Conclusion Not Included: Martin Delany’s Blake or The Huts of America

After reading Blake, or The Huts of America, I was unsure what I wanted to write about, so as per usual, I read the secondary sources (closely paying attention to yours, of course, Dr. Doolen), but I found myself still struggling to decide what I wanted to say.  How can I contribute to this conversation?  This question annoyingly kept on popping into my head as I was reading the excellent observations of Rowe and Doolen (Nwankwo’s points I was already familiar with, so they weren’t as new to me though still relevant).  I considered jumping aboard the transnational ship and sailing my way across borders, looking at how Delany both rejects and appropriates the nationalism and empire-building terminology of the U.S. and its references to the Revolutionary War.  I thought of building upon this by referring to Rowe’s point: “Writing back and otherwise resisting such imperial uses of transnationality, many Native American intellectuals and political activists recognized the need to employ the rhetoric of nationalism if they were to gain any sort of voice in United States society” (Rowe 81).  However, I decided against it.  What actually stayed with me and captured my interest was Doolen’s claim that “We will probably never learn what Delany had planned in those missing chapters, but I view the absence as an invitation for readers to collaborate with Delany in imagining a possible conclusion” (Doolen 174).  “Here!” I thought.  “Here is where I as a reader may contribute some small point or observation that may be of interest to my fellow my colleagues!”  So, it is in acceptance of Dr. Doolen’s invitation to collaborate with Delany and envision a conclusion to Blake that I have decided to devote the rest of my blog.

In order to not ignore the theoretical applications and observations to Delany’s elusive ending, I would like to explain my reasons for how I think Delany could have ended his novel before I actually share the ingredients of what, in my opinion, Delany would have cooked up for his conclusion.  The common theoretical theme I saw in Doolen, Rowe, and Nwankwo was their heightened awareness that Delany’s text was transnational (and I use this term realizing the many complexities that go with it) in the sense that it not only crossed borders but also linked together oppressed people no matter where they were located.  I was taken with the fact that Rowe points out how “Too often in nineteenth-century United States culture, Canada figures primarily as an imagined place of ultimate freedom and its border a sort of psychic double for the internal border dividing South from North” (85).  However, Delany seems aware of this trend and points out how Canada is not the ideal place for African Americans to achieve their goals of true equality and freedom.  Instead, as Nwankwo discusses, Delany desired for African Americans to create their own community.  Throughout the text, Delany’s protagonist Blake attempts to bring together an African American community and he begins to accumulate a strong community in Cuba of which he is elected their leader.  With this background in mind, I’d like to share what I think would correspond with the many interesting interpretations of Delany’s incomplete novel.

Since the theme of Delany’s novel is a combination of the desire for both freedom and equality for all, I like to think that Blake (who kind of disappears in this second part of the novel) becomes a prominent figure in the rebellion and that a war does take place.  However, I feel as though Blake would have given the Captain General a chance to have accepted the blacks as equal citizens and would have threatened rebellion if their demands were not fulfilled.  Of course, the General would have rejected this and probably gathered his forces together.  Ironically, I am still unsure who would actually win.  I wonder if Delany might allow Blake to create a separate community that lives in peace and prosperity or if Blake must die a martyr.  I see Placido of course dying poetically (pun semi-intentional).  In fact, I see Blake using Placido’s name (especially since Blake adopts multiple names throughout the text; his fluidity of identity would in itself be an interesting blog) as a way of challenging the Captain General and rallying his troops.  Perhaps, by not having an actual conclusion, Delany’s novel is even stronger.  After all, I’m unsure whether there is a way to write a truly satisfying conclusion.  Perhaps, the ever looming threat of rebellion and the desire for equality are in themselves a powerful way to end the novel.  Thus, I view Delany’s novel as not only a critique of U. S. empire but also as a way of dealing with the complexities of creating an identity for blacks that frees them from the restrictions of an imperialistic mindset whether in Cuba, Canada, or the United States.         

