The early romantics were fascinated by opium, which they thought would gain inspiration
and insight, as well as open up new and often inexplicable vistas into the Unknown. There is
no evidence that Poe used opium, but it is seen that he knew about it.
Plot: Interpretations
- The narrator and Ligeia are siblings: it is not that he can’t remember, he doesn’t want
to reveal that piece of information.
- It was all a dream.
- The narrator killed Ligeia
- The narrator killed Rowena
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An authentic American Genre: Frederick Douglass and African American Slave Narrative.
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
Chattel: an item of tangible movable property accept real estate and things (such as
buildings) connected with real property.
An enslaved person held as the legal property of another.
Domestic or house slaves performed menial household duties for their masters and were
often counted as a measure of status. Field slaves, who usually held a lower status, worked
to produce marketable goods.
Miscegenation: is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation,
sexual relations, and procreation.
The narratives are generally autobiographical, providing detail of life in slavery. They are
both literally and historical, generally written by escapes slaves, fugitives who have managed
to obtain their freedom. Frederick Douglass’s text is the most representative and superbly
crafted of the African American narratives. He was one of the most forceful orators of his
day. In an age of oratory, he stood out among the rest.
In cities all over the north of the United States, Douglass ascended the platform and told his
story. His first-hand testimony could beat witness to the horrors of slavery in ways
unavailable to the white abolitionist who fought against slavery.
This attack on his credibility was the impetus that led Douglass to write his narrative. When it
was published it was also attacked, yet it was a great success, not only at home but also
abroad, especially in England.
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The everlasting struggle for self-identity in the history of African American People.
One critic points to the text’s title -written by himself- in order to stress the overriding
importance of literacy and identity in this classic slave narrative.
Harsh criticism of slavery as a cruel and iniquitous system.
The Narrative depicts the iniquity of slavery, where miscegenation and the breakup of the
black family leave psychic scars perhaps less visible, though no less painful, than the
physical scars left by the lash of the whip.
Douglass explores the dynamics of plantation life, where masters sold their own children,
where the mulatto was treated unfairly by the plantation mistress —indeed, the mulatto
himself standing as a symbol of the master’s lust.
The first-person narrative voice takes us into the world. The power of the narrative
transcends racial distinctions —readers hear the plaintive cries of an enslaved human
being— a human being seeking freedom in the United States of America.
The text itself, in its pathos and eloquence, bears witness to the capacity for excellence
—and improvement—demonstrated by an ex-slave, thus refuting the racist tenets of the
pro-slavery faction in antebellum America.
Rare consciousness:
- City vs Plantation slaves
- Domestic vs Field slaves
- Literacy
In Chapter VI the importance of literacy is made clear. Douglass has been sent to live with a
new master, whose wife is —unlike so many others—kindly disposed toward Frederick. She
began to teach him the alphabet.
The debate around strategies. The use of violence: It is while he is under the control of Mr
Covey that Frederick Douglass will confront and overcome the physical degradation of
slavery.
Mr Covey’s brutal violence send Frederick running back to his master for protection, but his
master refuses to intervene, and forces Frederick to return to Mr. Covey.
The Narrative really did open the eyes of many who could only imagine what the horrors of
slavery were actually like. The descriptions of slavery never seem exaggerated, the tale has
a tone of honesty about it.
White abolitionist writers in the north were unable to present such an authentic vision of the
dynamics of the slave culture in the south.
For a moment the Narrative focuses on the lower/working class white southerners, who
stood above the chattel, by virtue of their status as free human beings, but who would rise in
violence at the thought of competing with slaves for labor jobs.
Poor whites must have felt some sense of satisfaction in knowing that there was a subclass
below them.
The Narrative does not give specific details of Douglass’s final escape from slavery.
Douglass does not want to jeopardize future attempts by others to escape from slavery.
Douglass’s remarks upon his safe arrival in New York are significant, not only for the
ephemeral sense of exhilaration but also for the sense of insecurity and loneliness he feels.
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Religion
At the end of his Narrative Douglass denounces the type of Christianity that condoned
chattel slavery, speaking forcefully about an issue that would soon lead the nation into a
brutal civil war.
Henry David Thoreau
Transcendentalism: Individuals can transcend the physical world and achieve a deeper
understanding of the universe through individual feeling, intuition, conscience, and idealistic
imagination.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).
1837: Thoreau meets Emerson and becomes his disciple and friend. He starts teaching.
1843: His brother dies of lockjaw.
1845: He moves to Walden Pond.
1849: He publishes “Resistance to Civil Government” (Civil Disobedience)
1854: Publication of Walden; or, Life in the Woods.
5 ways of looking at Walden:
1. Writing about nature
2. A do-it-yourself guide to the simple life
3. A satirical criticism of modern life and living
4. Belletristic
5. The spiritual level
Facturious: 1: produced by humans rather than by natural forces
2: formed by or adapted to an artificial or conventional standard.
