a political statement, make them too
simplistic and stereotyped? Do the politics of the novel justify its literary shortcomings? Explain.
4) How is religion used in this fragment? What role does it play in the system of slavery?
Historically, what were the links between slavery and religion? What were the links between
racial emancipation and religion? Was Christianity used to justify both? Explain.
5) In setting people free from the bonds of slavery, they win a new-found freedom. Does this
freedom come with its own opportunities and responsibilities? What are the limits on freedom?
Are limits to freedom a good thing or a bad thing? Why?
6) Are there still forms of slavery in the world today? Can you give examples? Is there anything
anyone can do about it? How?
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Part 4: American Regionalism, American Gothic, and Southern Gothic Realism

American literary regionalism, or local color, is a style or genre of writing in the U.S. that
gained popularity from the end of the Civil War into the early 20th century. In this style of
writing, the setting is particularly important and writers often emphasize specific features
such as dialect, customs, history, and landscape of a particular region. Such a locale is likely
to be rural and/or provincial. In local color literature we find the dual influence of
romanticism and realism, since it frequently focuses on distant lands, strange customs, or
exotic scenes, while still retaining a sense of detail and accuracy of description.
The genre may include nostalgia or sentimentality, but it has also contributed to the
reunification of the country after the Civil War and to the building of national identity
toward the end of the 19th century. In chronicling the nation's stories about its regions and
mythical origins, local color fiction contributed to the narrative of unified nationhood that
late 19th century America sought to construct.
The Civil War and westward expansion created numerous changes in society and politics.
American artists turned to realism and regionalism to comment on the new concerns of the
time period such as the ongoing struggle of the working class as well as the rise of the
middle class. Artists documented these national transformations by creating impartial
depictions of everyday life. In order to bring their characters and setting to life, to allow their
readers to become fully engulfed in their stories, they employed regionalism and realism.
Mark Twain was an expert at creating regionalist fiction. His works focus on the formal and
the informal, analyzing the attitudes characters have towards one another and their
community as a whole, and in doing so, making the region understandable for the reader.
Twain's use of regionalism brings the reader right into the heart of the 19 th century wild
American West. He guides his reader, using the vernacular, directly into the scene so you
feel as if you are right next to Huck Finn, floating down the Mississippi River, as he dictates
the story to you. Lack of grammar, incorrect sentence structure and words that you would
never find in the English dictionary compose Huck's language and allow the reader to get a
feel for his character as well as the customs of the specific region he comes from.
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American Gothic and Southern Gothic Realism
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction in American literature that takes place in the
American South. It was inspired by early Gothic writing, a genre that was popular in 18 th and
19th century England. Gothic fiction included supernatural and romantic elements. They were
often stories of hauntings, death, darkness and madness. Typical scenarios include dark castles
with haunted hallways populated by innocent damsels in distress and evil men who prey on the
helpless young women in their power. Images of evil in the form of devils, ghosts, werewolves,
vampires, and ghouls are used as symbols for human nature itself. In a way this movement was
a reaction to the mainstream of Romantic thought. Gothic writing originated from England:
some of the more well-known examples of this genre are Frankenstein and Dracula. But in
America in the 19th century, authors like Edgar Allan Poe started writing stories with a sense of
mystery, peopled by flawed and shady characters. These stories often contain supernatural
elements and focus on violence, death, and destruction, depicting a society which is rife with
dysfunctional behavior.
The stories of Southern Gothic are, of course, set in the South. They may take place on a
plantation, old slave quarters or dusty downtowns. There are many Southern elements in the
stories, including dialect, habits and personalities: aging Southern belles, cruel plantation
owners, poor wretches slaves. Although inspired by Gothic literature, Southern Gothic does not
always dwell so much on the supernatural. Rather, there is a stark realism and sometimes dark
humor in these stories. The authors explored the behavior of people - usually very strange -
and the fragile and morally unbalanced social order of the South. The characters are usually
complex, and many of them are mentally unstable, broken in spirit and struggling to find a
place in society. Through their characters, the authors examine the harm that people can do to
each other. Whether mentally unstable, dark or innocent, the characters still try to make sense
of the world around them and the society in which they live. Many of the events contained in
the stories are linked to racism, poverty, alienation, crime, or violence.
Thus, the Southern Gothic style employs the use of macabre, ironic events to examine the values
of the American South. It uses the Gothic tools not solely for the sake of suspense, but to explore
social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South – set in a magic realist
context rather than a strictly fantastical one. Warped and backward, racially hostile rural
communities represent the South in an absurdist critique of American modernity. Villains are
sometimes disguised as innocents or victims, and the line between good and evil is often blurred.
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Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn study questions
1) What is the effect of having Huck Finn, a thirteen-year-old boy, as the narrator of the story?
2) What is the effect of Twain’s use of dialects in the novel? Does it make it harder to read
the book? Does it draw the reader in or scare him away?
3) What is distinctively ‘American’ about this novel? Discuss this in terms of the setting,
the characters, the possible themes, the types of conflict.
4) Discuss the apparent conflict between religion and superstition in this fragment. What
does this say about the role of faith or spirituality in the lives of the characters described?
5) Based on this opening fragment, what do you think is going to happen later on in the plot?
Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find study questions

1) Define the Southern local color in this story. Give specific examples.
2) Find if you can find any instances of foreshadowing in the story?
3) Explain how the grandmother is an unsympathetic character and how the misfit
somehow, in spite of his terrifying qualities, elicits a degree of sympathy from the reader.
Edgar Allan Poe - The Black Cat study questions

1) Define the Gothic elements in this story. Give specific examples.
2) Find if you can find any instances of foreshadowing in the story?
3) What is it that makes the narrator turn from a decent human being into a violent and
unstable character? What is the formal name given to this in the story? (Hint: it is one
of the so-called ‘vices’, as opposed to ‘virtues’).
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Part 5: The Jazz Age and the Lost Generation, 1920-1940

