Author: Jeremy Gerrard, MA student of English (Literature) at CSU Chico.
Title: The American Dream and the European Bildungsroman: How Clyde Griffiths Came to Run the Treadmill
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Abstract: This essay dissects the blueprint of the Bildungsroman subgenre as discussed by a very accomplished literary critic, Franco Moretti. It does so in a way that allows one to see which of those elements were able to work in American Bildungsromans, and which ones were not. The result is an apparent correlation between the protagonists of the novels and the social/political structures in which the author is writing. This essay ultimately demonstrates how the dark side of the American Dream and the Siren Song of capitalism were able to borrow some elements of the European Bildungsroman, but more importantly how and why the American counterpart had to redefine itself. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser acts as the guineea pig for this thesis.
Title: “The Singular Magic of a Place”: Finding Bret Harte’s “Dream World of the Sierra”
Abstract: Bret Harte’s stories are recognized as being primary mythmakers of the American West. Yet, beginning in the 1870s, critics in California began to imply that Harte had “borrowed heavily” from others when writing his Gold Rush tales. Likewise, Harte has been characterized as having written a “dream world of the Sierra, in which clocks and calendars were startlingly unreliable” (O’Conner 161). Since then, a large part of the history of Harte scholarship has been to come to terms with the origins of his work and an attempt to establish a degree of verisimilitude within the corpus of his literary output. “The singular magic of a place is evident from what happens there, from what befalls oneself or others when in its vicinity. To tell of such events is implicitly to tell of the particular power of that site, and indeed to participate in its expressive potency” (Abrams 182). In this essay I contend that the rightful setting of Harte’s most significant work is in the Northern Lode rather than in the Southern Sierra, where it is currently placed. I base my belief on Harte’s close friendship with Ina Coolbrith, first poet laureate of California, who was Harte’s intimate literary confidant when he was writing his most famous Gold Rush tales. Coolbrith, as an emigrant child, had spent two formative summers very close to Poker Flat, in Northern California, and it’s my assertion that Harte derived his knowledge of place names and the landscape from his association with her. In my project I use historic and contemporary maps and trail guides to match Coolbrith’s Gold Rush experience to Harte’s fictional overlay. In addition, I analyze documents verifying Coolbrith’s presence in the region. I move through close readings of “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” and related stories, and I employ evidence from Coolbrith’s private papers to identify her direct fundamental relationship to Harte’s “dream world.”
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996 O’Conner, Richard. Bret Harte: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1966
Title: Defamiliarization in Native Son: A “strange and wonderful” story of race through the lens of Shklovsky
Abstract: Viktor Shklovsky, a Formalist, argues in his article “Art as Technique” that “good” art should make ordinary things seem new and exciting. His term “defamiliarization” in art is the process of taking something commonly known and making it appear unknown and not easily perceived. By doing this, an artist forces the audience to take more of an aesthetic appreciation for the art, making it loved by all. In my essay, I use this lens of “defamiliarization” to analyze the novel Native Son by Richard Wright. Wright’s novel was a huge success, and is still popular with readers today. Could this have to do with Wright being so unconventional in his writing of the story of Bigger Thomas? There are many examples of defamiliarization in the text, as well as in the mind of Richard Wright. With Shklovsky in mind, I work through the text to show the new and different ways that Wright takes the reader through the world of African Americans in the 1940’s. I take a look at the new and exciting ways Wright talks about race in America, writing style and the commonly known “hero”. I quote Arnold Rampersad, a scholar whose writing appears in the introduction to the novel, who has many supportive things to say about the foreign yet wonderful things Wright accomplished in this work. Richard Wright took many leaps in Native Son, and we as readers can now understand why it has held attention for so long. The daring writing of the story of Bigger Thomas was no accident, and because of it America has an unconventional novel that most would consider “strange”, yet “wonderful”.
Title: “Two Houses Divided: The Changing Status of Religion, Corruption, and Sin in Luhrmann’s Filmatic Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet ”
Abstract: My paper compares Baz Luhrmann’s 1997 film, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with the original play by William Shakespeare. I focus mainly on the film, referencing the play as an intertext, to establish the dramatic changes in meaning asserted by Luhrmann’s representation. My main focus is an analysis of the religious imagery employed by Luhrmann, which gives religion a more dominant role in the movie than it had in Shakespeare’s play. Luhrmann not only develops religion as the focal point of the character’s lives, but also shows how the Montagues and the Capulets (and indeed the society of Verona at large) have corrupted their religion with “sinful” behavior, an aspect that was not present in Shakespeare’s play. The additional importance he gives to religion makes the outcomes of the play even more tragic and turns several of the characters into Jesus figures. My conclusions account for Luhrmann’s more contemporary views on corruption that are read into the original scenario presented by Shakespeare, and which are offered by Luhrmann as a critique of his own contemporary society.
