The Bostonians", Carson Mccullers's "The Eh Art Is a Lonely Hunter", and Frederick Douglass's "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave"
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1993 Windows to Critical Thinking: Perspectives on Pedagogy in Henry James's "The Bostonians", Carson McCullers's "The eH art Is a Lonely Hunter", and Frederick Douglass's "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave". James Thomas Mullane Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Mullane, James Thomas, "Windows to Critical Thinking: Perspectives on Pedagogy in Henry James's "The Bostonians", Carson McCullers's "The eH art Is a Lonely Hunter", and Frederick Douglass's "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave"." (1993). 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Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Order Number 9401556 Windows to critical thinking: Perspectives on pedagogy in Henry James’s “The Bostonians”, Carson McCullers’s “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”, and Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” Mullane, James Thomas, Ph.D. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1993 Copyright ©1993 by Mullane, James Thomas. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. WINDOWS TO CRITICAL THINKING: PERSPECTIVES ON PEDAGOGY IN HENRY JAMES’S THE BOSTONIANS. CARSON MCCULLERS’S THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER. AND FREDERICK DOUGLASS’S NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. AN AMERICAN SLAVE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by James Thomas Mullane B.A., Saint Mary’s College of California, 1974 M.A. in English, University of New Orleans, 1987 May, 1993 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. John Lowe, Dr. Veronica Makowsky, Dr. Patrick McGee, and Dr. Malcolm Richardson for their valuable criticism, advice, and encouragement. Their help is greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank Dr. Dana Nelson, my dissertation director. Dr. Nelson has guided me through this project, freely giving of her time and knowledge. It is because of her example that I have been inspired to see myself from a new window and pursue new challenges. For this I am truly grateful and proudly call her Teacher. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................. ii ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................iv CHAPTER I Introduction: A School of Windows .....................................1 CHAPTER II Pedagogy, Hegemony, and Educational Institutions ..................................................................28 CHAPTER III Voices of Silence in The Bostonians ................................57 CHAPTER IV Cycles of Oppression in The Heart is a Lonely H unter...................................................................................90 CHAPTER V The Road to Tdentity in the Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass .................................................... 121 CHAPTER VI A Final Critical Thought ..................................................141 NOTES ...............................................................................................................146 WORKS CITED ..............................................................................................154 APPENDIX ....................................................................................................... 162 VITA ....................................................................................................................166 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Many times teachers restrict students to viewing literature through a single "preferred" window or from a rather small set of tiny windows, thus hindering their ability to think critically and make choices for themselves. It is my contention that our pedagogy should facilitate a "school of windows" in which students are offered many different vantage points from which to "see" literature-an environment which, instead of monologically conditioning them to accept content without criticism or question, dialogically allows them their own place and importance in active discourse. This study delineates the power that literature has to enable students to acquire these skills. To illustrate literature’s effectiveness as a vehicle for critical awareness and empowerment, I have chosen texts that can teach teachers about teaching and students about learning, ones which can teach students to analyze and question what they are being taught. These works are Henry James’s The Bostonians. Carson McCullers’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. An American Slave. All three texts depict the dynamics of student/teacher relationships: James’s and McCullers’s demonstrating models of negative teaching; Douglass’s illustrating a positive model. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. While addressing the issues of race, class, and gender, each reading focuses on the intentions and motivations as well as the specific pedagogical practices of the teacher-figures in the novels. My goal is for these readings to serve as practical models with which teachers can begin to analyze their own pedagogical goals and methods which they employ in the classroom. By working together with our students rather than sm them and by guiding them to see how dialogue and critical thinking work hand in hand, we might show them how to read and see literature from more than one perspective. Consequently-and even more important-we might enable our students to engender voices and intellectual identities of their own, and we might empower them to become "resisting readers" who are able to prevent themselves from turning into "things" molded by those authoritarian masters who call themselves teachers. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I Introduction: A School of Windows I beg you to stop apologizing for being a member of the most important profession in the world. William G. Carr As a literature teacher, the student questions that I have always dreaded the most are "Why do I have to read this? How is it going to help me? What does it have to do with my life?" When I really analyzed these questions, though, I found that they were valid. After all, literature presently does not enjoy the overt social value that other so-called more important subjects such as science or math do. For lack of a better answer, and because such questions challenged the credibility of my field, I used to respond by telling students that they had to read certain things because those in positions of authority