Questions After 4/7 Class

Above is a picture of a volunteer at Old Sturbridge Village, a Massachusetts museum that depicts life from 1790 to 1840.  Below are a few other pictures that give you an idea of how the museum portrays this era that we are now reading about.

Good evening :)

For Wednesday, we will focus on Harriet Beecher Stowe's stories, specifically "Trials of a Housekeeper" and "The Freeman's Dream."  Note that HBS wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin and was, in Lincoln's words, "the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."  If you are curious, feel free to take a look at the excerpt from her novel, which is included in our textbook.  

We may have another presentation as well.  

Also, the stand-alone essay will be due on April 21.  Have you thought about which work you will examine?  Will it be a sketch or story?

Here are a few questions for you:

-- Below are the trailers that we looked at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Afx8MGg00g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz4wqodP0WE

Unfortunately, no one has made movies of 18th c. novels about heroines who lead more dissipated lives.  

Compare the lives of Jane Austen's characters to the lives of the young women portrayed in both "The Dance" and "Cacoethes Scribendi."

-- Consider the ways that each story ends.  Compare them to the epiphany type of ending that we see in more contemporary fiction.

-- Compare this older fiction to contemporary fiction (both literary and genre).

-- How are Mrs. Stowe's stories different from the fiction we've looked at so far?  How are they similar?

-- Consider Miss Sedgwick's attitude towards writing.  Compare it to other authors' apparent attitudes.  Who is most similar to her?  Who is most unlike?  Why?

-- Which themes have been developed in our writing so far?

-- If you were to revise your midterm essay to fit our post-midterm reading, what would you do?  Why?

-- What does Mrs. Stowe's writing tell you about the way that men and women lived in the 1800s?  Compare the information to what Mr. Longstreet or Miss Sedgwick's writing tells us?

-- Do you think that Mrs. Stowe is using her short stories to effect social or political change?  Why?  Why not?

-- Discuss Mrs. Stowe's attitude towards African-Americans.  Why did she write about slaves?

-- How is the United States evolving at this point?

-- How is its literature evolving at this point?

-- How does looking at British literary works affect the way that you look at American literary works?

-- Do you feel that American literature has a distinct identity at this point?  Why?  Why not?

-- Does American literature have a national identity yet?  Why?   Why not?

I am looking forward to seeing what you have to say!