The American Novel
English 432.001 Prof. Scotti Parrish
Fall 2005 Office: 3164 Angell
1324 East Hall 647-6753
Tues, Thur 1-2:30pm Office hrs: wed.12-2
Reader: Tammy Pettinato trp1978@yahoo.com sparrish@umich.edu
Office Hours: Tues 8-9am and by appt.
ERC on South University
Course Description:
In this course you will encounter the novel genre in British America and the United
States as it developed from 1688 to the present. You will see how the novel emerged out
of travel writing and romance in the 17th century (Oroonoko), and how the discovery of
the New World and the rise of science demanded new forms of descriptive prose and
“true stories.” You will discover the gothic genre (Edgar Huntly) in the late eighteenth
century as the experiment in nationhood was accompanied with not only expansive
energies but a certain measure of terror. We will move through Melville‟s transoceanic
drama of democratic manhood, Moby Dick; Edith Wharton‟s social satire of wealthy
turn-of-the- century Manhattan, House of Mirth; Faulkner‟s modernist requiem for a
decaying south in The Sound and the Fury; Zora Neale Hurston‟s female bildungsroman
and exploration of African-American senses of „voice‟ and place in Their Eyes Were
Watching God; and finally, Jonathan Safran Foer‟s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,
the story of a nine-year-old boy‟s ingenious attempts to find meaning after the loss of his
father in 9/11. Issues and topics we will find ourselves tracing throughout the term are:
travel or movement through space; the significance of place and environment;
immigration and displacement; the status (gender/race/ethnicity/nationality/class) of the
author; the narrator‟s persona or “voice”; the tension between orality, visuality, and the
written word; the representation of racial and cultural conflict and of
masculinity/femininity; spirituality and reason; orphans; changes in the form of the novel;
the encoding and decoding of meaning; and how the novels construct and deconstruct
“America” or the U.S. (I‟m fatigued already.) You will perform a 30-45 minute in-class
response to/analysis of a passage or passages from all of the novels (except for Oroonoko
and one other novel) on the last day we discuss that novel. You will also choose ONE
novel upon which to write a 7-8pp paper (except for Oroonoko); it will be due one week
after the last class on that novel; for that novel, you may skip the in-class writing
assignment.
Course Texts (all books available at Shaman Drum Bookshop, 313 S. State, 2nd Fl.):
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (1688)
Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly, or, The Sleepwalker (1798)
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851)
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
William Faulkner, Sound and the Fury (1929)
Zora Neal Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Course Requirements:
Reading: Come to every class with reading fully digested. I try to keep the reading to
about 70pp. a class, but we need to read a bit faster with Moby Dick—or we‟d never
finish it!! We‟d drown somewhere in the pacific . . . Because this is a reading-intensive
course, it is essential not to fall behind. I will call upon people in class.
Attendance is an absolute must; material covered in class will be invaluable to your
writing complex in-class analyses and will help set up the questions you will pursue in
your paper. Please explain any unavoidable absences to me; more than two unexcused
absences will directly affect your grade.
Participation: There are many ways to participate in this class. You can talk in class;
you can talk to me or Tammy during office hours—in fact my goal is to see everyone in
my office at least once during the semester, or you can email me or Tammy after class or
email the entire class (through Course Tools) with an observation, a question, a quote.
Tammy and I can help you better when we comment on your writing if we know what
you‟re thinking about throughout the term. Being quiet in class will not count against
your grade, but participating actively and intelligently will certainly help your grade.
In-Class Written Analyses: So that you can think deeply and systematically about each
book but not get bogged down in multiple papers (and hence fall behind in reading), you
will respond to five out of seven of the novels in writing on the last day we address that
novel. You will take 30 minutes (perhaps we will expand to 45 minutes if that seems
necessary). I will give you a rich and important passage or passages from the novel; you
will, in writing a close analysis of that passage, simultaneously address a number of the
key issues of the book. You will give a micro and macro reading of the text at the same
time. DON”T forget to bring your book to class that day. If that sounds scary and
intimidating, don‟t worry; I will explain at greater length in class.
