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The Devil and Tom Walker

The Devil and Tom Walker

PART –-----–– The Dark Side of

The Fog Warning, 1885. Winslow Homer. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, .

“All that we see or seem Is but .”

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225 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

0225 U2P2-845481.indd 225 4/6/06 3:15:41 PM LITERARY HISTORY

The First American Short Stories

S THE AMERICAN NOVELIST and critic observed, A “It takes a great deal of history to produce a little .” At the beginning of the 1800s, the was still a very young country. American writers of the time were painfully conscious of the lack of a native literary tradition. This was particularly true in the area of fiction. Dominated by Puritanism, early American culture had no place for made-up stories created largely for entertainment. This attitude toward fiction lingered for a long time. It was not until the period of American Romanticism that , , and Edgar Allan Poe laid the foundations of the American . In the process, they created literary The Pursuing , 1858. . forms and ideas about how to write short Oil on canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. stories that remain important today. Detective Stories and “It has been a matter of marvel, to my European readers, that a man Tales of robbery and murder had always existed. Poe’s brilliant innovation was to combine such stories with from the wilds of America should the use of reason in the investigation of crime. This express himself in tolerable English.” new investigative approach had not existed until the appearance of the first professional police forces in —Washington Irving the early 1800s. In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Poe established many of the basic conventions that mystery writers have followed ever since: Literary Pioneers • the brilliant, eccentric detective Irving, the first American writer to become famous • his less-gifted partner, who is an admiring foil outside his own country, transplanted traditional • the blundering offi cial police force European narratives and gave them American settings. For example, he based his story “Rip Van • the “impossible crime” taking place in a Winkle” on old legends about people captured by locked room fairies. Hawthorne used both European material and Poe also has a claim to be the “father of science the histories and legends of Puritan New as fiction.” In some of his stories, such as “A Descent the basis for his fiction. Poe helped develop the new into the Maelstrom,” he created Romantic tales American literary magazines (to which he contributed of terror with an emphasis on factual detail that as both writer and editor) into -circulation anticipated later science fiction. Poe so convincingy marketplaces for short stories. More importantly, he presented a hoax about a transatlantic balloon flight was a true innovator who pioneered new literary in one of his short stories that it was widely believed forms—detective stories and science fiction. to have actually taken place.

226 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY

0226-0227 U2P2LH-845481.indd 226 4/6/06 3:19:01 PM Theory and Practice Short Story Elements Poe believed that the most effective short stories The short story generally includes these elements. are those that can be read in a single sitting. He theorized that every detail in a well-constructed Setting: the time and place in which the events story should contribute to the creation of a certain occur unique and single effect. By effect, Poe meant the Characters: the participants in the story. The overall impact that the story makes upon the reader. main character is the protagonist. There may Some favorite effects that Poe tried to achieve in his be an antagonist, a character in conflict with stories were feelings of dread, horror, and suspense. the protagonist. Poe’s theory of a unique single effect remains a fundamental principle of short-story writing today. Point of view: the perspective of the storyteller, Although Hawthorne’s stories were finely crafted, or narrator he showed little interest in constructing literary Theme: the central message of the story that theories. Hawthorne chose to focus on moral and readers can apply to life. A theme may be stated psychological themes, such as the struggle between clearly or implied. good and evil and the isolation of people from their fellow human beings. Unlike his friend Emerson, Plot: the of related events in a story. Hawthorne saw life as essentially tragic. His Most plots deal with a problem and develop pessimistic view of human nature gave his stories a around a conflict, a struggle between opposing dark, shadowy quality that Poe criticized as “a forces. somewhat too general or prevalent tone—a tone of melancholy and .” Hawthorne’s mystical outlook led him to rely heavily on and to convey his meaning, often at the expense of a realistic rendering of everyday life. His distinguishing feature is his probing exploration of the role of in the inner lives of human beings—an obsession that he inherited from his Puritan ancestors. Poster for Universal film Murders in the Rue Literary History For more about Morgue, unknown artist, the first American short stories, go to www.glencoe.com. 1932. Everett Collection.

RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY

1. What was the attitude of readers in early American 3. What were Poe’s important innovations in literary culture toward fiction? Why do you think early form? Explain how these innovations can be seen in American readers had this attitude? literature today. 2. What materials did Irving use as the basis of his 4. Compare and contrast Poe’s and Hawthorne’s attitudes fiction? How did he use these materials? toward literary theory and practice. Name one literary achievement that each author is famous for today.

OBJECTIVES • Analyze historical context. • Compare and contrast literary techniques.

LITERARY HISTORY 227 Everett Collection

0226-0227 U2P2LH-845481.indd 227 1/15/07 2:50:39 PM BEFORE YOU READ

The and Tom Walker

MEET WASHINGTON IRVING

amed after his country’s first president, Washington Irving won the battle for NAmerica’s literary independence. He was the first American storyteller to be internation- ally recognized as a man of letters. The English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray summed up this accomplishment when he called Irving “the first Ambassador from the New World of Letters to the Old.” During his time away from writing, Irving held a variety of jobs. He traveled often, eventually moving Lawyer and Writer The youngest of eleven chil- dren, Irving was born in to a to to manage his brother’s business interests. wealthy family with strict moral values. Though In 1818, after the family business went bankrupt, Irving had little formal education, he took an early Irving resumed writing. interest in the study of law, later working in the The Sketch Book of law office of . He soon fell International Acclaim Geoffrey Crayon, Gent (1819–1820) established in love with Hoffman’s daughter Matilda, and the his literary reputation in Europe. The book included couple were engaged. two stories that were to become classics, “The But his interest in law began to dwindle, and in 1802 Legend of ” and “.” he started to write, publishing a series of satirical Irving borrowed the plots of these stories from two in a New York newspaper. He soon began to traditional German folktales before placing them in publish a series of periodical essays called . the setting. Irving’s ability to blend The essays were witty sketches that poked fun at European sophistication with American flavor is the everything from ’s politics to the most distinctive characteristic of his writing. latest . The success of Salmagundi steered After several years in London, Paris, and Madrid, Irving away from law and toward writing. Irving returned to the United States. There, he continued writing—travel books, histories, biogra- Success and Heartbreak In 1809, under the phies of Columbus and Washington, and more , he published tales and sketches. his most popular work, Knickerbocker’s from the Beginning of the World to the Irving’s enormous popularity at home and abroad End of the Dutch Dynasty. A History was a humor- earned him recognition as the father of American let- ous, tongue-in-cheek combination of history, folk- ters. His stories featured distinctively American set- lore, and opinion that delighted readers with tings and character types. He influenced a broad hilarious sketches of the customs, manners, and range of authors—from Romantics, such as Nathaniel families of old New York. That same year, how- Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, to regionalist writ- ever, Irving’s fiancée, Matilda Hoffman, died sud- ers, such as and William Faulkner. denly of . Overwhelmed by grief, Irving Washington Irving was born in 1783 and died in 1859. put his writing career on hold. He later reflected that he considered this period the darkest of his life. perpetually by the memory of his lost Author Search For more about fiancée, Irving was never to marry. Washington Irving, go to www.glencoe.com.

228 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Bettmann/CORBIS

0228-0241 U2P2 APP-845481.indd 228 4/6/06 4:23:26 PM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW

Connecting to the Story Reading Strategy Making and Verifying In Irving’s short story, the main character makes a fate- Predictions ful decision he later regrets. As you read the story, Predicting is making an educated guess about what think about the following questions: will happen in a story. Predicting helps you anticipate • Have you ever made a decision that you later events and appreciate less obvious parts of a story. To regretted? make predictions, combine clues the author provides • Have you ever committed to do something and with your own understanding of characters and events. then changed your mind? Adjust or change your predictions as you continue to read and discover more clues. Building Background “” is one of the stories Reading Tip: Predicting Ask yourself, “How do I think in Irving’s popular collection, Tales of a Traveler this situation will be resolved based on the clues I have (1824). The story takes place in in discovered so far?” Write down your ideas. After reading, the 1720s—when Puritanism was fading and review your work to see whether your predictions were commercialism was on the rise. The story is an correct. adaptation of the old German legend of , a sixteenth-century astronomer who sold his soul Vocabulary to the devil. The most famous retelling of the Faust legend is a play written in the early 1800s prevalent (prev ə lent) adj. widespread; p. 230 by the German Romantic writer Johann Wolfgang The flu was so prevalent that nearly everyone at von Goethe (yo¯ han volf gang ´ fon gur tə). school was sick. discord (dis ko rd) n. lack of agreement or har- Setting Purposes for Reading mony; conflict; p. 230 There was noisy discord in Big Idea The Power of Darkness the courtroom when the verdict was announced. As you read “The Devil and Tom Walker,” notice how it melancholy (mel ən kol´ e¯) adj. depressing; dis- reflects Romanticism’s interest in exotic settings and mal; gloomy; p. 231 The dark clouds put us in a supernatural events. melancholy mood.

surmise (sər m¯ z ) v. to infer from little evidence; Literary Element Characterization to guess; p. 233 She surmised that the roses, which Characterization refers to the methods a writer uses arrived unexpectedly, came from a admirer. to reveal the personality of a character. In direct char- speculate (spek yə la¯ t´) v. to engage in risky acterization the writer makes explicit statements about business ventures, hoping to make quick profits; a character. In indirect characterization the writer p. 236 He speculated by purchasing older houses for reveals a character through the character’s words and little money and then reselling them at high prices. actions and through what other characters think and say about that character. As you read, record details Vocabulary Tip: Analogies Comparisons based on from the story about Tom Walker. relationships between words are known as analo- See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R3. gies. For example, in the analogy weak : strong :: • dark : light, each pair of words is opposite in mean- ing. To complete an analogy, decide on the relation- Interactive Literary Elements ship represented by the first pair of words. Then Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, apply that relationship to the second set of words. go to www.glencoe.com.

OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • analyzing literary periods • making predictions • understanding characterization and archetypes WASHINGTON IRVING 229

0228-0241 U2P2 APP-845481.indd 229 1/15/07 2:48:38 PM Washington Irving

A few miles from Boston, in , there is the woman could lay hands on she hid away; a a deep inlet, winding several miles into the interior hen could not cackle but she was on the alert to of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating secure the new laid egg. Her husband was contin- in a thickly wooded swamp or morass. On one side ually prying about to detect her secret hoards, and of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the oppo- many and fierce were the conflicts that took place site side the land rises abruptly from the water’s about what ought to have been common property. edge into a high ridge, on which grow a few scat- They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood tered oaks of great age and immense size. alone and had an air of starvation. A few strag- Under one of these gigantic trees, according to gling savin trees, emblems of sterility, grew near it; old stories, there was a great amount of no smoke ever curled from its chimney, no trav- buried by Kidd the pirate. The inlet allowed a facil- eler stopped at its door. A miserable horse, whose ity to bring the money in a boat, secretly and at ribs were as articulate as the bars of a gridiron, night, to the very foot of the hill; the of stalked about a field where a thin carpet of moss, the place permitted a good lookout to be kept that scarcely covering the ragged beds of pudding no one was at hand; while the remarkable trees stone,1 tantalized and balked his hunger; and formed good landmarks by which the place might sometimes he would lean his head over the fence, easily be found again. The old stories add, more- look piteously at the passer-by, and seem to peti- over, that the devil presided at the hiding of the tion deliverance from this land of famine. money, and took it under his guardianship; but this, The house and its inmates had altogether a bad it is well known, he always does with buried trea- name. Tom’s wife was a tall termagant,2 fierce of sure, particularly when it has been ill gotten. Be temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her that as it may, Kidd never returned to recover his voice was often heard in wordy warfare with her wealth, being shortly after seized at Boston, sent husband, and his face sometimes showed signs out to England, and there hanged for a pirate. that their conflicts were not confined to words. About the year 1727, just at the time that No one ventured, however, to interfere between earthquakes were prevalent in New England and them. The lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, at the horrid clamor and clapperclawing,3 eyed there lived near this place a meager, miserly fel- the den of discord askance, and hurried on his low, of the name of Tom Walker. He had a wife as way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his celibacy. miserly as himself; they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other. Whatever 1. Pudding stone is a rock consisting of pebbles and gravel embedded in cement, like plums in a pudding. Literary Element Characterization What does this detail 2. A termagant is a quarrelsome, scolding woman. tell you about Tom Walker and his wife? 3. Clapperclawing is scratching or clawing with the fingernails. Vocabulary Vocabulary discord (dis kord ) n. lack of agreement or harmony; prevalent (prev ə lent) adj. widespread conflict