The ‘Lost Generation’ was the generation that came of age during World War I. The term
refers to the lack of purpose resulting from the disillusionment felt by those who grew up
and lived through the war. Having witnessed the horrors of war and seen pointless death on
a huge scale, many had lost faith in traditional values like courage and patriotism. Some
became aimless, reckless, and focused on material wealth, unable to believe in abstract
ideals. In literature, the Lost Generation refers to a group of writers and poets who
emigrated to Europe, and in particular to Paris, where many international writers and artists
settled. Among them were Gertrude Stein (who first coined the term), Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot,
Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner.
The authors of the Lost Generation tended to use themes that pertained to their experiences
in World War I and the years following it. Their work was most often semi-autobiographical,
describing the decadent lifestyle of the wealthy upper classes. Both Hemingway and
Fitzgerald touch on this theme in their novels The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby.
Another common theme is the death of the American dream, which is prominent in The
Great Gatsby, in which the character Nick Carraway realizes the moral decadence and
corruption which surrounds him.
The term Jazz Age is related to the era of the 1920s, a period in which the post-war
generation in America, and more particularly those who were independently wealthy,
reveled in opulent parties, abundant drinking, and living shallow, frivolous lives. With ideals
shattered by the war, for many of these rampant hedonism was the result. Thus, the era also
became known as the Roaring Twenties.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby follows Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire who
orders his life around one desire: to be reunited with Daisy Buchanan, the love he lost five
years earlier. Gatsby's quest leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved,
and eventually to death. Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is a novel of triumph and
tragedy, noted for the remarkable way Fitzgerald captured a cross-section of American society.
Nick Carraway is the narrator of The Great Gatsby, but Jay Gatsby is the protagonist of the
novel that bears his name. Tom Buchanan is the book's antagonist, opposing Gatsby's
attempts to get what he wants: Tom's wife Daisy. There are two kinds of wealth in The Great
Gatsby: the inherited wealth (‘old money’) of Daisy and Tom Buchanan, and the newly - and
illegally - acquired ‘nouveau riche’ wealth of Jay Gatsby. The first kind comes with social
standing and protects the Buchanans from punishment, as Daisy literally gets away with
murder. However, Jay Gatsby's kind of wealth, even though it is considerable, leaves its
owner vulnerable and eventually causes his downfall. Gatsby dies alone, abandoned by his
so-called friends, those who frequented his lavish parties without even knowing their
generous host.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby study questions
1) Gold and green are colors that are prominent in The Great Gatsby. What could these
colors stand for? And why is the lawn blue?
2) How does Gatsby represent the American dream? What does the novel have to say
about the condition of the American dream in the 1920s?
3) Explain narrator Nick’s description of “the old island here that flowered once for Dutch
sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world.” What is Nick referring to here?
4) Explain the significance of the last lines, from “And as I sat there brooding on the old,
unknown world…” until “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past.”
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Part 6: Nativism, 1910-1940

As a literary movement, Nativism was very much a reaction to the Lost Generation, the writers who
chose to move to Europe after World War I. The Nativist writers sought to represent the modern
American experience in America itself. Notable contributors to this trend include William Carlos
Williams and Marianne Moore. These poets were often critical of the academically ambitious works
of expatriate writers such as Eliot and Pound, and produced poetry that was far more straightforward
and immediately understandable, speaking to a wider audience of regular readers.
Culturally, the trend of Nativism fits in a long American history of nationalist and anti-immigration
sentiments: being a country which has become big and powerful by the influx of different people
from all corners of the world, at the same time there has always been an innate fear among those
already integrated into American society of being overrun by newcomers. The question was and is:
“who are the true Americans?” Throughout history, different groups have been accused of being
outsiders: first the Germans, then the Irish, the Italians, eastern European Jews, the Japanese, the
Chinese, extending today to the Mexicans and the South-Americans. Fear of foreigners, xenophobia,
always rises in times of high immigration. These political sentiments are still very much alive now.
This is not to say that literary Nativism has an overt xenophobic ring to it. Many writers and poets
who are associated with this movement are actually from minority groups themselves, with Jewish or
Black American backgrounds, and from politically left-minded individuals who were striving for a
more egalitarian society with a better division of wealth. In magazines such as The New Republic and
The Nation, the lynching of black people and racial injustice were regularly denounced. What makes
all of these groups fall into the category of Nativism is their conviction of being true Americans,
prepared to stand up and be counted for their native country. Meanwhile, some of the expatriate
writers who had moved to Europe quickly became influenced by the rising fascist movements of
Mussolini and Hitler, with their own nativist, nationalistic ideas…
William Carlos Williams - Spring and All study questions
1. The first line really stands out from the rest of the poem. How does it set the mood?
2. Explain how and why the mood of the poem changes towards the end.
3. What is the effect of the poem being broken up into lots of small sections?
4. Writing task: paraphrase the poem and rewrite it as a prose paragraph, keeping all
the details and the meaning intact.
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Part 7: The Harlem Renaissance (1920-1935)

