Questions after 4/16 Class

Good evening :)

Today we finished Hawthorne's stories, and for Friday we will move on to Melville's story Bartleby.  Monday is the date when your stand-alone papers are due--unless we have made other arrangements.  How are your papers coming along?

Here are a few questions for your journal.

We looked at two stages of development, namely Daniel Levinson's and Erik Erikson's:

http://humangrowth.tripod.com/id3.html

http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/erik/sum.html

Here is a review of Levinson's book on the stages of a woman's life:

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/14/style/studying-seasons-of-a-woman-s-life.html

Where would you place Young Goodman Brown, Rev. Hooper, and the characters of Bartleby?  Why?

We talked about the Hawthorne stories as "late" coming of age stories.  Could this concept fit Bartleby?  Why?

Compare Hawthorne's protagonists to protagonists from other coming of age stories (novels, short stories, film).  How are they similar?  How are they different?

To what extent are Hawthorne's stories meditations on history?  Why?  How much do you need to know about history to enjoy these stories?

To what extent are they timeless?  Why?  Could they be set  in our era?

Discuss the way that Hawthorne portrays women.

Discuss the settings of Hawthorne's stories.

With Bartleby, we move to the city, namely Manhattan.  What is different about the city?  Why?

How do Hawthorne's stories fit into American identity?  How does Melville's Bartleby?

What does Melville tell us about the workplace in the 1800s?  How has it changed since Franklin's day?

See you in class!