Reading Questions: Periodically, I will ask you to bring in reading questions. These
must be type-written. They must be thoughtful responses to the day‟s reading. They
should be attached to a passage or passages—write down the page #. We will use them
when breaking down into small discussion groups. Through them, you will also learn the
fine art of creating meaningful questions.
Paper: You will invariably (I hope!) LOVE one of these novels and want to think about
it in greater depth. For this paper, I want you to do some critical reading—2 articles at
the minimum—and respond to and incorporate that research into your own analysis.
Reading criticism helps sharpen your ideas, gives you readings to agree and/or disagree
with, builds your interpretive vocabulary, and welcomes you into the professional
community of literary scholars. This paper will be 7-8pp and due in class a week after we
finish the novel. You might want—in the next week—to skim over quickly all of the
novels to get a sense of which one you want to write your paper on; also, consult your
other syllabi—don‟t write your paper the week you have two midterms and one other
paper due!! Or, if you desperately want to write on something but it doesn‟t fit your
schedule, come talk to me in the next couple of weeks, and we will work out an alternate
due date. If you can decide on the novel your paper will address early on, then you can
perhaps locate the criticism early and get a jump on the reading as we begin that novel.
Plagiarism: When you use some one else‟s words or even paraphrased ideas without
citing that person, you are committing plagiarism; this is an extremely serious offense
that will result in a failing grade and disciplinary action. A statement describing
University policy can be found on the UM English Department web site.
Grading: Your grade will be based upon a combination of the in-class written work, the
paper, and class participation (daily questions and class discussions), yet as I mentioned,
lapsed attendance will count against your grade.
Schedule: (Reading is due on the date it appears on the syllabus)
Sept 6 Introductions
Sept 8 Behn , Oroonoko (entire book only about 60pp)
Sep 13 Edgar Huntly, to 85
Sep 15 Edgar Huntly, to150
Sep 20 Edgar Huntly, to 231
Sep 22 Edgar Huntly, to end, 285; IN CLASS WRITING
Sep 27 Moby Dick, Chaps. 1-19, to 99
Sep 29 Moby Dick , Chaps. 20-41, to 203
Oct 4 Moby Dick , Chaps. 42-59, to 302
Oct 6 Moby Dick, Chaps. 60-85, to 409
Oct 11 Moby Dick, Chaps. 86-108, to 515
Oct 13 Moby Dick, Chaps. 109-end, to 625; IN CLASS WRITING
Oct 18 Fall Study Break
Oct 20 House of Mirth, Chaps. 1-5, to 63
Oct 25 House of Mirth, Chaps. 6-12, to 138
Oct 27 House of Mirth, Chaps. 13-Book 2, Chap.2, to 209
Nov 1 House of Mirth, to end, 329; IN CLASS WRITING
Nov 3 Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chaps. 1-6, to 75
Nov 8 Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chaps. 7-14, to 135
Nov 10Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chaps. 15 to end/193; IN CLASS WRITING
Nov 15The Sound and the Fury, “April Seventh, 1928,” 3-75
Nov 17The Sound and the Fury, part of “June Second, 1910,” to 124
Nov 22The Sound and the Fury, finish “June Second, 1910,” to 179
THANKSGIVING BREAK
Nov 29 The Sound and the Fury, “April Sixth, 1928,” to 264; IN CLASS WRITING
Dec 1 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, to 85
Dec 6 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, to 173
Dec 8 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, to 261
Dec 13 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, to 326; IN CLASS WRITING
English 432 Fall 2005
Parrish
Analytical Paper
Due: one week after the last day we discuss the novel in my office by 5pm
Length: 7-8pp double-spaced
One of the novels will hopefully raise questions that you would really like to
explore and answer at greater length than we are able to do in class. Today, for example,
we were talking about: what is Edgar Huntly ultimately saying about Native Americans?