 

 

   

Masquerade in Ned Buntline’s Magdalena, the Beautiful Mexican Maid

I’m a bit obsessed with masquerades at the moment since I’m writing and presenting on masquerades for my British literature course, so when I saw that one of our options of inquiry was to look at racial transvestism/masquerade, I jumped on it pretty quickly.  With that said, I like how Streeby and Alemán in their introduction discuss the masquerade’s use within an American context.  Although this may seem like an obvious point, I’m used to thinking and reading about masquerade in a much more British context, so re-reading their discussion on “Transnational Transvestism and Racial Masquerade” helped me with my analysis of Ned Buntline’s Magdalena, the Beautiful Mexican Maid.  Streeby and Alemán point out that understanding “how international conflicts and imperial encounters reshaped gender, sexuality, and race can help us to understand the ubiquitous scenes of gender and racial masquerade in the sensational literature of empire, which registers anxieties about slavery, the incorporation of nonwhites into the nation, the changing boundaries of home, and challenges to traditional gender roles in times of war” (xxiv).  When reading Magdalena, I noticed not only both racial masquerades going on (Charles Brackett disguised as a Mexican and Magdalena dressed up as an Indian boy) but also, as Streeby and Alemán aptly phrase it “the incorporation of nonwhites into the nation” (xxiv).  I’d like to first briefly discuss the racial masquerades occurring in Buntline’s story, and then, I want to explore what I consider an important “hot spot” in the text that I believe may help us to see the complexities of Buntline’s heroine and cross-dresser Magdalena.

Streeby and Alemán briefly discuss Brackett’s racial masquerade as a Mexican and point out that the fatal fight between Brackett and Alfrede—with each one killing the other one with the weapon typically used by their respective enemies’—is a reversal that “is slight but significant because it is the culmination of the racial and national confusion first signaled by Brackett’s racial cross-dressing and border-crossing” (xxvi).  I think this “racial and national confusion” that Streeby and Alemán pick up on can also be seen in Magdalena’s decision to dress as an Indian boy.  Buntline describes both the boy and Magdalena as follows: “Both were nearly of a size, both dressed similarly, both nearly of the same hue, being fully as dark as a New Orleans quadroon, or a Seminole Indian” (79).  The two major differences Buntline argues are in their eyes, hands, and feet.  I think it is worth pointing out that it is only after she has disguised herself as an Indian that she offers Zalupah his freedom.  Perhaps, this suggests that she must physically identify with him before she realizes that she should free him.  After all, he has already saved her and Brackett once; it’s not until she is dressed like him that she identifies enough to consider freeing him.  Of course, we find out that he does not wish for freedom but to serve Magdalena for the rest of his life (which ironically, and this is my morbid sense of humor coming through, is not that long).  What I find particularly interesting about Magdalena’s disguise is that she does not only transgress the racial barrier (she must dye her skin) but also she transgresses gender.  She must not look like an Indian woman since she would still be easily discovered if she stays within her gender, which is what happens when her hair falls out and General Vasquez is then easily able to see “the beautiful female (for the hair of Donna Magdalena had burst from its fastenings, and her dress but feebly concealed her form so perfect)” (84).  Thus, her long hair and womanly figure give her away, but this discovery may well have helped save her since she was unconscious so could not scream or ask for help, but by seeing a helpless woman, General Vasquez asks, “Who is that lady? [. . .] Speak villain?” (84).  Automatically, Vasquez is able to see that this lady is in trouble.  Hence, when her gender becomes recognizable, she is placed in the subordinate position of needing help from men, but when she dresses as a boy or man, then she has the power to leave the “protection” of Buena Vista and go in rescue of her husband. 

Finally, my “hot spot” for the day or more specifically for this blog is as follows:

`A strange transformation has love worked in your heart, my daughter! [. . .] A few days since and on bended knees you would have prayed for the success of the Mexican arms, now you seem only to fear for the defeat of the Americans!’  `It is true my father; but when I wedded him, I became an American.  We are not Mexicans.  Spain alone has a right to our allegiance.  Why should we hope for the Mexicans to conquer in this battle?  That this now quiet city should be filled with troops of rude and licentious men, who respect no law, and are governed by no principles?” (96-97).