Title: Can This Pilate Fly? A Study of The Androgynous Vision of Toni Morrison
Abstract: In the final moments of Milkman Dead’s experience with the loving and compassionate Pilate Dead in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon he realizes Pilate’s ability to fly away as it is embodied by the presence of a small, mischievous bird that picks up Pilate’s earring and as result one could say he finds the ability to fly away also. “For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrender to the air, you could ride it.” Yet, it seems odd that, even in a text employing the mystery of magical realism, men are physically capable of flying when women are not. The freedom that is symbolized by the act of flying then might become one that is attributable only to the men who can leave their world behind as we see it symbolically addressing the commonality of a culture where men tend to abandon their family duties. Yet, when one considers the idea of freedom and mobility in flight, it calls to attention the freedom of Pilate throughout this narrative and the role of gender is once again questioned. When thinking about the roles attributed to men and women in Toni Morrison’s novel it becomes necessary to consider the theories of Virginia Wolf and Judith Butler regarding the androgyny of writing. There is a distinct correlation between the consideration of gender and the role of writing and these theorists propose a concept of gender studies which suggests that good writing is androgynous. It also becomes necessary to observe the role of writing and gender as is addressed often in Journals like Feminist Review which seek to understand the role of gender in writing as well. This examination, in consideration of the above topics, seeks to observe the ways in which the ideas of Wolf and Butler may have informed the writing of Toni Morrison in Song of Solomon and hopes to acknowledge the difference between the androgynous characterization of Pilate and the “androgynous vision” that is present in the writing itself.
Title: Nurtured from the treasure veins of this fair land: Ina Coolbrith in the West; Reinvention and Identity
Abstract: Ina Coolbrith, former poet laureate of California, will be the focus of this project. I intend to produce a feminist analysis of Coolbrith’s life and work; in particular, I am concerned with the role of the West as source of freedom and place of reinvention, and with how the western landscape affected the lives of women. Coolbrith’s work deals with the landscape of the West in terms of the interaction between psychological scarring and, alternately, healing. I believe that Coolbrith’s life and work provide an excellent study of the complications associated with the keeping of secrets, the shedding of one’s past, and the reinvention of one’s identity. A fascinating examination can be made of the conflicting forces at work on an artistic, intelligent woman living and creating in boomtown San Francisco during the Victorian Age. Why, if equally gifted and well-connected, did Coolbrith choose not to enjoy the same brief fame her contemporaries and friends Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Joaquin Miller did? Why, if prized for her beauty and eagerly sought after, did she choose to live her life alone? Why, when accepted by her male contemporaries as a true peer did she make the choices she did professionally, personally and emotionally? Through close examination of selected Coolbrith texts, scrutiny of formative biographical experiences, and by making use of related histories providing contextual insight, I intend to produce evidence that may unravel some portion of the origins, effects, and importance of secrets, guilt and the vanished life associated with the shedding of one’s past and the effects they had on writing the woman’s perspective at the time.
Title: "Representations of Rape:Sexual Encounters and Power Negotiations in Raymond Andrews’s Appalachee Red and Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennessee"
Abstract: In their book Rape and Representation Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver state that, regardless of the forum, when it comes to the issue of rape and its representation “who gets to tell the story and whose story counts as ‘truth’ determine the definition of what rape is” (1). My paper explores the representations of rape in the first two novels of Raymond Andrews’s Appalchee trilogy, Appalachee Red and Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennessee. Writing within the African American oral tradition, Andrews’s position as storyteller rather than narrator complicates the idea of “truth” in his depictions of the sexual encounters of two of his main female characters. Andrews creates intertextual doubles pairing Little Bit Thompson with Momma Rosiebelle as the two women share commonality within their initial situations, which lead to sexual violations. Both women have scenes in which Andrews remains ambiguous as to the real nature of the sexual encounters or forces readers away from reading them as rape. I address these rape scenes as a manifestation and negotiation of the power struggle between class, race, and gender in the South. I also look at what these women stand to gain if we read follow Andrews’s lead and read these scenes as something other than rape. Rape and Representation. Ed. Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver. New York: Columbia U P, 1991.