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0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 230 4/6/06 4:30:27 PM One day that Tom Walker had been to a dis- sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and tant part of the neighborhood, he took what he already overgrown in part by oaks and other for- considered a short cut homeward, through the est trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast swamp. Like most short cuts it was an ill-chosen to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp. route. The swamp was thickly grown with great It was late in the dusk of evening when Tom gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them Walker reached the old fort, and he paused there ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday, awhile to rest himself. Any one but he would and a retreat for all the owls of the neighbor- have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely, . It was full of pits and quagmires, partly melancholy place, for the common people had a covered with weeds and mosses, where the green bad opinion of it, from the stories handed down surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of from the time of the Indian wars, when it was black, smothering mud; there were also dark and asserted that the savages held incantations5 here, stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the and made sacrifices to the evil spirit. bullfrog, and the water snake, where the trunks Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be of pines and hemlocks lay troubled with any fears of the kind. He reposed half drowned, half rotting, himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen looking like alligators hemlock, listening to the boding cry of the tree sleeping in the mire. toad, and delving with his walking staff into a Tom had long been pick- mound of black mold at his feet. As he turned up ing his way cautiously the soil unconsciously, his staff struck against through this treacherous something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable forest, stepping from tuft to mold, and lo! a cloven6 skull, with an Indian tuft of rushes and roots, tomahawk buried deep in it, lay before him. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had Visual Vocabulary which afforded precarious A bittern is a marsh- footholds among deep elapsed since this death blow had been given. It dwelling wading bird sloughs, or pacing carefully, was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle that with mottled - like a cat, along the pros- had taken place in this last foothold of the ish plumage and a trate4 trunks of trees, star- Indian warriors. deep, booming cry. tled now and then by the “Humph!” said Tom Walker, as he gave it a sudden screaming of the kick to shake the dirt from it. bittern or the quacking of a wild duck rising on “Let that skull alone!” said a gruff voice. Tom the wing from some solitary pool. At length he lifted up his eyes, and beheld a great black man arrived at a firm piece of ground, which ran out seated directly opposite him on the stump of a like a peninsula into the deep bosom of the tree. He was exceedingly surprised, having nei- swamp. It had been one of the strongholds of the ther heard nor seen any one approach, and he Indians during their wars with the first colonists. was still more perplexed on observing, as well as Here they had thrown up a kind of fort, which the gathering gloom would permit, that the they had looked upon as almost impregnable, stranger was neither negro nor Indian. It is true and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws he was dressed in a rude, half Indian garb,7 and and children. Nothing remained of the old had a or swathed round his body, Indian fort but a few embankments, gradually 5. Incantations are the recitations of verbal charms or spells to produce a magical effect. 4. Prostrate means “lying down.” 6. Cloven means “split” or “divided.” 7. Garb means “” or “attire.” Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Predictions Big Idea How does this detail of the setting help you predict what The Power of Darkness How does Irving’s might happen description reflect Romanticism’s interest in exotic settings?

Vocabulary Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Predictions What purpose might this fort serve in the story? What clues melancholy (mel ən kol´e¯) adj. depressing; dismal; lead you to this prediction? gloomy

WASHINGTON IRVING 231 Photo Researchers, Inc.

0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 231 4/6/06 4:30:31 PM but his face was neither black nor copper color, in others. In this neighborhood I am known by but swarthy and dingy, and begrimed with soot, the name of the ‘black woodsman.’ I am he to as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires whom the red men consecrated this spot, and in and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair, honor of whom they now and then roasted a that stood out from his head in all directions, white man, by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. and bore an ax on his shoulder. Since the red men have been exterminated by He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at of great red eyes. the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists;10 I “What are you doing on my grounds?” said the am the great patron and prompter of slave deal- black man, with a hoarse, growling voice. ers, and the grand master of the Salem witches.” “Your grounds!” said Tom with a sneer, “no “The upshot of all which is that, if I mistake more your grounds than mine; they belong to not,” said Tom sturdily, “you are he commonly Peabody.” called ‘Old Scratch.’”11 “Deacon Peabody be d——d,” said the “The same, at your service!” replied the black stranger, “as I flatter myself he will be if he does man, with a half civil nod. not look more to his own sins and less to those Such was the opening of this interview, of his neighbors. Look yonder, and see how according to the old story, though it has almost Deacon Peabody is faring.” too familiar an air to be credited. One would Tom looked in the direction that the stranger think that to meet with such a singular person- pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair age, in this wild, lonely place, would have and flourishing without, but rotten at the core, shaken any man’s nerves; but Tom was a hard- and saw that it had been nearly hewn through, minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had so that the first high wind was likely to blow it lived so long with a termagant wife that he did down. On the bark of the tree was scored the not even fear the devil. name of Deacon Peabody, an eminent man who It is said that after this commencement they had waxed8 wealthy by driving shrewd bargains had a long and earnest conversation together, as with the Indians. He now looked around, and Tom returned homeward. The black man told found most of the tall trees marked with the him of great sums of money buried by Kidd the name of some great man of the colony, and all pirate under the oak trees on the high ridge, not more or less scored by the ax. The one on which far from the morass. All these were under his he had been seated, and which had evidently command, and protected by his power, so that just been hewn down, bore the name of none could find them but such as propitiated12 Crowninshield, and he recollected a mighty rich his favor. These he offered to place within Tom man of that name, who made a vulgar display of Walker’s reach, having conceived an especial wealth which it was whispered he had acquired kindness for him; but they were to be had only by buccaneering.9 on certain conditions. What these conditions were “He’s just ready for burning!” said the black may be easily surmised, though Tom never dis- man, with a growl of triumph. “You see I am likely closed them publicly. They have been very to have a good stock of firewood for winter.” hard, for he required time to think of them, and he “But what right have you,” said Tom, “to cut was not a man to stick at trifles when money was in down Deacon Peabody’s timber?” view. When they had reached the edge of the “The right of a prior claim,” said the other. swamp the stranger paused. “What proof have I that “This woodland belonged to me long before one all you have been telling me is true?” said Tom. of your white-faced race put foot upon the soil.” “There’s my signature,” said the black man, “And pray, who are you, if I may be so bold?” pressing his finger on Tom’s forehead. So say- said Tom. ing, he turned off among the thickets of the “Oh, I go by various names. I am the wild ‘huntsman’ in some countries, the ‘black miner’ 10. The Quakers and the Anabaptists were two religious groups in Massachusetts that were persecuted for their beliefs. 8. Here, waxed means “grown” or “become.” 11. Old Scratch is a nickname for the devil. 9. Buccaneering is robbing ships at sea (). 12. Propitiated means “won over” or “gained by pleasing acts.”

232 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Cleveland Museum of Art. Mr. & Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund, 1967.18

0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 232 4/6/06 4:30:33 PM The Devil and Tom Walker, 1856. John Quidor. Oil on canvas. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH. Viewing the Art: Is this a faithful depiction of Tom Walker’s encounter with the devil?

swamp, and seemed, as Tom said, to go down, cares!” He now felt convinced that all he had heard down, down into the earth, until nothing but and seen was no illusion. his head and shoulders could be seen, and so He was not prone to let his wife into his confi- on, until he totally disappeared. dence, but as this was an uneasy secret he willingly When Tom reached home he found the black shared it with her. All her avarice was awakened at print of a finger burned, as it were, into his fore- the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her hus- head, which nothing could obliterate. band to comply with the black man’s terms, and The first news his wife had to tell him was the secure what would make them wealthy for life. sudden death of Absalom Crowninshield, the rich However Tom might have felt disposed to sell him- . It was announced in the papers with the self to the devil, he was determined not to do so to usual flourish, that a great man had fallen in Israel.13 oblige his wife, so he flatly refused, out of the mere Tom recollected the tree which his black friend spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter were the had just hewn down, and which was ready for burn- quarrels they had on the subject, but the more she ing. “Let the freebooter14 roast,” said Tom; “who

13. Here, Israel is a biblical reference to 2 Samuel 3:38: “Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen Literary Element Characterization How does Irving use this day in Israel?” The Puritans referred to New England as the attitudes of Tom and his wife toward the devil to develop “Israel,” their Promised Land. their characters? Is this direct or indirect characterization? 14. A freebooter is a pirate.

Literary Element Characterization What does the man- Vocabulary ner in which Tom speaks to Old Scratch reveal about Tom’s character? surmise (sər m¯z) v. to infer from little evidence; to guess

WASHINGTON IRVING 233

0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 233 4/6/06 4:30:36 PM Swamp Sunset, c. 1850–1884. Harold Rudolph. Oil on canvas. The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, University of New Orleans. Viewing the Art: What mood does this painting evoke? How would the mood be different if the scene had been depicted in broad daylight? How is the swamp scene in the painting similar to or different from the one where Tom Walker first met the devil?

talked the more resolute was Tom not to be damned night elapsed, another morning came, but no wife. to please her. In a word, she was never heard of more. At length she determined to drive the bargain on What was her real fate nobody knows, in her own account, and, if she succeeded, to keep all consequence of so many pretending to know. the gain to herself. Being of the same fearless tem- It is one of those facts which have become per as her husband, she set off for the old Indian fort confounded by a variety of historians. Some towards the close of a summer’s day. She was many asserted that she lost her way among the tan- hours absent. When she came back she was reserved gled mazes of the swamp, and sank into some and sullen in her replies. She spoke something of a pit or slough; others, more uncharitable, black man whom she had met about twilight hew- hinted that she had eloped with the house- ing at the root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, hold booty,15 and made off to some other and would not come to terms; she was to go again province; while others surmised that the with a propitiatory offering, but what it was she for- tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quag- bore to say. mire, on the of which her was found The next evening she set off again for the lying. In confirmation of this it was said a swamp, with her heavily laden. Tom waited great black man, with an ax on his shoulder, and waited for her, but in vain; midnight came, but was seen late that very evening coming out of she did not make her appearance; morning, noon, the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check night returned, but still she did not come. Tom now apron, with an air of surly triumph. grew uneasy for her safety, especially as he found she The most current and probable story, how- had carried off in her apron the teapot and ever, observes that Tom Walker grew so anx- spoons and every portable article of value. Another ious about the fate of his wife and his property that he set out at length to seek them both at the Indian fort. During a long summer’s afternoon Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Predictions What do you think has happened to Tom’s wife? 15. Booty is stolen goods.

234 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, University of Nebraska

0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 234 4/6/06 4:30:42 PM he searched about the gloomy place, but no gratitude towards the black woodman, who, wife was to be seen. He called her name he considered, had done him a kindness. repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. He sought, therefore, to cultivate a further The bittern alone responded to his voice, as acquaintance with him, but for some time he flew screaming by, or the bullfrog croaked without success; the old blacklegs played shy, dolefully from a neighboring pool. At length, for whatever people may think, he is not always it is said, just in the brown hour of twilight, to be had for calling for; he knows how to when the owls began to hoot and the bats to play his cards when pretty sure of his game. flit about, his attention was attracted by the At length, it is said, when delay had whet- clamor of carrion crows16 hovering about a ted Tom’s eagerness to the quick, and prepared cypress tree. He looked up, and beheld a bun- him to agree to anything rather than not gain dle tied in a check apron and hanging in the the promised treasure, he met the black man branches of the tree, with a great one evening in his usual woodman’s , perched hard by, as if keeping upon it. with his ax on his shoulder, sauntering along He leaped with joy, for he recognized his the swamp, and humming a tune. He affected wife’s apron and supposed it to contain the to receive Tom’s advances with great indiffer- household valuables. ence, made brief replies, and went on hum- “Let us get hold of the property,” said he ming his tune. consolingly to himself, “and we will endeavor By degrees, however, Tom brought him to to do without the woman.” business, and they began to haggle about the As he scrambled up the tree the vulture spread terms on which the former was to have the its wide wings and sailed off, screaming, into the pirate’s treasure. There was one condition deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized the check which need not be mentioned, being generally apron, but, woeful sight! found nothing but a understood in all cases where the devil grants heart and liver tied up in it! favors; but there were others about which, Such, according to this most authentic old though of less importance, he was inflexibly story, was all that was to be found of Tom’s obstinate. He insisted that the money found wife. She had probably attempted to deal with through his means should be employed in his the black man as she had been accustomed to service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom deal with her husband; but though a female should employ it in the black traffic,—that is scold is generally considered a match for the to say, that he should fit out a slave ship. devil, yet in this instance she appears to have This, however, Tom resolutely refused; he was had the worst of it. She must have died game, bad enough, in all conscience, but the devil however, for it is said Tom noticed many himself could not tempt him to turn slave prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the trader. tree, and found handfuls of hair that looked as Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he if they had been plucked from the coarse black did not insist upon it, but proposed, instead, shock of the woodman. Tom knew his wife’s that he should turn usurer,17 the devil being prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoul- extremely anxious for the increase of usurers, ders as he looked at the signs of a fierce clap- looking upon them as his peculiar18 people. perclawing. “Egad,” said he to himself, “Old To this no objections were made, for it was Scratch must have had a tough time of it!” just to Tom’s taste. Tom consoled himself for the loss of his “You shall open a broker’s shop in Boston property with the loss of his wife, for he was a next month,” said the black man. man of fortitude. He even felt something like

17. A usurer is a person who lends money, especially at an 16. Carrion crows are crows that feed on dead or decaying flesh. excessive or unlawfully high rate of interest. 18. Here, peculiar means “special.” Literary Element Characterization Why does Irving use humor to describe the disappearance of Tom’s wife? How Reading Strategy Making and Verifying does this reflect on Tom? Predictions What will be the outcome of this relationship?