Magdalena explains her “transformation” from a supporter of the Mexicans to an advocate for the Americans as being tied to her marriage (though not consummated) with Brackett.  I find her words though a bit at war with the text though.  It is true that I think Buntline’s pro-American stance comes through in this passage, especially its anti-Mexican sentiment; however, her claim that “I became an American” makes me want to refer back to Streeby and Alemán’s point mentioned earlier about “the incorporation of nonwhites into the nation” (xxiv).  Magdalena sees herself as being incorporated into the American nation, but Buntline continually points out that she is a virgin bride, and she must die that way.  By only allowing a legal marriage contract to bind Magdalena and Brackett and refusing to allow them to consummate the marriage, Buntline seems to be ambiguous about how far he is willing to incorporate “nonwhites into the nation” (97) and question exactly how American Magdalena actually is.  As the last lines make pointedly clear, she dies “the noble `Magdalena, The Beautiful Maiden of Mexico” (106, my emphasis).  She does not die the American wife of Bracket but a maiden of Mexico.  Therefore, Buntline seems to romanticize Mexico but cannot bring himself to consummate Mexico with America.

The “Uncanny” and “Doubling” in George Lippard’s ‘Bel of Prairie Eden

When I finished reading George Lippard’s ‘Bel of Prairie Eden, there was one aspect of the novel in particular that stood out to me: the extremely similar depictions of the two female protagonists.  My readings of the secondary texts helped me to analyze this aspect more closely.  I’d like to focus in on both Jesse Alemán’s article “The Other Country: Mexico, the United States, and the Gothic History” and the chapter from Shelley Streeby’s American Sensations: Empire, Amnesia, and the US-Mexican War in order to see the “uncanny” and “doubling” of Lippard’s depictions of Isabel and Isora. 

First, Alemán discusses the “uncanny” and explains his terminology with the following:

Mexico more appropriately stands in as the US’s uncanny imperial other because the continental proximity of the two countries and their shared revolutionary histories make them estranged national neighbors.3 The ‘uncanny’ is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar,” writes Freud (369–70). I maintain that Mexico is a strangely familiar place that troubles the US’s trans-American imaginary. Freud’s definition of the uncanny as unheimlich—the “unhomely”—is especially apt here because the fluidity of national borders collapses the otherwise clear distinctions between native and foreigner, domestic and international, and America and América. (409)

This idea of the “uncanny” as both something “familiar” and “terrifying” may just be the key to understanding Lippard’s gothic text.  Streeby points out that “U. S. empire becomes [. . .] an uncanny double of the Spanish empire” (58) and that in ‘Bel Prairie of Eden, specifically, “Lippard uncovers uncanny resemblances and traces connections between the capitalist U. S. city and scene of empire building in Texas and Mexico” (74).  This idea of the uncanny seems linked with “doubling.”  In fact, though discussing two different texts (Calavar and Conquest), Alemán discusses this “doubling” as follows:

Estranged from itself, the western hemisphere is doubled—European but not Europe, native but not indigenous. The doubling itself is uncanny, but what I have been emphasizing with Calavar and Conquest is how this doubling becomes especially haunting when it manifests itself in sameness rather than difference, to reverse Mignolo’s phrase. That is, difference maintains the borders across the Americas that distinguish one nation from the other, but sameness produces an inter-American gothic hemisphere that emerges when native nationalist writings uncover as their origin the history of another country. (419)

This passage reminded me of Bhabha’s concept of colonial mimicry: “a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite” (126, italics in original).  Isabel and Isora are almost the same: their names, their physical appearance, and their earlier innocence.  However, they are not quite the same.  Isabel is from America and Isora from América.  Isabel is blackmailed and drugged into sleeping with Don Antonio Marin, while Isora runs away with John Grywin and is seduced and drugged.  Though both women die young, Isabel is abandoned by Don Antonio but John marries Isora, protecting her from the truth about her brother.  The “uncanny” similarities of both Isabel and Isora seem to suggest that America and América are not that dissimilar, yet both women are wronged.  I agree with Streeby that Mexico is feminized and the U. S. is masculinized and that it may seem like an attempt to “turn force into consent and conquest into international romance” (65).  However, both Don Antonio and John victimize the women; in fact, Don Antonio is more forceful than John, so if both Don Antonio and Isora are symbolic of Mexico then there seems to be a complication.  Also, Isabel is just as revengeful as her brother and obviously approved the plan for him to seduce Isora; thus, the Americans are just as violent.  Though Don Antonio, the Mexican, may have started the fight, the Americans were certainly going to finish it even if they did feel “remorse.”  It seems to me that Lippard is working through the complexities of American expansionism like Streeby and Alemán discuss but that he does seem aware (though how consciously aware I’m not sure) of the problem of crossing boundaries and claiming property (i.e. symbolic through Isabel and Isora’s bodies) with force (e.g. blackmail, seduction, drugs, etc.) instead of peaceful legality (i.e. marriage).  The reader is still to sympathize with John (i.e. the Americans), yet the reader is also to see John’s serious faults as well.  However, though the ending does seem to end on a rather depressing note, there does still seem to be “hope” for John (and thereby America as well) since he not only feels remorse but also has mercy on Ewen McGregor’s orphaned son.  Thus, Lippard seems to suggest that America maybe should feel remorseful about its expansion, but overall, good may eventually come out of it.      