Spanning the 1920s to the mid-1930s, the Harlem Renaissance was a literary, artistic, and
intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity. Until the end of the Civil War,
the majority of African Americans had been enslaved
and lived in the South. During the Reconstruction Era
after the war, the emancipated African Americans
began to strive for civic participation, political equality
and economic and cultural self-determination. Most of
the African American literary movement arose from a
generation whose parents or grandparents had been
slaves. Many in the Harlem Renaissance were part of the early 20th century Great Migration
out of the South into the Negro neighborhoods of the North and Midwest, seeking a better
standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the South.
During the early portion of the 20th century, the Harlem part of
Manhattan was the destination for migrants from around the country,
attracting both people seeking work from the South, and an educated
class who made the area a center of culture, as well as a growing
African-American middle class. The district had originally been
developed in the 19th century as an exclusive suburb for the white
middle and upper middle classes, but during the enormous influx of
European immigrants in the late 19th century, it was abandoned by
the white middle class, who moved further north.
The Harlem Renaissance movement thus grew out of the

changes that had taken place in the African-American
community since the abolition of slavery. Industrialization was
attracting people to cities from rural areas and gave rise to a
new mass culture. A major contributing factor leading to the
Harlem Renaissance was the Great Migration of African
Americans from the segregated, agricultural south to more
liberated, industrial northern cities such as Chicago,
Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York. Another factor was the
First World War, which had created new work opportunities
for tens of thousands of people, while at the same time
boosting the self-confidence of black Americans who fought in the war and found, upon their
return, that too little had changed in the way blacks were treated in American society.
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Factors leading to the decline of this era include the Great Depression of 1929. The Harlem
Renaissance influenced future generations of black writers, but it was largely ignored by the
literary establishment after it waned in the 1930s. With the advent of the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1950s, it again acquired wider recognition.
Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in
the idea of the “New Negro”, who through intellect and production of literature, art, and music
could challenge racism and stereotyping, to promote progressive or socialist politics, and racial
and social integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to emancipate the race. As
can be expected, some common themes represented during the Harlem Renaissance were the
influence of the experience of slavery and the effects of institutional racism, the dilemmas
inherent in performing and writing for elite white audiences, and the experience of modern
black life in the urbanized North.
Langston Hughes – ‘I, too’ study questions

1) Discuss how does this poem fit into the cultural movement of the Harlem Renaissance.
2) Explain the use of specific words that point at this affiliation.
3) Discuss the theme of emancipation in this poem.
4) Explain how the quotation next to the photograph of Langston Hughes is especially significant
for African Americans.
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Part 8: Post-Colonialism (1950-present)

politics: ‘I have a dream’ – Martin Luther King
novel: The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri
novel: House Made of Dawn – N. Scott Momaday
novel: The Black Book – Toni Morrison
Post-colonialism is the study of the interactions between mainly European nations and the
societies they colonized. The European ‘empire’ still held sway over more than 85% of the
world at the beginning of the 20th century, having consolidated its control over several
centuries. Only after WW2, the European dominance over the rest of the world finally subsided,
as more and more countries gained independence. In its wake, a new literature arose that
explored this dubious legacy and voiced the criticism of the oppressed masses in the former
colonies.
Though the USA might be regarded as an ex-colony itself, it is obviously in a very different
category than most of the third-world countries ruthlessly exploited by the more powerful
European countries. In its relations to the rest of the world, the USA could itself be seen as a
colonizing power: during the Vietnam War, it tried to fight back the influence of communism in
south-east Asia; in the Caribbean and South-America it facilitated several takeovers of power
through coups d’état or violent insurgence; within the US borders, black writers highlighted the
inherent racism within American society and Native Americans recorded their experiences
defending their territory against the encroaching white civilization.
The Namesake (2003) is the debut novel by author Jhumpa Lahiri, who was born in India but
grew up as a US citizen. The story describes the hardships of a Bengali couple who immigrate to
the United States to form a life outside of everything they are accustomed to. Through a series
of events, their son is given the name Gogol, after a Russian writer, and this will shape many
aspects of his life in the years to come. Gogol continually fights an internal battle, trying to find
a balance between American and Indian culture, and between the appreciation of friendship
and the strong ties of family life and cultural origin. At the end of the novel, Gogol finally comes
to understand the significance of the name given to him by his father and he finds a form of
peace with his ethnical inheritance.
Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake study questions
1) In what ways does the excerpt show that Gogol is having trouble accepting his name?
Mention at least three examples.
2) Mention three examples of Indian culture and three of American culture from the text.
3) Does Gogol consider himself an Indian of an American? How does this show?
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N. Scott Momaday represents Native American literature: he is of mixed English, Irish, French,
Cherokee, and Kiowa blood. He grew up in Arizona on an Indian reservation (note that
Columbus called the original inhabitants of America ‘Indians’ because he first thought he had
found a route going west towards India), which exposed him to the traditions of other Native
American tribes such as the Navajo and Apache. His debut novel House Made of Dawn (1968)
marked the breakthrough of Native American literature into the American mainstream after it
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969. The novel combines his personal experiences
with his imagination by including Native American beliefs and customs, actual geographical
locations, and realistic descriptions of events.
In House Made of Dawn, a young Native American, Abel has come home from a foreign
war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his father's, linking
him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites
and traditions of his people. But the other world — modern, industrial America — pulls at Abel,
demanding his loyalty, claiming his soul, goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle
of dissipation and disgust. And the young man, torn in two, descends into hell.
The Black Book
In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison compiled a massive book, describing in words and
images the experiences of black persons living in America: it contained a wide collection ranging
from 17th century sketches of Africa as it appeared to marauding European traders, 19th century
slave auction notices, 20th century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants, photographs
of black war heroes in uniform, reward posters for capturing runaway slaves, chilling images of
cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth
century, to vibrant posters from ‘Black Hollywood’ films from the 1930s and 1940s, and so on.
The Black Book remains a breath-taking testament to the wisdom, strength, and perseverance of
black men and women intent on freedom. It is a vital link to the richness and diversity of African
American history and culture. Black female author Toni Morrison wrote an original poem to mark
the publication of this monumental book, which can be consulted on demand in our school library.
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Part 9: The Beat Generation and the Hippie Movement