We put a lot of hypotheses, observations, and bits of evidence out on the table without in
the end „answering‟ the question. Let‟s say this was the question you wanted to take up
for a paper; you would then continue to amass your own textual evidence from the novel
(collect all the passages you can find on Natives); you would look to see if any literary
historians had taken up this questions and then read those articles; you would then decide,
given your own evidence and interpretation, how you agreed/disagreed with the critics‟
interpretations; last, you would write your paper which would effectively provide an
„answer‟ to your question, along with the textual evidence to back your answer up, and a
brief discussion (in the body of the text or the footnotes) of how your answer is different
from other critics‟. If you find out that you have a question that no critic has taken up
before, you can a) come talk to me b) use the criticism more generally to set up the broad
understanding of the novel and/or c) use other primary sources to frame your answer. So,
for example, if you wanted to write about the gothic genre and no one has talked about
Edgar Huntly from that perspective, I could point you toward more general treatments of
the gothic; you could even use other gothic stories/films that you know to see how Brown
americanizes the genre, or commences an American tradition of the gothic carried
through in Poe and others.
When writing your paper, ask yourself: is my thesis something I had to search to
discover? Is it an answer to too obvious or too simple a question? Or did it emerge out
of a thorough exploration of evidence? Have I shown why this question actually matters
to an understanding of the novel? Have I tried to draw my reader in during my
introduction? Would I want to read my own paper?
Try to get a rough draft finished with a day or two to spare; let the draft sit
overnight and then return to it as a critical reader; or, show it to a friend whose judgment
you trust or bring it to Sweetland or to Tammy or me. Papers improve immeasurably if
they go through at least one episode of revision—really!
The London Athanaeum 1252, Oct. 25, 1851: 1112-3:
"This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a
connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and
again in the course of the composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by
mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely
managed. . . . Frantic though such an invention seems to be, it might possibly have been
accepted as the motive and purpose of an extravaganza had its author been consistent
with himself. . . . Ravings and scraps of useful knowledge thrown together salad-wise
make a dish in which there may be much surprise, but in which there is little savour. . . .
The result is, at all events, a most provoking book,--neither so utterly extravagant as to be
entirely comfortable, nor so instructively complete as to take place among documents on
the subject of the Great Fish, his capabilities, his home and his capture. Our author must
be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us
with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities,
carelessness, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring and
disordered ingenuity can devise. . . . Mr. Melville has to thank himself only if his horrors
and his heriocs are flung aside by the general reader, as so much trash belonging to the
worst school of Bedlam literature,--since he seems not so much to learn as disdainful of
learning the craft of an artist."
Review in the NY Independent, Nov. 20, 1851:
"The Judgement day will hold him liable for not turning his talents to better account,
when, too, both authors and publishers of injurious books will be conjointly answerable
for the influence of those books upon the wide circle of immortal minds on which they
have written their mark. The book-maker and the book-publisher had better do their
work with a view to the trial it must undergo at the bar of God."
Amy Scott
Amy,
You‟ve written a really fine paper. I really like your introduction: you set up your
central term of inquiry—“Fate”—really well. You demonstrate right away that it is a
relevant, even key term for the novel. You ask some good questions to get the reader
interested in your topic and then you offer the beginnings of a thesis as a provisional
answer to your question. Great.
I like your use of narratological theory: you use it to argue that there is a
movement of a concern with Fate from one embedded character to another, moving
outward. I like that you have made this theory work with your own particular topic.
You have amassed good textual evidence.
Where I see room for improvement is in a couple of places: first, you often have
conflicting bits of evidence that you either don‟t notice are conflicting, or you fail to
resolve in your analysis—see marginal notes on pp.4, 5, 6. Second, I‟m not ultimately
sure what it is that you are arguing about Fate; if you are arguing that Huntly uses it to
rationalize his frontier violence, then go more in depth into why he would need to do this.
What then does his using Fate to rationalize have to do with Mrs. Lorimer‟s use of Fate?
Why is she the source of the contagion? Does Huntly „Americanize‟ Fate by not using it
to think about blood connections (with an evil twin as in Mrs L), but rather to justify
bloody usurpation? Your argument lacks this final step of pushing your analysis toward a
resolved answer to your question.
All in all, a very good paper that is sophisticated in its use of theory and criticism,
and original in its choice of topic.
Grade: A-
Prof. Parrish