The Power of Words: The Weapon of American Colonialism?

In “Indian Literacy, U. S. Colonialism, and Literary Criticism,” Maureen Konkle does an excellent job of discussing not only the power of language but also the politics connected to it in relation to colonial expansion.  I found Konkle’s article extremely helpful in my analysis of Life of Black Hawk, or Má-ka-tai-me-she-kiá-kiák, especially Konkle’s point that “Colonialism is a struggle for territory that takes place in part through the production of knowledge; written records and a reading public are as necessary as technologically sophisticated weaponry or encroaching settlers” (460).  Hence, the English language, especially when written, holds a certain amount of power that can be used to harm those who are not masters of it.  However, just in case Indians do figure out how to use this language effectively, then Konkle points out how they will soon find themselves in a kind of “catch-22” since if Indians learned to write and speak English as well as “the white man,” then suddenly, they were not seen as truly Indian (476-77). 

As I was reading Konkle’s article, certain passages in Black Hawk’s narrative seemed much more important, especially concerning the power of the English language.  Now, I’m not sure if it would qualify as the “hot spot” of the text, but I think the following is an important theme throughout the novel.  Discussing the problems with the white settlers intruding on the Indian’s territory, Black Hawk states:

We acquainted our agent daily with our situation, and through him, the great chief at St. Louis—and hoped that something would be done for us.  The whites were complaining at the same time that we were intruding upon their rights! They made themselves out the injured party, and we the intruders!  and called Loudly to the great war chief to protect their property.  How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right” (57, italics in original). 

In this passage, we can see how Black Hawk and his tribe must go through their agent as their interpreter and spokesperson in order to have their message and complaints told to the “the great chief at St. Louis” while the whites spoke loudly to the “great war chief” for protection.  Mark Rifkin also points out how “Keokuk’s language gains force through its alliance with `the great war chief,´ also implicitly suggesting that he has come to view the land as property—a dissectable and dead thing” (693).  Rifkin is more concerned with analyzing this passage in its connection with land and geopolitics, but I would like to look at this passage through its connection to the power of language.  It becomes evident that Black Hawk is losing a battle of words.  He wonders about the power and smoothness of “the language of the whites” since they are able to make their cause look right and Black Hawk’s wrong.  It is the “white man’s language” that manipulates Black Hawk into leaving his village, and it is documents filled with “white man’s language” that Black Hawk and his fellow natives do not understand but “touch the quill” anyway.  Black Hawk seems aware of this power of language, and it is in his rival Ke-o-kuck that Black Hawk shares his enviousness of Ke-o-kuck’s “smooth tongue” and describes him as “a great speaker” (62).  Interestingly, Ke-o-kuck is also using his power of words to persuade his tribe that Black Hawk is in the wrong for wanting to go to war.  

Furthermore, the Americans trust the eloquent Ke-o-kuck, releasing Black Hawk with the condition that he will be under Ke-o-kuck’s supervision.  This restriction hurts Black Hawk’s pride; again, Black Hawk’s inability to be a persuasive orator causes him to not have the “trust” or the persuasiveness over the Americans or even the people of his own tribe.  Black Hawk seems envious of Ke-o-kuck’s ability to community with others, clearly sensing the power of language.  Although Black Hawk loses his original territory, becomes a captive, and must be under the care of his rival, he still fights back.  Obviously, he did not physically fight back; after all, he said himself that he wanted to live in peace.  I’m referring to his decision to narrate his story to be written in “white man’s language” and read by Americans throughout the nation.  Even though he had been the victim of the power of language, Black Hawk appropriates the “white man’s language” in order to criticize Americans in their own tongue.  In a way, Black Hawk fights back with words once he realizes the potential power of language.  

