Reflective Essay – American Lit.
Throughout the course of the semester we were given an opportunity to learn about a wide variety of things dealing with American Literary Traditions. This is a perfect name for this course because we studied great American based authors and poets such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Emily Dickinson. We also analyzed different types of literary works (poems, short stories, and even a film trailer) in order to unravel what was trying to be said. Lastly, we studied works ranging from the 1700’s to the 1800’s and the 1900’s. One thing that I managed to notice is that the traditions have stayed pretty similar (at least in the works that we read). They all shared a similar concept, horror, though some accomplished this in different ways. The conventions that seemed to always show up were uncanny, unreliable narrator, and ambiguity. While they had a great effect on the reader they had an even greater effect on the character or author of the work(s). These conventions allow the reader to see the characters’ human weaknesses by attacking their culture.
In one of our first short essays it seems like I became interested in the ambiguity. I decided to write on Nathaniel Hawthorn’s Young Goodman Brown. Looking back at my e-portfolio I talked about things that added to the ambiguity of the story. I spoke about how the names and how their misconceived literal meanings also attribute to this ambiguous feeling created. You can also see in this essay just how much Goodman Brown is affected by this alone. My Young Goodman Brown artifact also makes use of not only ambiguity in the name but in the environment. I state “The woods, especially in this story, usually are seen as a lonely place filled different types of ferocious creatures”. This is a feeling of ambiguity that I feel that everyone has experienced at least once in their lifetime. Looking over this essay I also found that the environment and the culture really collide with each other. The culture is uniquely defined by the names (hence the name Goodman Brown). His culture can be inferred (Good Man) in the beginning of the story when he does things like give his wife a goodbye kiss. On the other hand it attacks the human weakness point of knowing/”comfort zone”. I spoke briefly in this artifact that it was a weakness of human to not know something which is where ambiguity would obviously come into play. For example Goodman Brown being in the dark woods attacks his human weakness of not knowing while eventually attacking his culture of a Good Man by making it ambiguous via ambiguity. Most importantly at the end of the story when Goodman Brown comes out of the woods it’s clear that he becomes very unclear. The people he thought he knew became strangers because of their actions in the woods. This work along with a few of Hawthorne’s other works allowed me to tackle the rest of the assignments with a different mindset. Since ambiguity is one of the overlying conventions of this course, I began to look at every work with some sort of skepticism asking lots of question as I read. This mindset carried over into one of our later assignments, the film trailer analysis.
This assignment gave the whole class an opportunity to explore any movie trailer they wanted while analyzing different aspects that added to the horror. You can see how intrigued I was with ambiguity looking at the reflective tag for this assignment. I stated that I wished that “I would have picked a different movie trailer to analysis so it could have been more of a mystery” in a way begging for ambiguity. The amount of ambiguity early in the course allowed me to discover another human weakness and another convention that attacks it. We naturally have a willingness to be safe as humans. You can see in the film trailer analysis that there is indeed an unreliable narrator present. The film trailer that I chose, The Strangers, tells about a young couple that are staying in a secluded retreat house and are stalked by 3 masked people (possibly killers). I state in this artifact that they show “a close up of the girl locking the door” but later on in the trailer we see someone in the house despite this action. This presence of the unreliable narrator directly attacks the human weakness of safety. I’ve learned that you cannot trust an unreliable narrator because they are simply just unreliable. They also show in the trailer the masked people showing up and disappearing outside of the house. This directly contradicts with safety because part of feeling safe is to know your surrounds and/or feeling comfortable.
The next human weakness is seen in my author presentation. In this assignment we were given the opportunity to pick an author/poet of interest and present a brief background, significance, and few of their popular works. Nathaniel (group partner) and I chose Emily Dickinson, a famous poet of the 19th century from Massachusetts. While doing my research I found that Dickinson did not live the average life. For a good portion of her life she was secluded which brings me to the human weakness aspect of being alone. We are, by nature, social creatures and this is what keeps us sane and anything less would drive us insane (i.e. being on a deserted island). In the previous assignments we have seen the cultures in the works and the characters being pushed to the limit. Here we see the culture in the author/poet herself but not being pushed. Oddly, her culture was an overlying convention which seemed to have worked as strength rather than a weakness. The life of Emily Dickinson can best be described as uncanny meaning strange or mysterious in an unsettling way. A majority of her life was spent in secluded state. She seemed to have a very dark personality and was said that these lonely times in her life were her most productive. This assignment was one of the biggest inspirations in the way that I learned for the remainder of the semester. On top of learning to be skeptic in every work that I analyze and how much an unreliable narrator affects the reader, I learned to take time to research the background/culture of the author for it can be a key part in the analysis process. The quote that I used in the opening slide of my presentation is from one of her poems titled “One Need Not Be a Chamber to Be Haunted”. I stated “One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing material place”. Basically here she is trying to say that the most haunted place is internal rather than external. From the perspective of someone who has not done their author background research this would be a surprise. The other person would probably agree that you don’t need physical things in order for something to be haunted due to her extended time spent by herself.
These three works along with their conventions have been a big part in molding how I have learned throughout the semester. Works like Young Goodman Brown have taught me that I need to ask a lot of questions and be skeptical due to its ambiguity. The film trailer analysis assignment made great usage of an unreliable narrator but also revealed my fascination with ambiguity through the reflective tag. Most importantly the author presentation taught how much it helps to know about the author for it may be highly correlated with what they are trying to say. In addition my other ERH (English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies) courses have also been a part in my learning. In my British Literary Traditions class, which was very similar to this class, we studied the traditions of British literature. I think that I subconsciously used my analysis skills learned in British literary traditions in American literary traditions hence similar course structures. We also analyzed similar works with similar themes. We read the book Heart of Darkness which closely related to our Beloved. Both of these works examined slavery and racism in different ways. In Heart of Darkness it was more concealed while in Beloved it was more blatant. In my Rhetorical Traditions class the emphasis was on rhetoric (the art of persuasion). We talked about how this is done by looking at different techniques in speakers and how it affects the audience. This background allowed me to look deeper into the smaller, less significant things and create a rhetorically significant meaning out of them (i.e. clothes their wearing, how they look, and word choices).
Works Cited
Keys, Alexander M. Emily Dickinson Presentation. Lexington, VA. February 2015.
Keys, Alexander M. Film Trailer Analysis. Lexington, VA. April 2015.
Keys, Alexander M. Short Essay 1. Lexington,VA. January 2015.