Title: The American Dream and the European Bildungsroman: How Clyde Griffiths Came to Run the Treadmill
- >> >
Abstract: This essay dissects the blueprint of the Bildungsroman subgenre as discussed by a very accomplished literary critic, Franco Moretti. It does so in a way that allows one to see which of those elements were able to work in American Bildungsromans, and which ones were not. The result is an apparent correlation between the protagonists of the novels and the social/political structures in which the author is writing. This essay ultimately demonstrates how the dark side of the American Dream and the Siren Song of capitalism were able to borrow some elements of the European Bildungsroman, but more importantly how and why the American counterpart had to redefine itself. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser acts as the guineea pig for this thesis.Title: “The Singular Magic of a Place”: Finding Bret Harte’s “Dream World of the Sierra”
Abstract: Bret Harte’s stories are recognized as being primary mythmakers of the American West. Yet, beginning in the 1870s, critics in California began to imply that Harte had “borrowed heavily” from others when writing his Gold Rush tales. Likewise, Harte has been characterized as having written a “dream world of the Sierra, in which clocks and calendars were startlingly unreliable” (O’Conner 161). Since then, a large part of the history of Harte scholarship has been to come to terms with the origins of his work and an attempt to establish a degree of verisimilitude within the corpus of his literary output. “The singular magic of a place is evident from what happens there, from what befalls oneself or others when in its vicinity. To tell of such events is implicitly to tell of the particular power of that site, and indeed to participate in its expressive potency” (Abrams 182). In this essay I contend that the rightful setting of Harte’s most significant work is in the Northern Lode rather than in the Southern Sierra, where it is currently placed. I base my belief on Harte’s close friendship with Ina Coolbrith, first poet laureate of California, who was Harte’s intimate literary confidant when he was writing his most famous Gold Rush tales. Coolbrith, as an emigrant child, had spent two formative summers very close to Poker Flat, in Northern California, and it’s my assertion that Harte derived his knowledge of place names and the landscape from his association with her. In my project I use historic and contemporary maps and trail guides to match Coolbrith’s Gold Rush experience to Harte’s fictional overlay. In addition, I analyze documents verifying Coolbrith’s presence in the region. I move through close readings of “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” and related stories, and I employ evidence from Coolbrith’s private papers to identify her direct fundamental relationship to Harte’s “dream world.”
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996
O’Conner, Richard. Bret Harte: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1966
Title: Defamiliarization in Native Son: A “strange and wonderful” story of race through the lens of Shklovsky
Abstract: Viktor Shklovsky, a Formalist, argues in his article “Art as Technique” that “good” art should make ordinary things seem new and exciting. His term “defamiliarization” in art is the process of taking something commonly known and making it appear unknown and not easily perceived. By doing this, an artist forces the audience to take more of an aesthetic appreciation for the art, making it loved by all. In my essay, I use this lens of “defamiliarization” to analyze the novel Native Son by Richard Wright. Wright’s novel was a huge success, and is still popular with readers today. Could this have to do with Wright being so unconventional in his writing of the story of Bigger Thomas? There are many examples of defamiliarization in the text, as well as in the mind of Richard Wright. With Shklovsky in mind, I work through the text to show the new and different ways that Wright takes the reader through the world of African Americans in the 1940’s. I take a look at the new and exciting ways Wright talks about race in America, writing style and the commonly known “hero”. I quote Arnold Rampersad, a scholar whose writing appears in the introduction to the novel, who has many supportive things to say about the foreign yet wonderful things Wright accomplished in this work. Richard Wright took many leaps in Native Son, and we as readers can now understand why it has held attention for so long. The daring writing of the story of Bigger Thomas was no accident, and because of it America has an unconventional novel that most would consider “strange”, yet “wonderful”.
Title: “Two Houses Divided: The Changing Status of Religion, Corruption, and Sin in Luhrmann’s Filmatic Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet ”
Abstract: My paper compares Baz Luhrmann’s 1997 film, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with the original play by William Shakespeare. I focus mainly on the film, referencing the play as an intertext, to establish the dramatic changes in meaning asserted by Luhrmann’s representation. My main focus is an analysis of the religious imagery employed by Luhrmann, which gives religion a more dominant role in the movie than it had in Shakespeare’s play. Luhrmann not only develops religion as the focal point of the character’s lives, but also shows how the Montagues and the Capulets (and indeed the society of Verona at large) have corrupted their religion with “sinful” behavior, an aspect that was not present in Shakespeare’s play. The additional importance he gives to religion makes the outcomes of the play even more tragic and turns several of the characters into Jesus figures. My conclusions account for Luhrmann’s more contemporary views on corruption that are read into the original scenario presented by Shakespeare, and which are offered by Luhrmann as a critique of his own contemporary society.