The Complexities of “Territories”: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

I don’t know where to begin.  As I was reading, listening, and watching, so many thoughts flashed into my head.  My apparent lack of knowledge about Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and just the history in general regarding the United States and Indian relations was one of the things I realized.  Frankly, I must admit I had not given a lot of thought about Indian reservations prior to this assignment.  I guess I had a romantic view of how they were connected harmoniously with nature and were happy and at peace.  Though I might have continued believing that if we had just looked at George Catlin’s landscape portraits, I obviously had a real “enlightenment” when it came to Aaron Huey’s photography and especially his Ted Talk.  Now, I’m not going to keep on going on and on about how Huey’s photography and Fuller’s article and podcast made me realize I had been living in my own little world, but I wanted to let you know where I was coming from, and I kind of imagine I’m not alone there.  Nevertheless, what I’d like to do in this blog is connect some of our secondary readings to Huey’s pictures in order to see the connections to territory.

First, in Brenner and Elden’s article, they discuss Henri Lefebvre and how he discusses territory as a space—Lefebvre especially discusses “abstract space”—that is political, visionary (or “political imaginaries”), and violent (358-59).  Though the territory of the Black Hills is not an abstract space, I think these three aspects are worth looking at.  Brenner and Elden go on to point out that the notion of land could be understood as “the articulation between the nation-state and its territory” (363).  This is a crude summary, but I can’t go into too much detail in this blog.  I think the politics of territory is one of the key ways to look at Huey’s photography.  After all, Huey employs his photography of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as a way of making a political statement: “Give the Black Hills back to the Lakota.  What they do with them is none of your business.”  The “territory” of the Black Hills becomes a political issue.  Interestingly, Mount Rushmore, with our forefathers looking out over the land, seems “visionary.”  Yet, as I listened to on the National Geographic website from a girl about “Faces-Do Not Worship,” she points out that this place people travel to has become basically a joke since it wasn’t even the Americans’ land to start out with.  I don’t know if I should even point out the violence aspect tied to this land since we’ve all read and listened to the same texts.

I’d also like to quickly mention “The Pursuit of Whiteness: Property, Terror, and Expansion, 1790-1860” and how Roediger points out that political theorists connect our forefathers’ claim to “the pursuit of happiness” to the “pursuit of property” (581).  I think it is interesting if we look at the Black Hills as property that our forefathers “pursued” in the hopes of obtaining happiness through financial prosperity and how the Indians view this property as a part of their heritage.  I realize that I need to wrap up my blog post, so I’m just going to end by saying that I think the complexities between property and pursuing happiness is an interesting way of looking at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Black Hills.   

“All the Live Long Day” or Night: Lydia Maria Child’s Hobomok

After reading Hobomok, I read Carolyn Karcher’s exquisitely thorough and informative introduction.  (On a side note, I decided to read Hobomok first since it has been my experience that the introduction frequently gives away a lot of spoilers.)  I especially appreciated Karcher's point about how both Hobomok and Charles Brown “provide a means of defying patriarchal authority, as vested not only in Mary’s father but in the society for which it stands” (xxix).  Although I was extremely impressed with Karcher’s introduction, I’d kind of like to go in a different direction in order to make a similar connection. 

As I was reading, I was (for some reason I’m unsure of) extremely tuned into Child’s word choices and the phrases she was using, and two in particular stood out to me.  The first instance is in chapter one when the narrator is discussing his trip to America and says, “All the livelong day we watched the sails as they fluttered loosely round the mast, and listened to the hoarse creaking of the shrouds.  Evening at length came on in her softened beauty; and I shall never forget the crowd of sensations which it brought upon my mind.  I was in a new world, whose almost unlimited extent lay in the darkness of ignorance and desolation” (7, my italics).    The narrator seems to use the phrase “all the livelong day” as a way of emphasizing his impatience to arrive to America.  However, it is evening before he actually sees this “new world” but its potential seems to be covered in darkness and ignorance.  I wonder if this cloud of darkness covering America could be symbolic of the patriarchal society encompassing and stifling the intellectual and cultural growth of minority groups, such as women and Indians (to name a few).