Jack Kerouac – On the Road
Allan Ginsberg – First Party at Kesey’s
Tom Wolfe – The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
adapted from: http://www.online-literature.com/periods/beat.php
The years immediately after World War 2 bore witness to a complete reappraisal of the
conventional structures of society. While the postwar economy was booming, students in
universities were beginning to question the materialism of society. The writers and poets of
what has become known as the Beat Generation were products of this questioning. They
considered capitalism as destructive to the human spirit and to social equality. As well as being
dissatisfied with consumer culture, the Beats protested against the stifling sexual taboos of
their parents’ generation, and what they saw as the outdated art forms of the early twentieth
century Modernists such as T.S. Eliot. They embraced music styles like free jazz, which had been
associated with population minorities up to that point, and they challenged both the authorities
and the established culture. They provided a welcome change of colours to the bland and grey
fifties, and their effect lasted well into the sixties, as they inspired the next wave of artists and
culture-shapers.
The Beat Generation writers were inspired by a variety of sources: from Romantic poets like
Shelley and Blake to the intense life-celebrating poetry of Walt Whitman, to surrealist and
absurdist tendencies. Also, the American Transcendental Movement of the 19th century
(Thoreau’s Walden) proved a powerful inspiration, pointing the way for the ecology movement
of the later part of the 20th century. Their interest in Native American and Eastern philosophies
contributed to the rise of modern environmental and human rights ethics.
The best-known of the Beat Generation writers is Jack Kerouac. It was he who coined the term
“Beat Generation”. Originally, Kerouac used the word to describe the sentiment of being
“beat”: beaten down, sick and tired of the suffocating morals of the post-war years; later, he
referred to it as “beatific”, as in being in a blissful state of mind. Kerouac’s greatest success was
the novel On the Road, a fast-flowing travel narrative blending stream-of-consciousness, drug
visions, and profound observations. The book describes four journeys he made with his friend
Neal Cassady in the second half of the forties, and when it was finally published in 1957, it
made him immediately famous. Kerouac’s portrayal of Neal Cassady as the archetypical
American hero jumps off the pages of the novel. It is the image of the nineteenth-century
cowboy in a twentieth-century reincarnation: a frontier man continually pushing the limits, a
pioneer daring to go where no man has gone before, exploring the extremes of mind and body,
road and landscape. As Cassady and his friends are racing to and fro from coast to coast,
frantically crossing the continent in all directions, their maniacal travelling becomes a metaphor
for life. Taking to the road is the only way to go, faster and faster until the vastness of the land
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becomes a blur in the speeding mind. The hedonistic lifestyle which emanates from the pages
of On the Road was quickly seized upon by a new generation, keen to rid themselves of the
constraints of society. The young readers latched on to the idea of the great American
adventure, freedom and open spaces. However, most of them failed to discern the darker
undercurrents in Kerouac’s novel: the total lack of responsibility in behaviour, the egocentricity
of most of the central characters, the negation of political awareness, and the realization that
this vision of America was ultimately doomed. All of this did not deter millions of youngsters
around the world to strap on their rucksacks and take to the road themselves, a “great rucksack
revolution” as Kerouac had his hero Japhy Ryder prophesize in The Dharma Bums, the novel
which is effectively the follow-up to On the Road.
Other American literary influences can be discovered in On The Road. The exploration of the
open road through the heartland of America reflects the flight towards freedom of Huck and
Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We can see the influence of Salinger’s Catcher in the
Rye which appeared in 1951, as Kerouac was working on his manuscript; Holden Caulfield’s
disdain for the “phoniness” he encounters in society are mirrored in Kerouac’s urge to escape
from the drab realities of life. The landscapes (and cityscapes) he travels through are
reminiscent of those described by Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath ten years earlier. Last but not
least, there is more than a trace of Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in the depiction of the
corrupted American Dream.
Another Beat writer is Allan Ginsberg, who published a controversial prose-poem called “Howl”
in 1956, and read it out at a legendary meeting of authors at the City Lights Bookstore in San
Francisco. The content of the poem “Howl” certainly raised more than a few eyebrows in the
America of the fifties. Ginsberg takes the reader/listener on a tour of the underside of America,
populated by drug-addicts, drifters, prostitutes, and swindlers. The poem rages against a
society that requires conformity and leaves no room for minorities.
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In a way, the Beat Generation paved the way for the hippie movement of the 1960s. Larger-
than-life character Neal Cassady, who, as Dean Moriarty, was the protagonist of Kerouac’s On
the Road, re-appeared in 1964 as the driver of the psychedelically painted bus of writer Ken
Kesey and his fellow travelers the Merry Pranksters, and Allen Ginsberg was also quick to join
in with this new group of visionaries, ready to jump into the void of a raised consciousness in a
new age. Kerouac himself refused to be equated to the emerging hippie culture of the sixties.
When Cassady became the driver at the wheel of Kesey’s bus Furthur on their legendary cross-
country trip in 1964, as recounted in Tom Wolfe’s ‘new journalist’ novel The Electric Kool-Aid
Acid Test, Kerouac frowned on his former road companion’s choice of friends and their LSD-
fuelled quest for a “cool place”.
And with that, we reach the era of the swinging sixties, a time in which anything seemed
possible and permissible, a time of experimentation with new freedoms and new lifestyles. Ken
Kesey’s role in this age is particularly interesting. While at Stanford University, he became a
volunteer in a program to test the effects of new drugs such as the then unknown LSD-25 at the
local Veterans Administration hospital (as it happens, it later appeared that these test were
organized by the CIA to find out if the new and promising drugs were of use to the military as a
truth serum). Kesey became interested in studying alternative methods of perception, and he
soon took a job in a mental institution, where he spoke extensively to the patients. Kesey’s
debut novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is based largely on his experiences with mental
patients. Through the conflict between Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the novel
explores the themes of individuality and rebellion against conformity, ideas that were widely
discussed at a time when the United States was committed to opposing communism and
totalitarian regimes around the world. The novel, published in 1962, was an immediate success.
With the proceeds of the book sales, Kesey purchased a property in the Californian woods,
where he and his friends experimented extensively with LSD. He believed that using LSD to
achieve altered states of mind could improve society. Kesey’s high profile as a public figure
promoting the use of LSD and other drugs attracted the attention of the legal authorities.
Busted for smoking marihuana, Kesey fled to Mexico and when he returned to the U.S. he was
arrested and sent to jail for several months. In 1964, Kesey and his Merry Prankster friends took
to the road, crossing the country in an old school bus named Furthur. At the wheel was Neil
Cassady, just as he had been the driver in Kerouac’s On the Road. The trip involved massive
intake of LSD (which was still a legal substance until it was banned in 1966) and numerous
subversive adventures. The exploits of the Merry Pranksters are well detailed in Tom
Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which went on to become a must-read for the hippie
generation. Allen Ginsberg, who was a willing participant in many of the Pranksters’ parties,
wrote a poem on the occasion of a local chapter of the Hell’s Angels visiting one of these
parties in Kesey’s house in the woods near San Francisco. We invite you to take a trip with us
and explore some of the writings we have discussed here in more detail in the Reader…
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Study assignment Kerouac’s On The Road and Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Work in groups of 4 students. Compare and contrast the final paragraphs of both Jack Kerouac’s
On The Road and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, both featured in the Reader.
Read the two passages carefully. Judging from the use of vocabulary in both passages, what are
the stylistic and thematic elements that they share? How do they correspond to the central
themes of this course, in particular ‘The American Dream’ and ‘The Road’ ?
Together, compose a PEE-structured oral presentation in 100-150 words, making a well-defined