WASHINGTON IRVING 235

0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 235 4/6/06 4:30:46 PM “I’ll do it tomorrow, if you wish,” said Tom a word, the great speculating fever which breaks out Walker. every now and then in the country had raged to an “You shall lend money at two percent a alarming degree, and everybody was dreaming of month.” making sudden fortunes from nothing. As usual the “Egad, I’ll charge four!” replied Tom Walker. fever had subsided, the dream had gone off, and the “You shall extort19 bonds, foreclose mort- imaginary fortunes with it; the patients were left in gages, drive the merchants to bankruptcy—” doleful plight, and the whole country resounded “I’ll drive them to the d—l!” cried Tom Walker. with the consequent cry of “hard times.” “You are the usurer for my money!” said blacklegs with delight. “When will you want the rhino?”20 “This very night.” “Done!” said the devil. “Done!” said Tom Walker. So they shook hands and struck a bargain. His reputation for a A few days’ time saw Tom Walker seated ready-moneyed man, behind his desk in a countinghouse in Boston. His reputation for a ready-moneyed man, who would lend money who would lend money out for a good consid- out for a good eration, soon spread abroad. Everybody remembers the time of Governor Belcher,21 consideration, soon when money was particularly scarce. It was a spread abroad. time of paper credit. The country had been At this propitious time of public distress did Tom deluged with government bills; the famous Walker set up as usurer in Boston. His door was Land Bank22 had been established; there had soon thronged by customers. The needy and adven- been a rage for speculating; the people had turous, the gambling speculator, the dreaming land run mad with schemes for new settlements, for jobber, the thriftless tradesman, the merchant with building cities in the wilderness; land jobbers23 cracked credit,— in short, everyone driven to raise went about with maps of grants and townships money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices and Eldorados,24 lying nobody knew where, hurried to Tom Walker. but which everybody was ready to purchase. In Thus Tom was the universal friend of the needy, and acted like a “friend in need”; that is to say, he always exacted good pay and good security. In pro- 19. Extort means “to obtain by threats, force, or other types of portion to the distress of the applicant was the hard- oppression.” 20. Rhino is a slang term for money. ness of his terms. He accumulated bonds and 21. Jonathan Belcher was governor of Massachusetts and New mortgages, gradually squeezed his customers closer Hampshire from 1730 to 1741. and closer, and sent them at length, dry as a sponge, 22. Boston merchants organized the Land Bank in 1739. from his door. Landowners could borrow money in the form of mortgages In this way he made money hand over hand, on their property and then repay the loans with cash or manufactured goods. When the bank was outlawed in became a rich and mighty man, and exalted his 1741, many colonists lost money. cocked hat upon ’Change.25 He built himself, as 23. Land jobbers are people who buy and sell land for profit. usual, a vast house, out of ostentation,26 but left the 24. Eldorados are places of great wealth or opportunity. The greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished, out of term comes from the name El Dorado, a legendary region of South America sought by Spanish explorers for its gold parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fullness 27 and jewels. of his vainglory, though he nearly starved the horses which drew it; and as the ungreased wheels Literary Element Characterization What does Irving show about Tom’s character with this dialogue? 25. The ’Change, or Exchange, was a financial center where Vocabulary merchants, bankers, and brokers met to do business. speculate (spek yə l¯at´) v. to engage in risky business 26. Ostentation means “a display meant to impress others.” ventures, hoping to make quick profits 27. Vainglory is boastful, undeserved pride in one’s accomplishments or qualities.

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0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 236 4/6/06 4:30:48 PM Tom Walker’s Flight, 1856. John Quidor. Oil on canvas. The Fine Arts Museum of . Viewing the Art: In what ways does this painting reflect the nature of Irving’s story?

groaned and screeched on the axletrees you traveling Zionward,28 were struck with self-reproach would have thought you heard the souls of the poor at seeing themselves so suddenly outstripped in their debtors he was squeezing. career by this new-made convert. Tom was as rigid As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. in religious, as in money, matters; he was a stern Having secured the good things of this world, he supervisor and censurer of his neighbors, and began to feel anxious about those of the next. He seemed to think every sin entered up to their thought with regret on the bargain he had made account became a credit on his own side of the with his black friend, and set his wits to work to page. He even talked of the expediency of reviving cheat him out of the conditions. He became, there- the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. In a fore, all of a sudden, a violent churchgoer. He word, Tom’s zeal became as notorious as his riches. prayed loudly and strenuously, as if heaven were to Still, in spite of all this strenuous attention to be taken by force of lungs. Indeed, one might always forms, Tom had a lurking dread that the devil, after tell when he had sinned most during the week by all, would have his due. That he might not be taken the clamor of his Sunday devotion. The quiet unawares, therefore, it is said he always carried a Christians who had been modestly and steadfastly small in his pocket. He had also a great folio Bible on his countinghouse desk, and would frequently be found reading it when people called Reading Strategy Making and Verifying Predictions Do you think Tom will succeed in cheating the devil? 28. Zionward means “toward heaven.”

Literary Element Characterization How does this state- Big Idea The Power of Darkness What is the effect of ment develop Tom’s character? including details of the thunderstorm?

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0230-0238 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 237 4/6/06 4:30:52 PM on business. On such occasions he would lay his pens behind their ears, and stared after him from green spectacles in the book, to mark the place, the windows. Away went Tom Walker, dashing while he turned round to drive some usurious down the streets, his white bobbing up and bargain. down, his morning fluttering in the wind, and Some say that Tom grew a little crack-brained in his steed striking fire out of the pavement at his old days, and that, fancying his end approaching, every bound. When the clerks turned to look he had his horse new shod, saddled, and bridled, for the black man he had disappeared. and buried with his feet uppermost, because he sup- Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the posed that at the last day the world would be turned mortgage. A countryman, who lived on the upside down, in which case he should find his horse border of the swamp, reported that in the height of standing ready for mounting, and he was deter- the thunder gust he had heard a great clattering of mined at the worst to give his old friend a run for it. hoofs and a howling along the road, and running to This, however, is probably a mere old wives’ fable. If the window caught sight of a figure such as I have he really did take such a precaution it was totally described, on a horse that galloped like mad across superfluous; at least, so says the authentic old leg- the fields, over the hills, and down into the black end, which closes his story in the following manner. hemlock swamp towards the old Indian fort, and One hot summer afternoon in the dog days,29 just that shortly after, a thunderbolt falling in that direc- as a terrible, black thunder gust was coming up, tion seemed to set the whole forest in a blaze. Tom sat in his counting-house, in his white linen The good people of Boston shook their heads and cap and silk morning gown. He was on the shrugged their shoulders, but had been so much point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would accustomed to witches and goblins, and tricks of the complete the ruin of an unlucky land speculator for devil, in all kinds of shapes, from the first settlement whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The of the colony, that they were not so much horror- poor land jobber begged him to grant a few months’ struck as might have been expected. Trustees were indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated, and appointed to take charge of Tom’s effects. There was refused another day. nothing, however, to administer upon. On search- “My family will be ruined and brought upon the ing his coffers,31 all his bonds and mortgages were parish,” said the land jobber. found reduced to cinders. In place of gold and silver “Charity begins at home,” replied Tom; “I must his iron chest was filled with chips and shavings; take care of myself in these hard times.” two skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half “You have made so much money out of me,” said starved horses; and the very next day his great house the speculator. took fire and was burned to the ground. Tom lost his patience and his piety. “The devil Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-got- take me,” said he, “if I have made a farthing.”30 ten wealth. Let all griping money brokers lay this Just then there were three loud knocks at the story to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted. street door. He stepped out to see who was there. A The very hole under the oak trees, whence he dug black man was holding a black horse, which Kidd’s money, is to be seen to this day, and the neighed and stamped with impatience. neighboring swamp and old Indian fort are often “Tom, you’re come for,” said the black fellow haunted in stormy nights by a figure on horseback, gruffly. Tom shrank back, but too late. He had left in morning gown and white cap, which is doubtless his little Bible at the bottom of his coat pocket, and the troubled spirit of the usurer. In fact, the story his big Bible on the desk buried under the mortgage has resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin of he was about to foreclose; never was sinner taken that popular saying, so prevalent throughout New more unawares. The black man whisked him like a England, of “the devil and Tom Walker.”  child into the saddle, gave the horse a lash, and away he galloped, with Tom on his back, in the midst of the thunderstorm. The clerks stuck their 31. Coffers are strongboxes used to hold money or other valuables.

Big Idea The Power of Darkness Why do you think 29. Dog days are the hot, sultry days of summer. Irving adds this detail? 30. A farthing was a British coin worth one-fourth of a penny.

238 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III. 1979.7.84.

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RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. (a)What was your reaction to Tom Walker at the 6. (a)The narrator often uses disclaimers by saying beginning of the story? (b)Did your opinion of him “people said” or “it is said.” Why might Irving have change by the end? used this tactic? (b)How trustworthy does the nar- rator appear to be? Recall and Interpret 7. What can you infer about the narrator’s attitude toward money and human greed? 2. (a)How does Tom react to the devil and his offer? (b)What does this tell you about Tom? 8. is a form of writing that uses humor as a way of criticizing someone or something. (a)In 3. (a)What kind of person is Tom’s wife? (b)How does what ways is this story a satire? (b)Do you agree she contribute to Tom’s agreement with the devil? with Irving’s implied criticisms? 4. (a)What eventually happens to Tom’s wife? (b)Which version of what happened to her does Connect the narrator want the readers to believe? Explain. 9. Big Idea The Power of Darkness Irving wrote 5. (a)What finally happens to Tom Walker? (b)How “The Devil and Tom Walker” when Puritanism was do you interpret what happens to his possessions? fading and the urge to acquire wealth was growing. How does Irving portray the dark side of both reli- gion and wealth in his story?

YOU’RE THE CRITIC: Different Viewpoints

HOW CREATIVE WAS IRVING?

Some of Washington Irving’s most famous stories, “[In ‘The Devil and Tom Walker,’] Irving began such as “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Devil and with the legends of Captain Kidd and his buried Tom Walker,” are adaptations of European folktales. treasure and . . . he grafted upon this material a As a result, some critics have faulted Irving for a much wider variety of motifs drawn from German lack of originality, creativity, and imagination. folklore. . . . The devil himself, for example, is a compound of German, American Indian, and Read the two excerpts of on Irving Puritan elements.” from novelist and essayist — and critic and biographer Edward Wagenknecht. As you read the two excerpts, ask yourself how you would define creativity and whether Irving dis- Group Activity played creativity in “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Discuss the following questions with your classmates. Refer to the two passages above and cite evidence “It has been said that Irving lacked imagination. . . . from “The Devil and Tom Walker” to support your Now, it seems to me that the transmutation of the answers. crude and heretofore unpoetical materials which he found in the New World into what is as absolute a 1. How does Washington Irving show imagination creation as exists in literature, was a distinct work in “The Devil and Tom Walker”? of the imagination.” 2. How important do you think it is for a writer to —Charles Dudley Warner be completely original in creating a literary work? How can a writer be creative in using existing sources?