The second instance that grabbed my attention was when Hobomok is looking out for Mary since he is aware that she has been targeted by some of the Indians: “Mr. Conant returned to his family, and Mary, inured to such occurrences, slept peacefully within their humble dwelling, unconscious that Hobomok watched it the livelong night, with eyes that knew no slumber” (41, my italics).  In this passage, the night is depicted as being long and tedious for Hobomok whose “eyes that knew no slumber,” but for Mr. Conant and especially Mary it is a peaceful night since they live unconscious of their potential danger and also unconscious of their protector.  Living in a dark, desolate place, Hobomok is the one character whose “eyes are open” and is conscious of surroundings and potential threats.  Suddenly, in this passage, Hobomok seems to be the enlightened character while the others are encompassed in darkness and ignorance.  I like how these two passages seem to use the same imagery and how they seem to support Karcher’s argument about Child’s concern with the white male supremacy that she saw dominating her contemporary society.     

The Problems of the Unconscious: Humanity in Algiers

In the opening to Humanity in Algiers, the narrator writes, “Unconscious of our own crimes, or unwilling the world should know them, we frequently condemn in others the very practices we applaud in ourselves” (3).  This seems to be the main theme throughout the text.  Sequida and Selictor struggle against freeing Azem since they desire to profit by selling him, yet they themselves when they were younger needed help from a friend to release Selictor from prison.  Selictor fails to recognize the similarity between him and Azem, refusing to free Azem by selling him to their neighbor Testador.  What I found interesting was how Selictor’s death is contrasted with Azem’s death.  Both attain the executors of their wills from Omri’s family: Selictor from Omri himself and Azem from Omri’s son Arramel.  However, Selictor insists on accumulating his wealth as much as possible before he dies to then give to his biological family even at the literal cost of another person’s freedom.  Azem, on the other hand, helps other slaves and even argues against turning enemies into slaves.  Although Azem’s family dies so he could not leave an inheritance to them, his immediate thought is to help others who had been in his position.  The author seems to be suggesting that Azem demonstrates true humanity.  He is conscious of the immorality of enslaving people no matter their race or gender.  The problem with many of the characters in the novel—Selictor, Sequida, Selin (Sequida’s brother), and Valachus to name a few—is that they are those who are “unconscious” of their own crimes and faults.  The author seems to also suggest that true humanity lies in not only being conscious but also realizing those tendencies and to take action to stop hypocrisy and to help others. 

I felt as though a lot of the novel was predictable (Alzina revealed as Azem’s sister, the old slave as his mother, etc), but I appreciated the theme of “humanity” and “unconsciousness.”  I also liked the American narrator who is revealing this story as way of paying homage to Azem for restoring his freedom.  I realize that most of the secondary readings we had were more concerned with capitalism and cosmopolitism, and I think I can see a correlation between them and Humanity in Algiers, especially if you look at the slaves as commodities and how there is a continual circle of the victors of combat enslaving the losers and then the losers overcoming the victors and so on and so forth.  However, I felt like focusing more on a closer reading of Humanity in Algiers, especially since it is part of the “Just Teach One” project (which I find particularly interesting by the way).      

Secret Revealed: The Importance of the Epistolary Form

For my other grad course I’m taking this semester, I’m presenting on the epistolary novel.  Hence, it is probably not that surprising that I have decided to discuss Secret History: or, The Horrors of St. Domingo in connection to it being an “epistolary novel.”  Now, I put “epistolary novel” in scare quotes because I was struck with the fact that Gretchen Woertendyke refused to discuss Secret History as an epistolary novel but insisted upon referring to it as belonging to the genre of secret history.  I do not have a problem with Woertendyke discussing Secret History in relation to this genre, but I do have an issue with Woertendyke’s refusal to also discuss Secret History as an epistolary novel since I think by limiting herself to only viewing Secret History as a secret history that she missed crossing literary boundaries of genre that would have enriched her analysis.  In fact, Woertendyke only mentions “epistolary novel” once in her fifth footnote in a brief attempt to explain that she is focusing on “secret history” instead of “novel” because she feels as though “secret history” is often buried in “a footnote or otherwise secondary characteristic” (267-68).  However, this is exactly what she does with “epistolary novel.”  What I would like to do in this blog is to point out briefly just a few connections to the epistolary novel that I think could have benefited Woertendyke’s article.