statement, supporting that with specific examples from the texts, and explaining the significance
of your findings. One student of each group will be asked to make the presentation.
define the themes you identify in the passages:
take notes on the use of language and vocabulary in the passages:
describe how the passages are similar and how they are different:
identify links to the themes of The American Dream and The Road:
formulate a thesis statement:
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Part 10: Postmodernism, 1950-present
Jerzy Kosinski – novel: Being There

Kurt Vonnegut – novel: Slaughterhouse Five
Joseph Heller – novel: Catch 22
Postmodern literature is not easy to define. Like many other literary movements, it is a
reaction to what came before – in this case the Modernism of the first half of the 20th
century. It is a term that covers many different writing styles. Generally, it refers to post-
WW2 literature, often using tools such as fragmentation of the narrative and broken plot
lines, the use of paradox, and unreliable narrators. Instead of the modernist search for
meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest for
meaning. The postmodern authors deny the presence of a single all-powerful storytelling
authority: no longer is the author the only one who can give meaning to the text, rather it is
the reader who is invited to give it his own interpretation.
The distinction between high and low culture is also questioned: accepted forms of high art
are mixed with profane expressions or slang language, or commercial texts such as
advertisements. Subjects and genres which were previously considered unsuitable for
literature, such as science fiction, detectives, or journalistic accounts (non-fiction) were
explored. In a way, Kerouac’s On The Road and Wolfe’s Kool-Aid Electric Acid Test, which we
discussed earlier, can be said to belong to this category. Kurt Vonnegut‘s Slaughterhouse
Five, being a hybrid form of science fiction, realism, and black humour is now considered
postmodern, as is Jerzy Kosinski‘s Being There.
Some of the themes and techniques used (and often mixed) in postmodernism are: the
playing with words through puns and irony, while the context of the story remains very
serious; the use of intertextuality, which is the relationship between one text and another,
or the referencing of another work of literature or recognizable writing style; similarly, the
borrowing of elements from other works of literature by what is called ‘pastiche’ and ‘cut-
up’ techniques. All in all, postmodernism is used to portray a world in which many of life’s
certainties have fallen away, in which the future is not so predictable anymore, in which
there is no guarantee for a happy ending, a world which could collapse into chaos at any
moment – very much the kind of world that we have become accustomed to after the
atrocities of WW2, the existential fear of the Cold War, the many ongoing local wars all
across the globe, and the conflicts between cultures and religions that continue unabatedly
into this 21st century in which we live today…
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Jerzy Kosinski – Being There study questions
1) Can you explain the title of the novel? Can you think of one or more other suitable titles?
2) Discuss the author's viewpoint on the role of the media, through this novel.
3) Chance is described as being "damaged". Did this help or hinder him in his life?
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Part 11: Apocalyptic and Dystopian literature, 1950-present

