Questions After 4/11 Class

Above is a picture of The House of the Seven Gables, a museum in Salem, MA.  It's merely $12.50 per adult, no student discount.

http://www.7gables.org/#

Yikes!  I meant to send these questions yesterday or even Friday night.

With Nathaniel Hawthorne, we are moving onto an even more canonical short story and novel writer.  Moreover, his writing is very much concerned with Puritanism and its effects on the 1800s, and he is very much against perfectibility or the belief that we can be perfect.

For Monday, please read "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil."  If you have time, read "The Birthmark" as well:

 http://web.archive.org/web/20131017173955/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawBirt.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1

http://people.bu.edu/actaylor/The%20Birthmark.pdf

Here are a few questions for your journal:

-- What do Poe's and Hawthorne's stories tell us about the way that American culture and literature is developing?

-- How did our emphasis on Puritan literature and culture help you to read Hawthorne's stories?

-- How do Hawthorne's stories shed light (especially a different light) on Puritan literature and culture?

-- Compare and contrast Poe's and Hawthorne's stories.  Which approach do you prefer?  Why?

-- How do Hawthorne's stories fit into American literature?

-- What do they tell us about American identity?  Why?

-- Compare and contrast Hawthorne's stories with more contemporary ones.  How are they similar?  How are they different?

-- How do Poe and/or Hawthorne depict women?  How do they handle questions of gender?

-- How do they illuminate questions of socio-economic class?

-- How do they fit with a more multicultural and racially aware approach to American literature?  Or do they fit?  Why?  Why not?

-- Do you believe that perfection is possible?  Why?  Why not?

-- Can we transcend our human nature?  Our human failings?  Why?  Why not?

-- What is human nature?  Why?  Why not?

-- In what ways are literature and the desire for social change compatible?  Why?

-- In what ways are they incompatible?  Why?