WASHINGTON IRVING 239

0228-0241 U2P2 APP-845481.indd 239 4/6/06 4:23:31 PM LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY

Literary Element Characterization Reading Strategy Making and Verifying In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Irving uses either Predictions direct or indirect characterization at different points in Making Predictions About Plot An inference the story. Through these methods of characterization, involves using reasoning and experience to come up he creates dramatic effects, generates humor, and with an idea based on what a writer implies or sug- foreshadows future events. gests but does not directly state. A prediction is a 1. Identify examples of both indirect and direct char- type of inference, one that involves making an edu- acterization used in “The Devil and Tom Walker.” cated guess about what will happen in a story. Record these details in a chart like the one shown 1. How did you use your own experiences and rea- below. Why do you think Irving chose each method soning to predict the outcome of the story? Was in each instance? the outcome of the story different from your origi- nal prediction? Explain. Tom Walker 2. List details in “The Devil and Tom Walker” that Direct Indirect Irving uses to foreshadow later events in the story. Characterization Characterization p. 230 p. 235 Vocabulary Practice “. . . a meager, “He leaped with joy, Practice with Analogies Choose the word that miserly fellow” for he recognized his best completes each analogy. wife’s apron and sup- 1. prevalent : common :: continual : posed it to contain the a. low b. nonstop c. fast household valuables.” 2. war : discord :: famine : a. abundance b. scarcity c. happiness 3. surmise : evidence :: prove : a. facts b. ideas c. questions 2. If characters are tools used by the author to 4. preserve : save :: speculate : develop a story, in what ways did Irving use the a. predict b. rebuild c. gamble narrator? Tom’s wife? Tom?

Academic Vocabulary Review: Archetype Here are two vocabulary words from the vocab- As you learned in Unit One, an archetype is a charac- ulary list on page R86. These words will help ter type, a setting, an image, or a story pattern that you think, write, and talk about the selection. occurs frequently in literature across many cultures and evokes strong emotional responses. For example, commission (kə mish ən) n. an authorization or heroes like Luke Skywalker are archetypal figures, as command to act in a certain manner or to perform are evil-hearted villains like Darth Vader. What arche- certain acts types does Irving use in “The Devil and Tom Walker”? benefit (ben ə fit) n. a positive gain resulting Why do you think he chose to use them? from some other action

Practice and Apply 1. What commission does the devil give Tom Walker when he receives Kidd’s treasure? 2. What benefit does the devil gain from his pact with Tom Walker?

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Writing About Literature Irving’s Language and Style Analyze Character A character sketch is a profile Choosing the Right Word In “The Devil and Tom that reveals personality and physical appearance. Write Walker,” Irving creates an eerie atmosphere by using a brief character sketch of Tom Walker, using details precise nouns that require no modifiers and nouns from the story to support your depiction of him. that are modified by colorful adjectives. Consider, for example, how much less effective his description of To create a vivid character sketch, you should the swamp might be without these descriptive details: decide on the overall impression you want to convey • “It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered • include details showing the person’s behavior, with weeds and mosses, where the green sur- appearance, and personality—for these details, face often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of review the chart you completed for the Literary Ele- black, smothering mud; there were also dark and ment activity on page 240 stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake, where the trunks • describe possessions or other objects that reveal of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rot- character ting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire.”

As you draft, follow the writing model shown here to Notice some of Irving’s most effective word choices: help you organize your character sketch. Descriptive Word Part of Speech START quagmires noun

▲ State your impression of Tom smothering adjective Introduction Walker. stagnant adjective

➧ rotting adjective mire noun Write several paragraphs that ▲ Body provide details to support your Paragraph(s) impression. Activity Create a chart of your own, listing more ➧ descriptive details from the passage above. For each of Irving’s strong nouns, try to substitute a noun modified

▲ Provide a final insight about by an adjective. For each modified noun, try to substi- Conclusion the character. tute a noun specific enough not to need a modifier.

FINISH Revising Check After you complete your draft, meet with a peer The Right Word Diction, or word choice, is important reviewer to evaluate each other’s work and to suggest to consider when revising your own writing. With a revisions. Then proofread and edit your draft for errors partner, go through your character sketch of Tom in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Walker and note places where more precise nouns and adjectives would make your sketch clearer and more vivid. Revise your draft to improve diction. Use a thesaurus if you need to.

Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.

WASHINGTON IRVING 241

0228-0241 U2P2 APP-845481.indd 241 4/6/06 4:27:11 PM BEFORE YOU READ

The Raven and

MEET EDGAR ALLAN POE

oday’s authors might well envy Edgar Allan Poe. More than 150 years after his death, he Tis still one of the world’s most popular writers and continues to captivate a wide audience. Known primarily as a master of horror and suspense tales, he is also credited with inventing the detective story and contributing to the development of science fiction. Despite his talent, Poe led a troubled life marked by poverty, restlessness, and loneliness. Still, he spent much of his life struggling—moving from city to city, from job to job. He was unable to his spirit-breaking poverty. “They who dream by day are In 1847, just as Poe seemed to be gaining recognition for his writing, his world collapsed. His wife died at cognizant of many things which escape the age of twenty-four, and Poe plunged into a sorrow those who dream only by night.” too deep to bear. Two years after his wife’s death, Poe was found delirious on the streets of and —Edgar Allan Poe, from “” died shortly thereafter, completely alone.

Poe’s Influence Nineteenth-century French poets Poe’s Early Life Poe was born in Boston, the son such as greatly admired Poe for his of traveling actors. His father abandoned the family use of symbolism in his . To the Irish poet W. B. when Poe was an infant, and his mother died a year Yeats, Poe was “certainly the greatest of American later. John and Frances Allan, a wealthy couple poets.” Poe’s story “The Unparalleled Adventures of from Richmond, Virginia, became his foster parents. One Hans Pfaal” influenced and other Though Poe got along well with his foster mother, science-fiction writers. Fictional detectives such as he and John Allan frequently quarreled. Allan , , and many others refused to pay for Poe’s education at the University are modeled after C. Auguste Dupin, the detective of Virginia because of his heavy gambling debts and Poe introduced in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” wild life. Later, when Poe was expelled from West Modern writers of horror influenced by Poe include Point for deliberately breaking rules, his relationship , Anne Rice, and . with his foster father abruptly ended. The Mystery Writers of America (MWA) annually Penniless, Poe moved to Baltimore, where he lived confers the Edgar Allan Poe Awards® to recognize with his aunt and her daughter, Virginia Clemm. He outstanding achievement in the mystery genre. had already published three volumes of poems and The award is a statuette of Poe. But perhaps the now began to write short stories. In 1835 he returned strongest proof of Poe’s enduring popularity is the to Richmond, where he edited the Southern Literary name of the National Football League team in Messenger and married his cousin Virginia. Baltimore—the Ravens. Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 and died in 1849. Poe’s World During Poe’s lifetime, the literary world in the United States was centered in Boston, New York, and . Poe contributed stories For more about Literature Online AuthorAuthor Search Search For more and poems to an assortment of journals in these cities. Edgarabout Allan this author, Poe, go go to to www.glencoe.comwww.literature.glencoe.com. .

242 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Bettmann/CORBIS

0242-0249 U2P2App-845481.indd 242 4/6/06 4:41:02 PM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW

Connecting to the Poem Reading Strategy Analyzing Sound Devices Have you ever enjoyed a song, movie, or story that dealt Poets take advantage of words’ sounds as well as with extremes of emotion? Perhaps it was a sad song their meanings. Two common sound devices are the about lost love, a suspenseful film of high adventure, or repetition of words and , the repetition of a chilling tale that riveted you to the edge of your seat. consonant sounds at the beginnings of words. For example, Poe uses alliteration to create an almost Why do you think stories involving extremes of • hypnotic effect in phrases like “weak and weary.” As emotion are popular? you read, look for examples of these sound devices. • What types of settings in stories or movies can produce extremes of emotion? Reading Tip: Taking Notes On a chart, list examples Building Background of repetition and alliteration and describe their effects. “” was first published in 1845 in the Evening Mirror, a New York newspaper. In commenting Sound Devices Examples Effects on this work, Poe wrote that he set out to create a poem with a melancholy effect and that nevermore alliteration “nodded, nearly was the first word that came into his mind, both for its napping” sound and for its meaning. The subject of the poem, he decided, would be the death of a beautiful woman, “unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” His first thought was to have nevermore repeated by a parrot, but he decided that a raven was “equally capa- ble of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the Vocabulary intended tone.” lattice (latəs) n. a structure of crisscrossed strips, Setting Purposes for Reading commonly wood or metal, that forms a pattern of openings; p. 246 The neighbor’s dog tried to push its Big Idea The Power of Darkness nose through the fence lattice between our yards. As you read, notice how the Romantics’ fascination beguile (bi ¯l) v. to influence by deceit; to with madness and death is displayed in “The Raven.” trick; p. 246 The amateur magician’s tricks beguiled only the children in the audience. Literary Element Narrative Poem placid (plasəd) adj. calm; peaceful; undisturbed; A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story. p. 247 The surface of the placid lake reflected the Although the story is told in lines and stanzas—and few clouds in the sky. may include figurative language, imagery, rhythm, and rhyme— also includes elements of respite (res pət) n. a period of rest or relief, as storytelling such as setting, characters, and plot. As you from work or sorrow; p. 247 The students all read “The Raven,” notice these elements of fiction. looked forward to the respite of summer vacation. balm ( ) n. something that heals or soothes, See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R12. bam • as an ointment; p. 248 The aloe gel worked as a balm, cooling my painful sunburn.

Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.

OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • understanding narrative poetry • analyzing how a poem is related to themes of the • analyzing sound devices historical period

EDGAR ALLAN POE 243

0242-0249 U2P2App-845481.indd 243 1/9/07 2:25:50 AM Edgar Allan Poe

244 Scala/Art Resource, NY

0244-0248 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 244 4/6/06 5:01:57 PM Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber1 door. 5 “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow 10 From my books surcease2 of sorrow—sorrow for the lost — For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; 15 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, 20 “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;— Darkness there and nothing more.

25 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” 30 Merely this and nothing more.

1. A chamber is a room. 2. Surcease means “an end.”

Literary Element Narrative Poem What element of storytelling is established in these lines?

Reading Strategy Analyzing Sound Devices Why might Poe have used alliteration in this line?

EDGAR ALLAN POE 245

0244-0248 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 245 4/6/06 5:02:01 PM Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore— 35 Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;— ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.3 Not the least obeisance4 made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; 40 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas5 just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance6 it wore, 45 “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian7 shore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 50 Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as “Nevermore.”

3. Days of yore means “days of long ago.” Here Poe is referring to a Bible story in which ravens feed the Hebrew prophet Elijah during a sojourn in the wilderness. (1 Kings 17:1–7) 4. Obeisance means “a movement or gesture, such as a bow, that expresses respect.” 5. A bust is a statue of someone’s head and shoulders. Pallas refers to Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. 6. Here, countenance means “facial expression.” 7. Plutonian refers to Pluto, the Roman god of the dead and ruler of the underworld.

Reading Strategy Analyzing Sound Devices What effect does Poe create by repeating the description “above my chamber door”?

Big Idea The Power of Darkness How does this bit of dialogue reflect the dark side of Romanticism?

Vocabulary

lattice (latəs) n. a structure of crisscrossed strips, commonly wood or metal, that forms a pattern of openings beguile (bi ¯ l) v. to influence by deceit; to trick

246 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

0244-0248 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 246 4/6/06 5:02:04 PM 55 But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.” 60 Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— 65 Till the dirges8 of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of ‘Never—nevermore.’ ”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 70 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core; 75 This and more I sat divining,9 with my head at reclining On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er, She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer10 80 Swung by Seraphim11 whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe12 from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff,13 oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

8. Dirges are slow, mournful pieces of music, such as hymns. 9. Divining means “knowing through insight or intuition” or “guessing.” 10. A censer is a container in which incense is burned. 11. Seraphim are angels of the highest rank. 12. The ancient Greeks believed the drug nepenthe (ni pen the¯ ) would ease pain and grief by causing forgetfulness. 13. Quaff means “to drink heartily and deeply.”

Reading Strategy Analyzing Sound Devices How is this repetition of the word nevermore different than others in the poem, and what is the significance of that difference?

Vocabulary

placid (plasəd) adj. calm; peaceful; undisturbed respite (res pət) n. a period of rest or relief, as from work or sorrow

EDGAR ALLAN POE 247

0244-0248 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 247 4/6/06 5:02:07 PM 85 “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter14 sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?15—tell me—tell me, I implore!” 90 Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,16 It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— 95 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting— “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! 100 Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid17 bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; 105 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!

14. Tempter refers to the devil. 15. Gilead was a region in ancient Palestine. Here Poe uses a phrase from the Bible (Jeremiah 8:22): “Is there no balm in Gilead?” By this he means, “Is there no relief from my suffering?” 16. Aidenn means “Eden.” 17. Pallid means “lacking in color” or “pale.”

Reading Strategy Analyzing Sound Devices What is the effect of the repetition in this line?