Woertendyke states, “Sansay draws attention to the space between conceptual categories, of private and public, and geopolitical landscapes, of Early America and Early Haiti” (262).  One of the great aspects of epistolary novels is their ability to have a fictional writer/narrator of the letters address another fictional character within the private sphere of letters but with the author of the novel having the full knowledge that these “private letters” will be read by a public audience.  Furthermore, the fictional writer of a letter is transcribing their own personalized and private interpretation of events for a specific fictional audience.  The author of the novel must not only keep this in mind but must also consider how the public audience might respond to these “private” letters.  Furthermore, letters may travel across oceans, states, nations, or to the house next door; thus, letters themselves are not stationary but are mobile.  By considering the epistolary form, Sansay is able to embed these complexities of public and private within the genre of the epistolary novel. 

Furthermore, many critics have been fascinated, and rightly so, with Sansay’s depictions of men and women’s relationships.  Again, it is important to consider the epistolary novel since as Theresa Gaul points out that many women did not have opportunity to publish books or novels so instead many women wrote letters (265).  The form of an epistolary novel provided Sansay with the opportunity to transform her “private” letters into a novel for the “public.”  As scholars have discussed, Sansay took her own private life and used it as the basis for her novel.  Thus, I believe ignoring the form Sansay chose to publish her novel in is a mistake that can cause many important connections to be missed.  I think the points and observations to be made are too numerous for one blog post, but hopefully, we as scholars can cross the literary divide between secret history and epistolary novel in order to enrich our understandings (and refuse the urge to bury either one in a footnote).          

A Search for Literary Identity in Early American Literature

So, as I read the articles as they appear on our schedule, I made comments and observations in a notebook.  Now, don’t worry.  I’m not going to simply re-write my notes, but I would like to point out how much they all seem to converse with one another.  (Obviously, these are not their complete arguments since I don’t have space enough to give them all the attention they may deserve.) 

 

Gustafson and Hunter feel as though early Americanists are needed to contribute to the “understanding of the field as a whole” (215).  Bauer wants a more “polycentric historicism” as defined by Roland Greene (220).  Bost desires for America to be viewed in a “hemispheric dialogue” (236).  This concern with de-centering the United States and having a conversation with other cultures in connection to the past and present all seem to be coming together to form a transnational approach to literature. 

 

Wait though, we’re not done yet.  Fitzgerald and Wyss come together and work to literally bring “the contemporary present to the historical past” and discuss “the relationship between the academic fields of early and contemporary Native literature” (241).  Anderson agrees that Native texts see “the past in the present and the future in the past” and argues that early Native studies matter to more contemporary scholars (252).  Meanwhile, Parrish might rummage through the “boring” parts of early American studies to find that you must “Let your archive be mobile.  Let it be textual or let it be biological.  Follow it, in and out of holds” (271).  Littlefield may respond to Parrish with a proposition that “archival constructions are simultaneously epistemological and agnotological” (276).  Littlefield sees the cultural productions of both ignorance and knowledge (agnotological and epistemological) as being useful ways “to theorize archival methodology itself” (276).  Sayre concerns himself with captivity narratives and the earlier stereotypes of Native Americans and the contemporary stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims (327).  Again, connections between the past and the present, early American studies and contemporary US studies, and the United States and other nations are all interacting with one another.  Edwards continues to build on Sayre’s points (and Reddy also kind of falls into this section), while Watts asks, “If the US is not an `immemorial’ nation based in idealized democratic principles is the only other option a racist, sexist, and elitist empire whose literature is merely propaganda?” (449).  Watts petitions us to consider “the model of the double minded settler” (449).  Yet, do we want to be unsettled and consistently of two minds?  Is there not another option?  White and Drexler point out that there is an “absence of a strong literary cannon” for early Americanists but claim that they are not lamenting this but that it shows “a sign of a relatively progressive, open, and representative sense of coverage” (475).  It most certainly is broad, but it is also unstable.  White and Drexler use the analogy of Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” to point out that it is important not to miss what you are searching for simply because it is right in front of you, which they say are “the texts that out to be commonly situated, discussed, and debated” (482).  However, Gustafson becomes overwhelmed in history again but makes an interesting point about the link between democracy and empire, which we easily always divide. 