novel: The Road – Cormac McCarthy
novel: Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
song: ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ – Bob Dylan
The term dystopia is derived from the term utopia, meaning ‘a perfect place’, or ‘heaven on
earth’. The term was first used in the novel called Utopia, written by Thomas Moore and
published in 1516. Moore described an imagined, idealistic state and not a physical place. If
utopia is ‘paradise on earth’, then dystopia surely represents ‘hell on earth’. Actually,
dystopia as a literary genre is quite often used to describe a place that appears perfect on the
surface but is evil underneath. Often, the protagonist discovers the true nature of the society
he lives in during the course of the story. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World are examples of this type of novel.
The term apocalypse is a biblical one, and it stands for the end of the world as prophesized in the
Book of Revelation in the New Testament. There is a slight difference to be made between
Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic novels: the former type focuses on the collapse of the world as
we know it, making the reader experience the crumbling of society, the breaking down of morals,
and the degeneration of mankind: famine and war, disease and epidemics, earthquakes and other
natural disasters, religion and the end times. Post-Apocalyptic literature is concerned with what
comes after the end of the world as we know it: the life-changing event has already occurred and
the survivors have to cope with this as well as plan for the future ahead; the story tells of how
people change and evolve as time goes on. Of course, there sometimes is an overlap between the
two sub-genres, as people look back at how the world was before the cataclysmic changes, or the
narrative recounts both how the changes occurred and what happened afterwards.
In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, published in 2006, a father and his young son roam the
desolate landscape of North-America after an extinction event. The land is covered with ash
and devoid of any life. The boy's mother, pregnant with him at the time of the disaster,
commits suicide shortly after giving birth. Realizing they cannot survive the winter, the man
takes the boy south along empty roads towards the sea, carrying their meager possessions in a
supermarket cart. The man is ill and knows he is dying. He assures his son that they are "good
guys" who are "carrying the fire". They have a revolver, but only two rounds. The father has
taught the boy to use the gun on himself if necessary, to avoid falling into the hands of
cannibals. When they search a house for supplies, they discover a locked cellar containing
captives whom cannibal gangs have been eating limb by limb. They barely get away
themselves, and fortunately they discover a concealed bunker filled with food, clothes, and
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other supplies. They stay there for several days to regain their strength before moving on.
They encounter an elderly man with whom the boy insists they share food. Further along the
road, they evade a group whose members include a pregnant woman, and soon after they
discover a newborn infant roasted on a spit. They reach the beach where they recover supplies
from a boat. In a town inland, the man is shot in the leg with an arrow. He loses blood and,
after several days, realizes he will soon die. He tells the boy he can talk to him in prayer after
he is gone, and that he must continue without him. After he dies, the boy stays with his body
for three days. He is approached by a man with his wife, two children, and a dog. The man
convinces the boy he is one of the "good guys", and he takes him under his protection.
Cormac McCarthy – The Road study questions
1) Discuss the possible reasons for the earth being in such a disastrous state.
2) Discuss the concept of ‘good and evil’ in a world in which it is every man for himself.
3) Cormac has chosen not to give his characters names, apart from "the man" and "the boy".
How does this affect the way in which the reader relates to them?
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Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury, published in 1953. The novel presents
a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found.
The book's tagline explains the title: "Fahrenheit 451 – the temperature at which book paper
catches fire, and burns ..." The novel has been the subject of interpretations focusing on the
historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas. In a 1956 radio interview,
Bradbury stated that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during
the anti-communist McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States.
Guy Montag is a "fireman" employed to burn the possessions of those who read outlawed
books. While at work with the other firemen in an old woman’s house, Montag steals a book
before any of his coworkers notice. The woman refuses to leave her house and her books,
choosing instead to light a match and burn herself alive. Montag hides the stolen book under
his pillow. He relates the story of the burned woman to his apathetic wife and says he feels
like quitting his work. Captain Beatty, Montag's superior, visits Montag and recounts how
books lost their value and where the ‘firemen' fit in: over the course of several decades,
people embraced new media, sports, and a quickening pace of life. Books were ruthlessly
abridged or degraded to accommodate a short attention span while minority groups
protested over the controversial, outdated content perceived to be found in books. The
government took advantage of this, and the firemen were soon hired to burn books in the
name of public happiness. Beatty adds casually that all firemen eventually steal a book out
of curiosity; if the book is burned within 24 hours, the fireman and his family will not get in
trouble. After Beatty has left, Montag reveals to Mildred that over the last year he has
accumulated a stash of books that he has kept hidden in their air-conditioning duct. In a
panic, Mildred grabs a book and rushes to throw it in their kitchen incinerator; Montag
subdues her and tells her that the two of them are going to read the books to see if they
have value. If they do not, he promises the books will be burned, and all will return to
normal. Of course, after Montag starts reading the books, he will never be the same again…
In recent years, dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels have become very popular among
young adult readers: The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins is an example of this, and
so is The Giver by Lois Lowry. We live in exciting and often disturbing times, and perhaps that
is why the interest for this type of novel is still increasing.
32
Part 12: Confessional literature, 1950-present
poem: ‘Daddy’ – Sylvia Plath

poem: ‘Said the Poet to the Analyst’ – Anne Sexton
poem: ‘This Was Once A Love Poem’ – Jane Hirshfield
Confessional literature is written as a first-person perspective and characterized by

revelations of a person's innermost feelings and (sometimes) darker motivations. It often
comes in the shape of an ongoing diary or series of letters. Originally, the term is derived
from the confession of sins to a priest. Among the earliest examples is St Augustine's
Confessions, perhaps the first autobiography of Western Europe. In it, he not only recounted
the events of his life, but he wrestled with its meaning and his own conscience, as in the
passage in which he wondered why he had stolen pears with friends, not to eat them but to
throw them away. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) used it for a more secular purpose in
his own Confessions. From this idea evolved the meaning of writing that reveals more of the
writer's heart and motivations, and in particular the events that are normally kept secret. As
fiction, confessional literature may be anything from thinly veiled renditions of the writer's
life, to completely fictional works.
Confessional poetry emerged in the United States during the 1950s. It is a ‘poetry of the
personal’, focusing on extreme moments of individual experience, the psyche, and personal
trauma, including previously taboo matters such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide.
Some of the poets associated with this genre are Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton. A
more contemporary poet such as Jane Hirshfield is also regarded as a writer of confessional
poetry.
33
Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Daddy’ was written on October 12, 1962, shortly before her death by
suicide, and was published posthumously in 1965. The poem features vivid imagery and
makes use of the Holocaust as a metaphor. It is regarded as a response to Plath's complex
relationship with her father, Otto Plath, who died in 1940 when she was only eight years old
(though she makes it “ten” in her poem). Some have argued that the poem should not be
interpreted as a strictly ‘confessional’, autobiographical poem about her actual father. Sylvia
Plath herself commented that the poem was about "a girl with an Electra complex whose
father died while she thought he was God. Her case is complicated by the fact that her father
was also a Nazi and her mother very possibly part Jewish. In the daughter the two strains
marry and paralyze each other – she has to act out the awful little allegory once over before
she is free of it". In killing her father's memory, by making him a Nazi and herself a Jew, she
dramatizes her struggle to become an independent person. Using the cadences of nursery
rhyme and baby words such as 'chuffing,' 'achoo,' and 'gobbledygoo,' she relives her
childhood and deals with the demons in her tormented soul. In recent years, FBI files made
public do suggest that Otto Plath did indeed have Nazi sympathies in the run-up to WW2,
though Sylvia may have been too young to really be able to judge that – it is more likely a
case of projecting the negative image she had of her father, and he certainly does not come
across as a warm and kind personality in her poem.
Sylvia Plath - ‘Daddy’ study questions
1) What does the word “Achoo” in the first stanza mean, and what do you think is the
meaning of that last line of the stanza?
2) Explain the phrase “an engine / Chuffing me off like a Jew”; and what is the “Taroc pack”?
3) What does the phrase “At twenty I tried to die / And get back, back, back to you” suggest?
4) Which “Seven years” is she referring to in the before-last stanza?
34
Part 13: Jewish American literature, 1950-present
story: ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ – Philip Roth