Literary Element Narrative Poem How is the end of this poem similar to the end of a short story?

Vocabulary

balm (bam ) n. something that heals or soothes, as an ointment

248 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0244-0248 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 248 4/6/06 5:02:08 PM AFTER YOU READ

RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. In your opinion, what is the most haunting image 5. (a)What is the effect of the repetition of the raven’s in this poem? single word, nevermore? (b)Is the word appropri- ate in the context of the poem, or would some Recall and Interpret other word have been as effective? 2. (a)Why is the speaker reading at the beginning of 6. (a)How would you describe Poe’s purpose in writing the poem? (b)How would you describe his emo- this poem? (b)Did he achieve his purpose? Explain. tional state in the first six stanzas? 3. (a)What is the speaker’s first reaction to the raven’s Connect entrance? (b)Why does he react this way? 7. Big Idea The Power of Darkness Which 4. (a)What will never be lifted from the raven’s details contribute to the mood of this poem, and shadow? (b)What does the future probably hold how do they illustrate the dark side of for the speaker? Romanticism?

LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY

Literary Element Narrative Poem Reading Strategy Analyzing Sound Devices Like short stories, narrative poems include a narrator, The music of Poe’s verses derives from his use of or speaker. The speaker may take part in the story or sound devices, most of which are kinds of repetition. retell a tale that he or she has heard. 1. What is the effect of the repetition of the word 1. Who is the “I” in “The Raven”? tapping? 2. What words would you use to describe this 2. The words grim, ungainly, ghastly, and gaunt speaker? describe the raven. How do these words contribute to the meaning of the poem? Performing Dramatic Reading Work with a classmate to deliver Vocabulary Practice a dramatic reading of “The Raven.” One reader should Practice with Synonyms Choose the best deliver the narrator’s words that are set off in quotation synonym for each vocabulary word. marks; the other should read all the other lines. 1. lattice • Vary your facial expressions, the pace of your read- a. border c. mesh ing, and the tone and volume of your voice to b. barrier d. block reflect the narrator’s mounting anxiety. 2. beguile One reader might provide background sounds, such • a. charm c. candor as an intermittent tapping during the first six stanzas. b. repel d. evade 3. placid a. tempestuous c. chaotic b. blustery d. serene 4. respite a. persistence c. hesitation Web Activities For eFlashcards, b. lull d. turmoil Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.

EDGAR ALLAN POE 249

0242-0249 U2P2App-845481.indd 249 4/6/06 4:41:38 PM BEFORE YOU READ The Pit and the Pendulum

LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW

Connecting to the Story Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence Think about a moment when you felt terrified. What Sequence is the logical order of ideas or events. To thoughts crossed your mind? How did you feel? In indicate time order, writers often use signal words or “The Pit and the Pendulum,” you will read about a phrases, such as before, earlier that morning, or after prisoner’s terrifying experience inside an underground that. As you read Poe’s story, look for signal words that dungeon. Consider the following questions: indicate the sequence of events. What sorts of things scare people the most? • Reading Tip: Taking Notes Use a chart to record the What happens when someone is overcome by fear? • sequence of events. Building Background This story is set during the last years of the Spanish SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

Inquisition (1478–1834). Established in 1231 by the In the story, the problem begins when Roman Catholic , the Inquisition was a court that

arrested and tried suspected heretics, or those who ➧ opposed Church teaching. Those convicted of heresy were imprisoned for life or sentenced to death. Pope After that, Innocent IV authorized the use of torture to obtain con-

fessions to heresy in 1252, and Pope Sixtus IV authorized ➧ the in 1478. Spanish inquisitors, or judges, were especially harsh. None was more feared Next, than Tomás de Torquemada, named the grand inquisitor for Castile in 1483. He was responsible for approximately two thousand burnings at the stake. Today, the Inquisition is remembered as a period of mercilessness and brutality. Setting Purposes for Reading Vocabulary ( ) v. to draw a conclusion deduce di doos¯¯¯ , ¯du¯ s Big Idea The Power of Darkness from something known or assumed; p. 253 Several As you read, note how darkness and terror, both aspects of clues helped us deduce the location of the runaways. Romanticism, are portrayed in “The Pit and the Pendulum.” impede (im pe¯d) v. to slow or block progress or action; obstruct; p. 253 Road construction will Literary Element Suspense impede travel this summer. Suspense is a feeling of curiosity, uncertainty, or even lethargy (leth ər je¯ ) n. sluggish inactivity or dread about what is going to happen next. Writers drowsiness; p. 255 Dad told Bill to be active and heighten the suspense in a story by creating a threat get over his lethargy. to the central character, or protagonist, and giving read- ers clues about what might happen. As you read this proximity (prok simə te¯ ) n. closeness in space, story, examine how Poe creates suspense. time, sequence, or degree; nearness; p. 258 The proximity of the cobra made us nervous. • See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R18. diffuse (di fuz) v. to spread widely; to scatter in all directions; p. 260 Green dye was diffused Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, into the river on St. Patrick’s Day. go to www.glencoe.com.

OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • responding to suspense • analyzing literary periods • identifying sequence

250 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0250-0263 U2P2App-845481.indd 250 1/23/07 11:55:12 AM Edgar Allan Poe

I was sick—sick unto death with that long their expression of firmness—of immovable reso- agony; and when they at length unbound me, and lution—of stern contempt of human torture. I I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were saw that the decrees of what to me was Fate, were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe of death—was the last of distinct accentuation with a deadly locution.2 I saw them the which reached my ears. syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped revolution—perhaps from its association in fancy the walls of the apartment. And then my vision with the burr of a millwheel. This only for a brief fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. period; for presently I heard no more. Yet, for a At first they wore the aspect of charity, and while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggera- seemed white slender angels who would save me; tion! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. but then, all at once, there came a most deadly They appeared to me white—whiter than the nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fiber in sheet upon which I trace these words—and thin my frame thrill as if I had touched of a even to grotesqueness;1 thin with the intensity of galvanic battery,3 while the angel forms became meaningless specters,4 with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help. And 1. Grotesqueness is the state of being distorted or unnatural in then there into my fancy, like a rich musical shape or appearance. note, the thought of what sweet rest there must Literary Element Suspense The narrator obviously lives be in the grave. The thought came gently and to tell his story despite his death sentence. How do you think the author will maintain interest in his tale? 2. Locution is a form or style of verbal expression. 3. In a galvanic battery, direct electric current is produced by Big Idea The Power of Darkness What is the effect of means of chemical action. Poe’s description of extreme whiteness here? 4. Specters are or ghostly visions.

EDGAR ALLAN POE 251 Scala/Art Resource, NY

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 251 4/6/06 5:32:06 PM stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained meaning of some musical cadence which has full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at never before arrested his attention. length properly to feel and entertain it, the fig- Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to ures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from remember; amid earnest struggles to regather before me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; some token of the state of seeming nothingness their flames went out utterly; the blackness of into which my soul had lapsed, there have been darkness supervened; all sensations appeared moments when I have dreamed of success; there swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the have been brief, very brief periods when I have soul into Hades.5 Then silence, and stillness, and conjured up remembrances which the lucid rea- night were the universe. son of a later assures me could have had I had swooned; but still will not say that reference only to that condition of seeming all of consciousness was lost. What of it there unconsciousness. These shadows of memory tell, remained I will not attempt to define, or even indistinctly, of tall figures that lifted and bore me to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest in silence down—down—still down—till a hid- slumber—no! In delirium—no! In a swoon— eous dizziness oppressed me at the mere idea of no! In death—no! even in the grave all is not the interminableness9 of the descent. They tell lost. Else there is no immor- also of a vague horror at my tality6 for man. Arousing heart, on account of that from the most profound7 of heart’s unnatural stillness. slumbers, we break the gossa- Very suddenly Then comes a sense of sudden mer web of some dream. Yet there came motionlessness throughout all in a second afterward, (so things; as if those who bore frail may that web have been) back to my soul me (a ghastly train!) had out- we remember not that we motion and run, in their descent, the lim- have dreamed. In the return its of the limitless, and paused to life from the swoon there sound . . . . from the wearisomeness of are two stages; first, that of their toil. After this I call to the sense of mental or spiri- mind flatness and dampness; tual; secondly, that of the sense of physical, and that all is madness—the madness of a mem- existence. It seems probable that if, upon ory which busies itself among forbidden things. reaching the second stage, we could recall the Very suddenly there came back to my soul impressions of the first, we should find these motion and sound—the tumultuous motion of impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its beat- beyond. And that gulf is—what? How at least ing. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then shall we distinguish its shadows from those of again sound, and motion, and touch—a tingling the tomb? But if the impressions of what I sensation pervading my frame. Then the mere have termed the first stage, are not, at will, consciousness of existence, without thought— recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not a condition which lasted long. Then, very sud- come unbidden, while we marvel whence they denly, thought, and shuddering terror, and ear- come? He who has never swooned, is not he nest endeavor to comprehend my true state. who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility.10 faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds Then a rushing revival of soul and a successful floating in midair the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders 8 over the perfume of some flower—is 9. Interminableness means “endlessness.” not he whose brain grows bewildered with the 10. The narrator is describing his wish to return to unconsciousness (insensibility).

Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence Note the number 5. In Greek myth, Hades is the underground place of the dead. of times the narrator repeats the word then in this paragraph. 6. Here, immortality means “eternal life.” What does this repetition tell you about the stages the narra- 7. Here, profound means “complete” or “deep.” tor goes through as he gradually regains consciousness? 8. A novel flower is new and unusual.

252 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 252 4/6/06 5:32:09 PM effort to move. And now a full memory of the day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my trial, of the judges, of the sable draperies, of the dungeon, to await the next sacrifice which sentence, of the sickness, of the swoon. Then would not take place for many months? This I entire forgetfulness of all that followed; of all at once saw could not be. Victims had been in that a later day and much earnestness of immediate demand. Moreover, my dungeon, as endeavor have enabled me vaguely to recall. well as all the condemned cells at Toledo,14 had stone floors, and light was not altogether So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I excluded. lay upon my back, unbound. I reached out my A fearful idea now suddenly drove the hand, and it fell heavily upon something damp blood in torrents upon my heart, and for a and hard. There I suffered11 it to remain for brief period, I once more relapsed into insen- many minutes, while I strove to imagine where sibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to and what I could be. I longed, yet dared not to my feet, trembling convulsively in every fiber. employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at I thrust my arms wildly above and around me objects around me. It was not that I feared to in all directions. I felt nothing; yet dreaded look upon things horrible, but that I grew to move a step, lest I should be impeded by aghast lest there should be nothing to see. At the walls of the tomb. Perspiration burst from length, with a wild desperation at heart, I every pore and stood in cold big beads on quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, my forehead. The agony of suspense grew at then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal length intolerable, and I cautiously moved night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. forward, with my arms extended, and my eyes The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress straining from their sockets, in the hope of and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably catching some faint ray of light. I proceeded close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exer- for many paces; but still all was blackness and cise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisito- vacancy. I breathed more freely. It seemed evi- rial proceedings,12 and attempted from that dent that mine was not, at least, the most hid- point to deduce my real condition. The sen- eous of fates. tence had passed; and it appeared to me that a And now, as I still continued to step cau- very long interval of time had since elapsed. Yet tiously onward, there came thronging upon my not for a moment did I suppose myself actually recollection a thousand vague rumors of the dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had we read in fiction, is altogether inconsistent been strange things narrated—fables I had with real existence;—but where and in what always deemed them—but yet strange, and too state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, ghastly to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left perished usually at the autos-da-fé,13 and one of to perish of starvation in the subterranean15 these had been held on the very night of the world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited me? That the result would be death, and a death of more than customary 11. Here, suffered means “allowed.” bitterness, I knew too well the character of my 12. During the Inquisition, a person’s refusal to confess was taken as evidence of guilt. 13. Often, the sentence was to be burned alive in public ceremonies called autos-da-fé (o toz¯ də fa¯´). The phrase is 14. The Spanish city of Toledo was important during the Portuguese for “acts of faith,” referring to the Inquisitors’ Inquisition. faith that the condemned persons were guilty as charged. 15. Subterranean describes things that exist or occur below the earth’s surface. Big Idea The Power of Darkness How does the narrator’s description of his surroundings reflect the Gothic Literary Element Suspense How do the narrator’s physi- tradition? cal and psychological torments add to the suspense?

Vocabulary Vocabulary

deduce (di doo¯¯¯s) v. to draw a conclusion from some- impede (im pe¯d) v. to slow or block progress or action; thing known or assumed obstruct

EDGAR ALLAN POE 253

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 253 4/6/06 5:32:11 PM judges to doubt. The mode and the hour were all that occupied or distracted me.