Title: Can This Pilate Fly? A Study of The Androgynous Vision of Toni Morrison
Abstract: In the final moments of Milkman Dead’s experience with the loving and compassionate Pilate Dead in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon he realizes Pilate’s ability to fly away as it is embodied by the presence of a small, mischievous bird that picks up Pilate’s earring and as result one could say he finds the ability to fly away also. “For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrender to the air, you could ride it.” Yet, it seems odd that, even in a text employing the mystery of magical realism, men are physically capable of flying when women are not. The freedom that is symbolized by the act of flying then might become one that is attributable only to the men who can leave their world behind as we see it symbolically addressing the commonality of a culture where men tend to abandon their family duties. Yet, when one considers the idea of freedom and mobility in flight, it calls to attention the freedom of Pilate throughout this narrative and the role of gender is once again questioned. When thinking about the roles attributed to men and women in Toni Morrison’s novel it becomes necessary to consider the theories of Virginia Wolf and Judith Butler regarding the androgyny of writing. There is a distinct correlation between the consideration of gender and the role of writing and these theorists propose a concept of gender studies which suggests that good writing is androgynous. It also becomes necessary to observe the role of writing and gender as is addressed often in Journals like Feminist Review which seek to understand the role of gender in writing as well. This examination, in consideration of the above topics, seeks to observe the ways in which the ideas of Wolf and Butler may have informed the writing of Toni Morrison in Song of Solomon and hopes to acknowledge the difference between the androgynous characterization of Pilate and the “androgynous vision” that is present in the writing itself.
Title: Nurtured from the treasure veins of this fair land: Ina Coolbrith in the West; Reinvention and Identity
Abstract: Ina Coolbrith, former poet laureate of California, will be the focus of this project. I intend to produce a feminist analysis of Coolbrith’s life and work; in particular, I am concerned with the role of the West as source of freedom and place of reinvention, and with how the western landscape affected the lives of women. Coolbrith’s work deals with the landscape of the West in terms of the interaction between psychological scarring and, alternately, healing. I believe that Coolbrith’s life and work provide an excellent study of the complications associated with the keeping of secrets, the shedding of one’s past, and the reinvention of one’s identity. A fascinating examination can be made of the conflicting forces at work on an artistic, intelligent woman living and creating in boomtown San Francisco during the Victorian Age. Why, if equally gifted and well-connected, did Coolbrith choose not to enjoy the same brief fame her contemporaries and friends Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Joaquin Miller did? Why, if prized for her beauty and eagerly sought after, did she choose to live her life alone? Why, when accepted by her male contemporaries as a true peer did she make the choices she did professionally, personally and emotionally? Through close examination of selected Coolbrith texts, scrutiny of formative biographical experiences, and by making use of related histories providing contextual insight, I intend to produce evidence that may unravel some portion of the origins, effects, and importance of secrets, guilt and the vanished life associated with the shedding of one’s past and the effects they had on writing the woman’s perspective at the time.
Title: "Representations of Rape:Sexual Encounters and Power Negotiations in Raymond Andrews’s Appalachee Red and Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennessee"
Abstract: In their book Rape and Representation Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver state that, regardless of the forum, when it comes to the issue of rape and its representation “who gets to tell the story and whose story counts as ‘truth’ determine the definition of what rape is” (1). My paper explores the representations of rape in the first two novels of Raymond Andrews’s Appalchee trilogy, Appalachee Red and Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennessee. Writing within the African American oral tradition, Andrews’s position as storyteller rather than narrator complicates the idea of “truth” in his depictions of the sexual encounters of two of his main female characters. Andrews creates intertextual doubles pairing Little Bit Thompson with Momma Rosiebelle as the two women share commonality within their initial situations, which lead to sexual violations. Both women have scenes in which Andrews remains ambiguous as to the real nature of the sexual encounters or forces readers away from reading them as rape. I address these rape scenes as a manifestation and negotiation of the power struggle between class, race, and gender in the South. I also look at what these women stand to gain if we read follow Andrews’s lead and read these scenes as something other than rape.
Rape and Representation. Ed. Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver. New York: Columbia U P, 1991.