story: ‘The Loan’ – Bernard Malamud
poem: ‘Smoke’ – Erica Jong
lines of immigrants coming in through Ellis Island awaiting a health screening
Jewish American literature holds an essential place in the literary history of the United States.
As successive generations of Jews fled from persecution in Europe to find new freedom in the
‘land of opportunity’, they brought with them their culture and thus their literary traditions.
Beginning with the memoirs and petitions by the Sephardic immigrants who arrived in America
during the mid-17th century, Jewish American writing flourished over the subsequent centuries
in fiction, poetry, and drama. Often using words from the Yiddish language (‘mensch’, ‘glitch’,
‘schlemiel’, ‘kosher’, ‘spiel’) and referring to their culinary and other habits (the bagel is a
Jewish invention, now seen as an American product), they not only addressed the issue of what
it is like to be a Jew in America, but applied their writing skills to a wide range of subjects.
Some Jewish-American authors presented realistic portrayals, ‘warts and all’, of Jewish
immigrants. Their work explored the conflicting pulls between secular society and Jewish
tradition which were acutely felt by the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island and by their
children and grandchildren. Bernard Malamud’s story ‘The Loan’ typifies this narrative. Others
sometimes deliberately satirized their own culture, attracting criticism from their fellow Jews.
Philip Roth’s story ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ is an example of this. Many writers, in spite of
their Jewish background, resist being pigeonholed as ‘Jewish voices’ and considered
representative of Jewish American literature. Rather, their work strongly celebrates American
life as a whole, making it more an American than a Jewish literature. Saul Bellow’s novel The
Adventures of Augie March is a prime example of this.
One of the most influential Jewish-American novels was Leon Uris' Exodus. Its story of the
struggle to create the modern state of Israel became the inspiration for hundreds of thousands
of (particularly Russian) immigrants to Israel. More recent authors like Jonathan Safran Foer
(Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and Art Spiegelman (Maus) have continued to explore
Jewish origin and identity in their work, turning their attention again to the Holocaust and the
tension between ongoing assimilation and cultural rediscovery, as experienced by younger
generations of American Jews. As in Erica Jong’s poem ‘Smoke’, memories of the horrors of
persecution and genocide are never far away…
35
Philip Roth - ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ study questions
1. What questions does Ozzie raise in Hebrew discussion class?

2. How does Rabbi Binder react to these questions?
3. How does Ozzie wind up on the synagogue roof?
4. On what condition is Ozzie ready to get off the roof?
5. How is Ozzie different from his friend Itzie?
6. Describe the character of Rabbi Binder. Does he inspire respect or ridicule?
7. Describe Yakov Blotnik. What does he represent?
8. Describe Ozzie’s conflicting attitudes towards Judaism. What bothers Ozzie about its teachings?
9. Is Ozzie a truthseeker or only an adolescent wiseguy interested in provoking adult authority?
10. Why does Ozzie particularly want Rabbi Binder and Blotnik to get down on their knees?
11. Ozzie says: “You should never hit anybody about God.” Why not?
12. What do the names “Freedman” (usually spelled “Friedman”) and Binder” symbolize?
13. What is Roth criticizing in this story? What may have offended American Jews about it?
14. Roth has turned Ozzie into a kind of Christ figure. Find examples of such religious symbolism.
15. Is Roth suggesting that Jews should convert to Christianity? What is he saying in this story?
Bernard Malamud - ‘The Loan’ study questions
1. The Loan is sometimes called a parable. A parable is a story which illustrates a lesson,
sometimes with ‘magical’ elements. Is there any such ‘magical’ element in The Loan?
Which?
2. How is the presence of the Holocaust evoked in the story? Find an exact quote and
copy the quote in your folder.
3. How has the Holocaust influenced the lives of the characters?
4. Which message do you think this parable of The Loan has?
36
Part 14: Post-9/11 literature, 2001-present