My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry—very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the careful distrust with which certain antique nar- ratives had inspired me. This process, however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; as I might make its circuit, and return to the point whence I set out, without being aware of the fact; so per- fectly seemed the wall. I therefore sought the knife which had been in my pocket, when led into the inquisitorial chamber; but it Half length portrait of a man bending over, was gone; my clothes had been exchanged for a 18th c. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Pen and ink on paper, 15.8 x 21.6 cm. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany. wrapper of coarse serge. I had thought of forcing Viewing the Art: How might this drawing reflect the the blade in some minute crevice of the masonry, emotional state of the narrator? so as to identify my point of departure. The dif- ficulty, nevertheless, was but trivial; although, in the disorder of my fancy, it seemed at first insu- I had met, however, with many angles in the wall, perable.16 I tore a part of the hem from the and thus I could form no guess at the shape of the and placed the fragment at full length, and at vault; for vault I could not help supposing it to be. right angles to the wall. In groping my way I had little object—certainly no hope—in around the prison I could not fail to encounter these researches; but a vague curiosity prompted this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least me to continue them. Quitting the wall, I I thought: but I had not counted upon the extent resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At of the dungeon, or upon my own weakness. The first I proceeded with extreme caution, for the ground was moist and slippery. I staggered floor, although seemingly of solid material, was onward for some time, when I stumbled and fell. treacherous with slime. At length, however, I My excessive fatigue induced me to remain pros- took courage, and did not hesitate to step firmly; trate; and soon overtook me as I lay. endeavoring to cross in as direct a line as possi- Upon awakening, and stretching forth an arm, ble. I had advanced some ten or twelve paces in I found beside me a loaf and a pitcher with water. this manner, when the remnant of the torn hem I was too much exhausted to reflect upon this cir- of my robe became entangled between my legs. cumstance, but ate and drank with avidity.17 I stepped on it, and fell violently on my face. Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the In the confusion attending my fall, I did not prison, and with much toil, came at last upon the immediately apprehend a somewhat startling cir- fragment of the serge. Up to the period when I fell cumstance, which yet, in a few seconds after- I had counted fifty-two paces, and upon resuming ward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my my walk, I counted forty-eight more;—when I attention. It was this—my chin rested upon the arrived at the rag. There were in all, then, a hun- floor of the prison, but my lips and the upper dred paces; and admitting two paces to the yard, I portion of my head, although seemingly at a less presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. elevation than the chin, touched nothing. At the same time my forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of decayed 16. Something that’s insuperable cannot be overcome. fungus arose to my nostrils. I put forward my 17. Avidity is eagerness and enthusiasm.

Literary Element Suspense How does this sentence Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence What signal build tension? words indicate the sequence of events in this paragraph?

254 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Giovanni Battista Piranesi/Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany/Bridgeman Art Library

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 254 4/6/06 5:32:16 PM arm, and shuddered to find that I had fallen at Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many the very brink of a circular pit, whose extent, long hours; but at length I again slumbered. Upon of course, I had no means of ascertaining at the arousing, I found by my side as before, a loaf and a moment. Groping about the masonry just below pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed me, the margin, I succeeded in dislodging a small and I emptied the vessel at a draught. It must fragment, and let it fall into the abyss.18 For have been drugged; for scarcely had I drunk, many seconds I hearkened to its reverberations before I became irresistibly drowsy. A deep sleep as it dashed against the sides of the chasm in its fell upon me—a sleep like that of death. How descent; at length there was a sullen plunge into long it lasted of course, I know not; but when, water, succeeded by loud echoes. At the same once again, I unclosed my eyes, the objects around moment there came a sound resembling the me were visible. By a wild sulphurous luster, the quick opening, and a rapid closing of a door origin of which I could not at first determine, I overhead, while a faint gleam of light flashed was enabled to see the extent and aspect of the suddenly through the gloom, and as suddenly prison. faded away. In its size I had been greatly mistaken. The I saw clearly the doom which had been pre- whole circuit of its walls did not exceed twenty- pared for me, and congratulated myself upon the five yards. For some minutes this fact occasioned timely accident by which I had escaped. Another me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what step before my fall, and the world had seen me could be of less importance, under the terrible no more. And the death just avoided, was of that circumstances which environed20 me, than the very character which I had regarded as fabulous mere dimensions of my dungeon? But my soul and frivolous19 in the tales respecting the took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there in endeavors to account for the error I had com- was the choice of death with its direst physical mitted in my measurement. The truth at length agonies, or death with its most hideous moral flashed upon me. In my first attempt at explora- horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By tion I had counted fifty-two paces, up to the long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, period when I fell; I must then have been within until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, a pace or two of the fragments of serge; in fact, and had become in every respect a fitting subject I had nearly performed the circuit of the vault. for the species of torture which awaited me. I then slept, and upon awaking, I must have Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to returned upon my steps—thus supposing the cir- the wall; resolving there to perish rather than risk cuit nearly double what it actually was. My con- the terrors of the wells, of which my imagination fusion of mind prevented me from observing that now pictured many in various positions about the I began my tour with the wall to the left, and dungeon. In other conditions of mind I might have ended it with the wall to the right. had courage to end my misery at once by a plunge I had been deceived, too, in respect to the into one of these abysses; but now I was the veriest shape of the enclosure. In feeling my way of cowards. Neither could I forget what I had read around I had found many angles, and thus of these pits—that the sudden extinction of life deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent formed no part of their most horrible plan. is the effect of total darkness upon one arous- ing from lethargy or sleep! The angles were simply those of a few slight depressions, or

18. Here, abyss (ə bis) refers to “an extremely deep hole.” niches, at odd intervals. The general shape 19. Here, fabulous means “fictional,” and frivolous means “silly” or “unimportant.” 20. To environ is to encircle or surround. Literary Element Suspense How do the opening and Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence Why does the closing of a door overhead help create suspense? author alternate periods of activity with periods of inaction?

Big Idea The Power of Darkness How does this sen- Vocabulary tence reflect Romanticism’s fascination with disease and madness? lethargy (leth ər je¯ ) n. sluggish inactivity or drowsiness

EDGAR ALLAN POE 255

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 255 4/6/06 5:32:19 PM of the prison was square. What I had taken for machine which caused me to regard it more masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other attentively. While I gazed directly upward at it metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or joints (for its position was immediately over my own) I occasioned the depression. The entire surface fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant of this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was in all the hideous and repulsive devices21 to brief, and of course slow. I watched it for some which the charnel22 superstitions of the minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder. has given rise. The figures of fiends in aspects Wearied at length with observing its dull move- of menace, with skeleton forms, and other ment, I turned my eyes upon the other subjects more really fearful images, overspread and dis- in the cell. figured the walls. I observed that the outlines A slight noise attracted my notice, and, look- of these monstrosities were sufficiently dis- ing to the floor, I saw several enormous tra- tinct, but that the colors seemed faded and versing it. They had issued from the well, which blurred, as if from the effects of a damp atmo- lay just within view to my right. Even then, sphere. I now noticed the floor, too, which was while I gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, of stone. In the center yawned the circular pit with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the from whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the meat. From this it required much effort and only one in the dungeon. attention to scare them away. All this I saw distinctly and by much effort: for It might have been half an hour, perhaps even my personal condition had been greatly changed an hour, (for I could take but imperfect note of during slumber. I now lay upon my back, and time) before I again cast my eyes upward. What at full length, on a species of low framework of I then saw confounded and amazed me. The wood. To this I was securely bound by a long strap sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent resembling a surcingle.23 It passed in many convo- by nearly a yard. As a natural consequence, its lutions about my limbs and body, leaving at liberty velocity was also much greater. But what mainly only my head, and my left arm to such extent that disturbed me was the idea that it had perceptibly I could, by dint of much exertion, supply myself descended. I now observed—with what horror with food from an earthen dish which lay by my it is needless to say—that its nether extremity25 side on the floor. I saw, to my horror, that the was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, pitcher had been removed. I say to my horror; for about a foot in length from horn to horn; the I was consumed with intolerable thirst. This thirst horns upward, and the under edge evidently it appeared to be the design of my persecutors to as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, it stimulate: for the food in the dish was meat pun- seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge gently seasoned. into a solid and broad structure above. It was Looking upward I surveyed the ceiling of my appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the prison. It was some thirty or forty feet overhead, whole hissed as it swung through the air. and constructed much as the side walls. In one of I could no longer doubt the doom prepared its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole for me by monkish ingenuity26 in torture. My attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he cognizance of the pit had become known to is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of 24 the inquisitorial agents—the pit whose horrors a scythe, he held what, at a casual glance, I sup- had been destined for so bold a recusant27 as posed to be the pictured image of a huge pendu- myself—the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by lum such as we see on antique clocks. There was something, however, in the appearance of this 25. The pendulum’s nether extremity is its lower end. 26. Ingenuity (in´ jə no¯¯o¯ ə te¯ )—the noun form of ingenious—is creative ability or inventiveness. 27. A recusant ( ) is one who refuses to accept or 21. Here, the devices are ornamental designs. re kyə zənt obey established authorities. 22. Here, charnel means “gruesome” or “deathlike.” As a noun, it refers to a vault where bones or bodies are placed. Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence How does this 23. A surcingle is a belt or band used to hold a saddle or pack reference to the passage of time contribute to the suspense on a horse or pack animal. of the following sentence? 24. In lieu (in lo¯¯o¯ ) of means “in place of” or “instead of.”

256 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 256 4/6/06 5:32:21 PM Carceri d’Invenzione, Plate XIII, 1780. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Etching, 16 x 22 in. Private collection. Viewing the Art: What in this illustration suggests a setting similar to the one described by the narrator?

rumor as the Ultima Thule28 of all their punish- many days passed—ere it swept so closely over ments. The plunge into this pit I had avoided me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor by the merest of accidents, and I knew that sur- of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prise, or entrapment into torment, formed an prayed—I wearied heaven with my prayer for its important portion of all the grotesquerie of these more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and dungeon deaths. Having failed to fall, it was no struggled to force myself upward against the sweep part of the demon plan to hurl me into the abyss; of the fearful scimitar.30 And then I fell suddenly and thus (there being no alternative) a different calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death, as a and a milder destruction awaited me. Milder! I child at some rare bauble.31 half smiled in my agony as I thought of such There was another interval of utter insensibil- application of such a term. ity; it was brief; for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible descent in the What it29 to tell of the long, long hours of pendulum. But it might have been long; for I horror more than mortal, during which I counted knew there were demons who took note of my the rushing vibrations of the steel! Inch by inch— swoon, and who could have arrested the vibra- line by line—with a descent only appreciable at tion at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt intervals that seemed ages—down and still down very—oh, inexpressibly sick and weak, as if it came! Days passed—it might have been that through long inanition.32 Even amid the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left arm as 28. Here, Ultima (ul tə mə tho¯¯o¯ le¯ ) means “extreme limit” or “greatest degree.” In ancient times, this was the name of the northernmost part of the known world. 29. What boots it? is an expression meaning “What good is it?” 30. A scimitar is a curved, single-edged sword of Asian origin. 31. A bauble is any showy but worthless trinket. Literary Element Suspense What is to be his fate? Why is 32. The exhaustion caused by a lack of food or water is called the destruction “milder?” inanition.