 

Traister though uses another analogy that of  “America” as the international airport terminal and how transnationalists may easily become “universalists” and encroach on the territories of other scholars from different departments (4-18).  It seems as though Traister may have a point on how transnationalist may simply be falling into another form of America exceptionalism (23).  Nevertheless, Fluck simply categorizes transnationalism into two types: aesthetic and political (367-68).  Fluck defines the aesthetic transnationalism as “a promise of rejuvenation of the field and its `tired´ practices” (368) and political transnationalism also being “transnational radicalism because it is an extension of cultural radicalism beyond the nation-state” (372).  It is the flexibility and fluidity of identity that Fluck embraces even more than stability (376). 

However, the problem I see is that if you do not have some sort of stability, then it will be difficult to identify anything, and it could cause early American literature to still have the feeling of the “other” studies in American literature that is also closely kin to US history.  Suddenly, the past and the present seem to kind of muddle up the future of where transnational studies may be going.  One more observation and I’ll conclude this rather lengthy blog.  I noticed in the readings that “America” and “transnational” were probably (all of these are estimates by the way) the most commonly repetitive terms throughout our reading with “history,” “early,” and “contemporary” being probably the second most popular group of terms.  Ironically, I find the terms “literary,” “literature,” and “cannon” being more than likely in the third or even fourth (if you count “exceptionalism” for the third) group.  I felt as though White and Drexler may have had the best analogy when they used Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.”  It’s not that the Prefect did not have a thorough and even impressive methodology for finding the letter.  The problem was that he never read any of the letters on the desk in the first place.                  

Broadening Our Horizons in American Literature

When I read Caroline F. Lavender and Robert S. Levine’s “Introduction: Hemispheric American Literary History,” something just seemed to “click.”  Perhaps, I was pleased with how they not only incorporated many of the influential texts and articles about broadening our perspectives and approaches to American literature but also how they contributed to this conversation and asked several thought-provoking questions:

What happens to US and Americas literary and cultural studies if we recognize the asymmetry and interdependency of nation-state development throughout the hemisphere? [. . .] what happens if the `fixed´ borders of a nation are recognized not only as historically produced political constructs that can be ignored, imaginatively reconfigured, and variously contested but also as component parts of a deeper, more multilayered series of national and indigenous histories? (401)

I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers to these questions since I don’t think they can easily be resolved; however, these questions did spur me on to consider that American literature—though as many of the scholars like Carolyn Porter have pointed out can be rather ethnocentric and U.S. oriented—if considered in a broader scope, such as including the cultural influences of Africa, the Americas, Europe, Latin America, etc., would be a truer and more accurate picture of Americans (both in North and South America).  It is not as if a U. S. citizen is only influenced by North America or only has Puritan ancestry.  A writer from any country has multiple influences: cultural, political, religious, etc.  If American literature were approached with this “broader horizon or outlook” then many important connections could be made.  When border lines are erased, then what is American literature becomes both more complicated and risky.  It becomes complicated since there is such a broad scope that it may be a bit easy to become inundated with cultural influences, and it becomes risky because when borders are erased the lines of what is American literature become blurred or are missing.  However, Lavender, Levine, Porter, and many of the others we have read believe it is a risk that must be taken in order to have a deeper insight and fuller understanding of the conflicts and complications of American literature.  Thus, it is the blurring or eradicating of boundaries that might actually free us to see American literature in a fuller light.  At this point, I’m not sure if I’m making sense, but I also like Lavender and Levine do not pretend that I’m saying something “new” (399).  However, this is “new” to me, so I’m using this response blog as a way of making my own thoughts clearer to myself.  Perhaps, I’m helping someone else as well (which would be great), but if not, then, I’m at least helping myself start to see American literature from a broader perspective.    

Jessica E.