Jonathan Safran Foer – Extremely Loud & Incredible Close, 2005
Don DeLillo – Falling Man, 2007
Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist, 2007
Randa Jarrar – A Map of Home, 2008
It is an understatement to say that the events which happened on September 11, 2001, have
made an important impact on the lives of all citizens of the world. The generation of young
people born in the 21st century, the so-called millennials, have never known a world in which
the threat of international terrorism has not made itself felt almost continually, if only in the
consequences it has on our daily lives. If you ask your grandparents if they remember where
they were and what they did the moment they heard President Kennedy was killed in
November 1963, they will probably be able to give you a very precise answer. If you ask your
parents the same question about 9/11, it will have much the same effect.
In the wake of the attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, a whole
range of novels has been written, all dealing with this event and its repercussions in a different
way: focusing on individuals from within and outside America coping with feelings of anger,
fear, grief, and loss (Extremely Loud & Incredible Close, Falling Man); the altered state of affairs
between countries, cultures, and religions (The Reluctant Fundamentalist); the world situation
changed forever by the onset of new wars in the Middle East, Asia and Africa (A Map of Home).
37
Extremely Loud & Incredible Close is an example of dramatic license, or using imagination to
build on historical facts to tell a story and illustrate a theme. Through the eyes of a rather
precocious (some might even argue that he is showing signs of autism) nine-year-old
narrator, Foer tells a story of the effects of death on Oskar Schell and his family. Oskar's
father was killed in the 9/11 attack. Oskar's grandparents witnessed similarly horrific attacks
when they lived in Dresden, Germany, as it was bombed by the allied forces in World War II.
The consequences of these tragic events have left all the characters in this novel traumatized
in different, but equally painful ways.
For instance, there is Oskar's grandfather, who refuses to speak. He also will not allow
himself to ever love again. Meanwhile, Oskar, who definitely has no problem talking, keeps
secrets — like his self-inflicted bruises that help to distract him from his emotional pain.
Oskar's grandmother tries in vain to open up the heart of her husband. Only after Oskar's
father is killed does his grandfather show any signs of allowing love into his life again. But is
it too late? Oskar's mother is harder to understand. She appears to have withdrawn into
herself, leaving Oskar to fend for himself. But she also seems to know about everything that
Oskar thinks he has concealed from her – just how she does that, is shown only at the very
end of the story.
Foer has a subtle sense of humor in his writing, especially enjoyable through the thoughts
and youthful conclusions of his nine-year-old protagonist. But all the humor in the world
cannot camouflage the excruciating confusion and torment that Oskar must go through after
he loses his father, who is also his best friend. Oskar cannot get over his father's death until
he knows the exact details of what happened. Did he die trying to save others? Did he burn
to death? Or was he the man whose image was caught jumping out of one of the windows?
Oskar goes out on a quest to find out as much as he can about the exact circumstances of his
father’s death and the days and weeks which preceded it, to learn as much as he can about
what kind of person his dad was. As he does so, reality indeed becomes extremely loud and
incredibly close.
38
Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredible Close study questions
1) Discuss whether Oskar is merely intelligent for his age, or showing signs of autism – or both.
2) What do phrases such as [from MEDIOCRE to OPTIMISTIC, BUT REALISTIC] refer to?
3) Discuss Oskar’s mixed feelings towards his mother in the excerpt in the Am. Lit. Reader.
4) Consider the following quotes. How do they relate to the novel as a whole?
“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
“My insides don’t match up with my outsides.” / “Do anyone’s insides and outsides match
up?” / “I don’t know, I’m only me.” / “Maybe that’s what a person’s personality is: the
difference between the inside and the outside.”
Mohsin Hamid - ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ study questions
1. What is the significance of the title?

2. What might ‘ the beard’ as a symbol represent?
3. Who do you think ‘The American’ is? What style figure might have been used to
portray this character?
4. What does this opening scene tell you about the context of composition of this
novel?
5. How is that different to your context of reception now?
39

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from the 17th to the 21st century

1830-1865 Transcendentalism poem: ‘Song of Myself’ – Walt Whitman

1920-1940 Jazz Age novel: The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

1910-1940 Nativism Spring and All – William Carlos Williams

1920-1935 Harlem Renaissance poem: ‘I, too’ – Langston Hughes

1945-1965 Beat Generation novel: On The Road – Jack Kerouac

1950-present Postmodernism novel: Being There – Jerzy Kosinski

1950-present Apocalyptic & Dystopian novel: The Road – Cormac McCarthy

1950-present Confessional poem: Daddy – Sylvia Plath

Part 1: Early days – Native Indians – The Wampanoag Creation Myths

The Lenapé Creation Story (Lenapé Kishelamāwa'kān)

The Spokane Creation story

Part 1 Early days - Plymouth 1620: Pilgrims and Puritans

Pilgrims come to America

The Mayflower Compact

Squanto acted as an interpreter between the Pilgrims and his tribe

The Pilgrims Celebrate

Sometime in the fall, the Pilgrims held a celebration for

Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter study questions

Part 2: Romanticism and Transcendentalism, 1830-1865

Within Romanticism, the movement of Transcendentalism emphasized the importance of

Part 3: The Civil War, 1861-1865

Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom’s Cabin study questions

Part 4: American Regionalism, American Gothic, and Southern Gothic Realism

Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find study questions

Edgar Allan Poe - The Black Cat study questions

Part 5: The Jazz Age and the Lost Generation, 1920-1940

Part 6: Nativism, 1910-1940

William Carlos Williams - Spring and All study questions

Part 7: The Harlem Renaissance (1920-1935)

The Harlem Renaissance movement thus grew out of the

Langston Hughes – ‘I, too’ study questions

Part 8: Post-Colonialism (1950-present)

Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake study questions

The Black Book

Part 9: The Beat Generation and the Hippie Movement

adapted from: http://www.online-literature.com/periods/beat.php

Together, compose a PEE-structured oral presentation in 100-150 words, making a well-defined

define the themes you identify in the passages:

take notes on the use of language and vocabulary in the passages:

formulate a thesis statement:

Part 10: Postmodernism, 1950-present

Jerzy Kosinski – novel: Being There

Part 11: Apocalyptic and Dystopian literature, 1950-present

Cormac McCarthy – The Road study questions

Part 12: Confessional literature, 1950-present

poem: ‘Daddy’ – Sylvia Plath

Confessional literature is written as a first-person perspective and characterized by

Sylvia Plath - ‘Daddy’ study questions

Part 13: Jewish American literature, 1950-present

story: ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ – Philip Roth

lines of immigrants coming in through Ellis Island awaiting a health screening

1. What questions does Ozzie raise in Hebrew discussion class?

Bernard Malamud - ‘The Loan’ study questions

Part 14: Post-9/11 literature, 2001-present

Mohsin Hamid - ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ study questions

1. What is the significance of the title?

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