EDGAR ALLAN POE 257 Giraudon/Art Resource, NY

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 257 4/6/06 5:32:25 PM far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of fastenings above the elbow, I would have seized and the small remnant which had been spared me by attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as well the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, have attempted to arrest an avalanche! there rushed to my mind a half formed thought Down—still unceasingly—still inevitably of joy—of hope. Yet what business had I with down! I gasped and struggled at each vibration. hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought— I shrunk convulsively at its every sweep. My eyes man has many such which are never completed. followed its outward or upward whirls with the I felt that it was of joy—of hope; but I felt also eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they that it had perished in its formation. In vain I closed themselves spasmodically at the descent, struggled to perfect—to regain it. Long suffering although death would have been a relief, oh! had nearly annihilated all my powers of how unspeakable! Still I quivered in every nerve mind. I was an imbecile—an idiot. to think how slight a sinking of the machinery The vibration of the pendulum was at right would precipitate that keen, glistening axe upon angles to my length. I saw that the crescent my bosom. It was hope that prompted the nerve was designed to cross the region of the heart. to quiver—the frame to shrink. It was hope—the It would fray the serge of my robe—it would hope that triumphs on the rack34—that whispers return and repeat its operations—again—and to the death-condemned even in the dungeons again. Notwithstanding its terrifically wide of the Inquisition. sweep (some thirty feet or more) and the hiss- I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would ing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder bring the steel in actual contact with my robe, and these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my with this observation there suddenly came over my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it spirit all the keen, collected calmness of despair. would accomplish. And at this thought I For the first time during many hours—or perhaps paused. I dared not go farther than this reflec- days—I thought. It now occurred to me that the tion. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity33 of bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped me, was attention—as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest unique. I was tied by no separate cord. The first here the descent of the steel. I forced myself stroke of the razor-like crescent athwart any portion to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it of the band, would so detach it that it might be should pass across the garment—upon the pecu- unwound from my person by means of my left liar thrilling sensation which the friction of hand. But how fearful, in that case, the proximity cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon of the steel! The result of the slightest struggle how all this frivolity until my teeth were on edge. deadly! Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of Down—steadily down it crept. I took a fren- the torturer had not foreseen and provided for this zied pleasure in contrasting its downward with possibility! Was it probable that the bandage its lateral velocity. To the right—to the left—far crossed my bosom in the track of the pendulum? and wide—with the shriek of a damned spirit; to Dreading to find my faint, and, as it seemed, my my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger! I last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to alternately laughed and howled as the one or obtain a distinct view of my breast. The surcingle the other idea grew prominent. enveloped my limbs and body close in all direc- Down—certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated tions—save in the path of the destroying crescent. within three inches of my bosom! I struggled vio- lently, furiously, to free my left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could reach the 34. The rack was an instrument of torture used to stretch or latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with pull a victim’s body in different directions. great effort, but no farther. Could I have broken the Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence How does the repetition of the word down at the beginning of each of three paragraphs indicate the passing of time? 33. Pertinacity is stubborn persistence. Vocabulary Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence How does the repetition of the signal word again heighten the feeling proximity (prok sim ə te¯ ) n. closeness in space, time, of terror? sequence, or degree; nearness

258 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 258 4/6/06 5:32:28 PM Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging original position, when there flashed upon my mind pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name, what I cannot better describe than as the unformed swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy clam- half of that idea of deliverance to which I have miness, my heart. Yet one minute, and I felt that previously alluded, and of which a moiety35 only the struggle would be over. Plainly I perceived the floated indeterminately through my brain when I loosening of the bandage. I knew that in more than raised food to my burning lips. The whole thought one place it must be already severed. With a more was now present—feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely def- than human resolution I lay still. inite,—but still entire. I proceeded at once, with the Nor had I erred in my calculations—nor had I nervous energy of despair, to attempt its execution. endured in vain. I at length felt that I was free. For many hours the immediate vicinity of the The surcingle hung in ribands from my body. But low framework upon which I lay, had been literally the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon swarming with rats. They were wild, bold, raven- my bosom. It had divided the serge of the robe. It ous; their red eyes glaring upon me as if they had cut through the linen beneath. Twice again it waited but for motionlessness on my part to swung, and a sharp sense of pain shot through every make me their prey. “To what food,” I thought, nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a “have they been accustomed wave of my hand my deliverers in the well?” hurried tumultuously away. They had devoured, in spite With a steady movement—cau- of all my efforts to prevent They were tious, sidelong, shrinking, and them, all but a small remnant slow—I slid from the embrace of the contents of the dish. I wild, bold, of the bandage and beyond the had fallen into an habitual see- reach of the scimitar. For the saw, or wave of the hand about ravenous . . . . moment, at least, I was free. the platter: and, at length, the Free!—and in the grasp of the unconscious uniformity of the Inquisition! I had scarcely movement deprived it of effect. In their voracity stepped from my wooden bed of horror upon the the vermin frequently fastened their sharp fangs stone floor of the prison, when the motion of the into my fingers. With the particles of the oily and hellish machine ceased and I beheld it drawn up, by spicy viand which now remained, I thoroughly some invisible force through the ceiling. This was a rubbed the bandage wherever I could reach it; lesson which I took desperately to heart. My every then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay breath- motion was undoubtedly watched. Free!—I had but lessly still. escaped death in one form of agony, to be delivered At first the ravenous animals were startled and unto worse than death in some other. With that terrified at the change—at the cessation of move- thought I rolled my eyes nervously around the barri- ment. They shrank alarmedly back; many sought ers of iron that hemmed me in. Something the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not unusual—some change which at first I could not counted in vain upon their voracity. Observing that appreciate distinctly—it was obvious, had taken I remained without motion, one or two of the bold- place in the apartment. For many minutes est leaped upon the frame-work, and smelt at the in a dreamy and trembling abstraction,36 I busied surcingle. This seemed the signal for a general rush. myself in vain, unconnected conjecture.37 During Forth from the well they hurried in fresh troops. this period, I became aware, for the first time, of the They clung to the wood—they overran it, and origin of the sulphurous light which illuminated the leaped in hundreds upon my person. The measured cell. It proceeded from a fissure, about half an inch movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at all. Avoiding its strokes they busied themselves with the anointed bandage. They pressed—they 36. Abstraction is the state of being lost in thought. swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps. 37. Conjecture is the forming of an opinion without definite or sufficient evidence. They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips Big Idea The Power of Darkness What view of nature is presented here? 35. A moiety of something is a portion of it.

EDGAR ALLAN POE 259

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 259 4/6/06 5:32:30 PM in width, extending entirely around the prison at ague.40 There had been a second change in the the base of the walls, which thus appeared, and were cell—and now the change was obviously in the completely separated from the floor. I endeavored, form. As before, it was in vain that I, at first, but of course in vain, to look through the aperture. endeavoured to appreciate or understand what was As I arose from the attempt, the mystery of the taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. in the chamber broke at once upon my Inquisitorial vengeance had been hurried by my understanding. I have observed that, although the two-fold escape, and there was to be no more dally- outlines of the figures upon the walls were suffi- ing with the King of Terrors.41 The room had been ciently distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and square. I saw that two of its iron angles were now indefinite. These colors had now assumed, and were acute—two, consequently, obtuse. The fearful dif- momentarily assuming, a startling and most intense ference quickly increased with a low rumbling or brilliancy, that gave to the spectral and fiendish por- moaning sound. In an instant the apartment had traitures an aspect that might have thrilled even shifted its form into that of a lozenge. But the firmer nerves than my own. Demon eyes, of a wild alteration stopped not here—I neither hoped nor and ghastly vivacity, glared upon me in a thousand desired it to stop. I could have clasped the red walls directions, where none had been visible before, and to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. gleamed with the lurid luster38 of a fire that I could “Death,” I said, “any death but that of the pit!” not force my imagination to regard as unreal. Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it Unreal!—Even while I breathed there came to was the object of the burning iron to urge me? my nostrils the breath of the vapor of heated iron! Could I resist its glow? or, if even that, could I A suffocating odor pervaded the prison! A deeper withstand its pressure? And now, flatter and flatter glow settled each moment in the eyes that glared grew the lozenge, with a rapidity that left me no at my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused time for contemplation. Its center, and of course, itself over the pictured horrors of blood. I panted! its greatest width, came just over the yawning gulf. I gasped for breath! There could be no doubt of the I shrank back—but the closing walls pressed me design of my tormentors—oh! most unrelenting! resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and oh! most demoniac of men! I shrank from the writhing body there was no longer an inch of foot- glowing metal to the center of the cell. Amid the hold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the more, but the agony of my soul found vent in one idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul loud, long, and final scream of despair. I felt that I like balm.39 I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my tottered upon the brink—I averted my eyes— straining vision below. The glare from the enkindled There was a discordant hum of human voices! roof illumined its inmost recesses. Yet, for a wild There was a loud blast of many trumpets! There moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend the was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! meaning of what I saw. At length it forced—it wres- The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm tled its way into my soul—it burned itself in upon caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It my shuddering reason.—Oh! for a voice to speak! was that of General Lasalle.42 The French army oh! horror!—oh! any horror but this! With a shriek, had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the I rushed from the margin, and buried my face in my hands of its enemies.  hands—weeping bitterly. The heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, shuddering as with a fit of the 40. Ague (a¯ u¯ ) is a fever accompanied by chills and shivering. 41. The King of Terrors could be either the “Inquisitorial vengeance” or death. 38. The eyes are full of life (vivacity), with a fiery, reddish glare, 42. Lasalle was an officer of the French emperor Napoleon (a lurid luster). Bonaparte, whose army invaded in 1808. 39. Although destruction was about to occur (impended), the idea of coolness seemed to be something calming or Literary Element Suspense How has the mystery of the soothing (a balm). pit heightened the suspense throughout the story?

Vocabulary Big Idea The Power of Darkness An atmosphere of diffuse (di fu¯ z) v. to spread widely; to scatter in all horror is essential to . How does this passage directions create a sense of horror?

260 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0251-0260 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 260 4/6/06 5:32:33 PM AFTER YOU READ

RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. (a)What emotions did you experience while read- 6. (a)Why is the third method of torture especially ing this story? (b)Were you surprised by the end- frightening for the narrator? (b)Is Poe’s portrayal of ing? Why or why not? the third method as the most horrible convincing? Recall and Interpret 7. (a)What do the narrator’s struggles and thoughts throughout his ordeal tell you about Poe’s view of 2. (a)To what fate has the narrator been sentenced? human nature? (b)Do you think the narrator’s (b)What does his immediate reaction tell you actions are realistic given his situation? Explain. about his state of mind? 3. (a)How does the narrator determine the size of his Connect prison? (b)Why might he feel that he must find out 8. Big Idea The Power of Darkness How would about his surroundings? you describe the overall mood or atmosphere of 4. (a)What kind of death does he associate with the this story? How does Poe achieve this mood? pit? (b)Why might the pit put him in such a state of terror? 5. (a)What horror does the narrator face after avoiding the pit? (b)Why do you think the narrator makes the efforts he does in response to the second horror?

PRIMARY VISUAL ARTIFACT

ATTACKING THE INQUISITION

One of the fiercest critics of the Spanish Inquisition was the painter and graphic artist Francisco de Goya (1746–1828). Many of his works deal with the suffer- ing experienced by those judged to be heretics. Among these works is the series of prints known as Los caprichos (The Caprices), published in 1799. In number 23 of the series, titled Aquellos polbos (Those Specks of Dust), Goya presents a disabled woman arrested for selling love potions. Dressed in the typical robe and conical hat worn by condemned heretics, she slumps in front of the officers of the Inquisition.

Group Activity Discuss the following questions with your classmates.

1. Why do you think Goya might have chosen to depict the trial of this woman? 2. How are Poe’s story and Goya’s image alike and different as depictions of the Inquisition? After your discussion, create your own illustration for Poe’s story.

EDGAR ALLAN POE 261 Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes/Private Collection, Index/Bridgeman Art Library

0250-0263 U2P2App-845481.indd 261 4/6/06 5:18:12 PM LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY

Literary Element Suspense Reading Strategy Identifying Sequence Suspense generally increases as the plot of a story In their stories, writers need not always present the moves toward its climax. In “The Pit and the sequence, or the logical order of ideas or events, in Pendulum,” Poe generates tension and uncertainty by the same way. In addition to using chronological, or pitting the narrator against one horror after another. The time, order to retell events, authors can also use - reader becomes more and more involved in the story, backs or flash-forwards to show events that happened concerned about what will happen to the narrator. earlier or later in the sequence. 1. The narrator undergoes moments of both physical 1. What method does the narrator use to retell the and psychological torment. Give two examples of events of his tale in “The Pit and the Pendulum”? each. Describe the event, and tell how each event 2. The term deus ex machina originally meant a god heightens the story’s suspense. that suddenly appeared in a Greek tragedy—some- 2. In your opinion, what is the most suspenseful times lowered from a crane—to resolve a situation moment in the story? Explain your choice. too complex for humans. Today, the term refers to an improbable, contrived, or artificial solution to a prob- lem in a piece of fiction. Do you think that the ending Review: Point of View of “The Pit and the Pendulum” is a deus ex machina or a part of the story’s logical sequence? Explain. As you learned in Unit One, point of view refers to the perspective from which a story is told. Poe’s story is told in the first-person point of view. The narrator is a Vocabulary Practice character in the story who uses the pronouns I, me, Practice with Word Origins Match each vocabu- and my. Everything that the reader learns is filtered lary word from “The Pit and the Pendulum” with through the eyes, ears, and thoughts of the narrator. the word that has the same origin. Use a dictionary Partner Activity With another classmate discuss how if necessary. the story’s point of view helps create suspense. With 1. deduce a. pedometer your partner, design a web diagram. List examples in 2. impede b. approximate which the first-person point of view limits your knowl- 3. lethargy c. introduce edge of events, characters, and setting. 4. proximity d. effusive 5. diffuse e. lethe

First-Person Point of View Academic Vocabulary

Here are two vocabulary words from the vocab-

Events Characters Setting ulary list on page R86.

environment (en v¯ rən mənt, v¯ ərn) n. sur- roundings; the cultural and social conditions affecting an individual or community

maximize (maksə m¯z´) v. to make as great as possible; increase to the maximum

Practice and Apply 1. Which details in the narrator’s environment are Gothic? 2. How does Poe maximize suspense?

262 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0250-0263 U2P2App-845481.indd 262 7/18/06 1:28:26 PM WRITING AND EXTENDING GRAMMAR AND STYLE

Writing About Literature Poe’s Language and Style Analyze Mood is the emotional quality or atmo- Using Abstract and Concrete Language In “The Pit sphere of a literary work. Write a brief essay explaining and the Pendulum,” Poe uses concrete words, or how Poe’s language, subject matter, setting, and tone words that appeal to the reader’s senses—sight, hear- contribute to the mood of “The Pit and the ing, touch, taste, and smell—to help readers imagine Pendulum.” the narrator’s ordeal. For example, Poe describes the candles as “white slender angels,” the narrator’s last To generate ideas for your essay, use a cluster diagram. pleasant sight before being thrown into the dungeon. Write a word or phrase describing the mood of the story The description of the dungeon walls as “smooth, in the middle of a sheet of paper. Then, under each cat- slimy, and cold” allows readers to imagine the dank egory, write related words. For example, write torture chill that the narrator feels when his hand touches under Subject Matter. Under the related words, jot down the stone. evidence from the story. The finished cluster will list the main points of your essay and the supporting details. Poe also uses abstract words in the story, or words that express ideas or qualities—such as order, hope, and despair—to describe what the senses cannot Language Subject Matter reveal. For example, the speaker refers to his “charity,” “thought,” and “immortality.” Concrete nouns and Mood adjectives can be forceful, but abstract words are essential in writing about ideas.

Setting Tone Abstract Concrete After you complete your draft, meet with a peer terrors rustling reviewer to evaluate each other’s work and to suggest horror tapping revisions. Then proofread and edit your draft for errors dreamy oily in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Internet Connection Activity Scan “The Pit and the Pendulum” for other Would you like to take a tour of the Poe museum in examples of concrete and abstract words that effec- Richmond, Virginia? Do you want to learn more about tively convey the narrator’s ordeal. Add these words to Poe’s life? Would you like to hear “The Raven” read your Mood cluster diagram. aloud? You can do all this and more online. Use any major search engine and enter words and phrases Revising Check such as Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven, or other titles. The Right Word Concrete and abstract words—which appeal to the reader’s senses and convey ideas, con- cepts, or qualities—can increase the effectiveness of your writing. With a partner, review your essay on “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Revise your writing by including effective concrete and abstract words to establish a mood or tone. If you wish, consult a thesaurus, to help you.

Web Activities For eFlashcards, Black bird perched on a vase. Imperial Period Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to (27 BCE–396 CE). Roman wall painting. Pompeii, . www.glencoe.com.

EDGAR ALLAN POE 263 Scala/Art Resource, NY

0250-0263 U2P2App-845481.indd 263 4/6/06 5:19:03 PM Vocabulary Workshop Context Clues

º Vocabulary Terms Determining the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words The context of a word “I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost.” refers to the other words —Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Pit and the Pendulum” and sentences surround- ing that word. Synonyms Connecting to Literature What does swooned mean in the quotation above? are words that have simi- Sometimes the context, or placement, in which an unfamiliar word appears pro- lar meanings. vides clues to the meaning of the word. If you are not familiar with the word º Test-Taking Tip swooned, you can get an idea of its meaning from the way it is used in the sen- When you are asked for tence. That the narrator “will not say that all of consciousness was lost” is a clue the meaning of a word that swooned means “to fall in a faint.” that appears in a reading passage, you will usually One or more kinds of context clues may be provided. find one or more context • Context sometimes provides an example or examples of a word’s meaning. clues near the word. Falling into a dark pit would certainly be a calamity. º Reading Handbook • Context may provide a definition of a difficult word. For more about using con- Tom Walker was gullible, and his wife was just as easy to fool. text clues, see Reading • Context sometimes supplies a word or phrase with an opposite meaning to Handbook, p. R20. contrast with the unfamiliar word. Most people would be fearful of a talking raven, but not the dauntless narrator of “The Raven.” • Context may provide a synonym for the unfamiliar word. The devil provided sufficient, or enough, treasure to tempt the Walkers.

Exercise For each item below, use context clues to figure out the meaning of the under- lined word. Identify the type of context clue used to uncover its meaning.

eFlashcards For eFlashcards 1. Edgar Allan Poe is credited with writing the first crime stories that use and other vocabulary activities, go ratiocination, or logical thinking, to solve a mystery. to www.glencoe.com. a. reasoning b. characters c. mathematics d. footprints 2. In one of Poe’s stories, “,” a detective is asked to OBJECTIVES get the stolen document back. • Use context clues to under- stand unfamiliar words. a. ancient b. personal c. damaged d. taken without • Verify word meanings using consent context clues. 3. Other characters may think that a problem is inexplicable, but Poe’s detective, C. Auguste Dupin, finds it easy to understand. a. mysterious b. boring c. simple d. dangerous 4. Many modern sleuths, from and Nancy Drew to the police investigators on TV crime shows, owe their methods to Dupin. a. criminals b. readers c. detectives d. authors

264 UNIT 2

0264 U2P2VW-845481.indd 264 1/9/07 5:56:42 PM BEFORE YOU READ

The Minister’s Black

MEET NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

hat do you think it would be like to spend a dozen years in self-imposed soli- Wtude? Nathaniel Hawthorne did just that, reading widely in New England history and perfecting his skills as a writer. The dark Puritan past haunted Hawthorne’s imagination. His ances- tors included one judge who had prosecuted Quakers in the 1650s and another who had served Emerson and . However, in the notorious witchcraft trials at Salem, Hawthorne was not in sympathy with Emerson’s Massachusetts, in 1692. No churchgoer, Hawthorne optimistic outlook and goals of reforming society. was still as keenly aware of problems of sin and guilt as any early Puritan. He explored complex questions Literary Success Unable to support his growing of right and wrong in tales he called “ of family as a writer, Hawthorne returned to Salem and the heart”—stories that teach a moral principle. took a government job that he disliked. When he lost the job, he turned again to writing, completing his masterpiece, , in early 1850. Although he feared it would be a failure, the book was a sensation, and Hawthorne soon followed it “What other dungeon is so dark as with another successful novel, The House of the Seven one’s own heart! What jailer so Gables. During this period, he moved his family from inexorable as one’s self!” Salem to the countryside, where a close neighbor was the writer . The two writers, who —Nathaniel Hawthorne shared a dark view of human life, spent a great deal from The House of the Seven Gables of time together. Hawthorne’s final years were shadowed by the coming of the Civil War. Not motivated by anti- Habits of Solitude Born in Salem, young slavery zeal, he saw the conflict as a collapse of the Hawthorne was an avid reader of poetry and stories social order, not a sacred cause. In ill health, strug- of adventure. He also spent long periods alone in the gling to continue writing, and depressed, remote Maine woods, where “I first got my cursed Hawthorne died while on a journey. habits of solitude.” After attending college in Maine, In his and stories, Hawthorne set himself the Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he secluded challenge of creating “a neutral ground where the himself at home for the “twelve lonely years” of his Actual and the Imaginary might meet.” When he apprenticeship as a writer. He produced two books, succeeds, his fiction has, as the literary critic Alfred first a novel titled Fanshawe and later a collection of Kazin observes, “the mysterious authenticity and short stories, Twice-Told Tales. The novel was a fail- the self-sufficient form of a dream.” ure, but reviewers praised Twice-Told Tales, and the book sold well. In the late 1830s, as Hawthorne was Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 and died in 1864. beginning to establish his reputation as a writer, he met and fell in love with Sophia Peabody, whom he married in 1842. The couple moved to Concord, Author Search For more about where Hawthorne socialized with Ralph Waldo Nathaniel Hawthorne, go to www.glencoe.com.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 265 Charles Osgood/Peabody Museum, Salem, MA/Bridgeman Art Library

0265-0278 U2P2APP-845481.indd 265 4/6/06 5:58:08 PM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW

Connecting to the Story Reading Strategy Making Inferences Does everyone wear a “” of some kind? In To infer is to make a reasonable guess about the Hawthorne’s short story, a New England minister con- meaning of a literary work from what a writer implies. ceals his face literally with a black veil. As you read the In a symbolic story such as “The Minister’s Black Veil,” story, think about the following questions: we must observe details to infer the writer’s meaning. Under what circumstances might you want to dis- • Reading Tip: Taking Notes Use a chart to record the tance yourself from those around you? inferences you draw from the details presented. • How much does a person’s appearance affect how people feel about him or her? Building Background Detail Inference “The Minister’s Black Veil” is set in a small town in Puritan p. 269 “Many The members of the New England in the early 1700s. Puritanism was a sect spread their congregation seem to that broke away from the in the clasped hands on feel the minister can 1500s. In the 1600s, Puritans came to New England and their bosoms.” see into their hearts. founded a community based on biblical laws. Puritans believed that human beings were sinful by nature and deserved eternal punishment but that God had “elected” some people to be saved. Puritans fought the “natural” Vocabulary tendency to sin and felt responsible for the moral welfare venerable (ven ər ə bəl) adj. deserving respect of others. Keeping a close eye on the behavior of others because of age, character, or position; p. 268 was elevated to a religious duty—“holy watching,” or The people relied on the venerable judge’s wisdom. “doing the Lord’s work.” The subtitle of “The Minister’s Black Veil” is “A Parable.” A parable is a story with a moral iniquity (in ik wə te¯) n. sin; p. 269 He was too lesson that teaches forgiveness of sinners. steeped in iniquity to tell right from wrong. Setting Purposes for Reading sagacious (sə a¯ shəs) adj. having or showing wisdom and keen perception; p. 269 Careful Big Idea The Power of Darkness planning is typical of a sagacious person.

As you read, notice how the Romantics’ dark fascina- irreproachable (ir´ i pro¯ chə bəl) adj. free from tion with the strange and sinister is displayed in “The blame; faultless; p. 274 The lawyer’s handling of Minister’s Black Veil.” the case was irreproachable, but her client still lost.

zealous (zel əs) adj. filled with enthusiastic Literary Element Symbol devotion; passionate; p. 274 Overly zealous, A symbol is a person, place, or thing that has meaning the waiter kept asking if we needed anything. in itself and also stands for something other than itself. A crossroads, for example, may symbolize choices in Vocabulary Tip: Synonyms Synonyms are words life. A symbol in a literary work may have many mean- that have the same or similar meanings. Note that ings and feelings associated with it, or it may point to synonyms are always the same part of speech. something that cannot be precisely defined. As you read the story, examine how Hawthorne develops the sym-

bolic meaning of the minister’s decision to veil his face. Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R18. • go to www.glencoe.com.

OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • interpreting literary symbols • analyzing literary periods • expanding vocabulary • making inferences • drawing upon your background

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0265-0278 U2P2APP-845481.indd 266 1/9/07 1:32:04 AM Nathaniel Hawthorne

pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meetinghouse. With one accord3 they started,4 1 The sexton stood in the porch of Milford expressing more wonder than if some strange meeting-house, pulling busily at the bell-rope. minister were coming to dust the cushions of Mr. The old people of the village came stooping Hooper’s pulpit.5 along the street. Children, with bright faces, “Are you sure it is our parson?” inquired tripped merrily beside their parents, or mim- Goodman6 Gray of the sexton. icked a graver gait, in the conscious dignity of “Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper,” replied 2 their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked the sexton. “He was to have exchanged pulpits sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but Parson that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier Shute sent to excuse himself yesterday, being to than on week days. When the throng had preach a funeral sermon.” mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton The cause of so much amazement may appear began to toll the bell, keeping his eye on the sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly Reverend Mr. Hooper’s door. The first glimpse person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, of the clergyman’s figure was the signal for the was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a bell to cease its summons. careful wife had starched his band, and brushed “But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?” cried the sexton in astonishment.

All within hearing immediately turned about, 3. With one accord means “with complete agreement” or “with and beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper, unity.” 4. Here, started means “made a sudden involuntary movement, as from fear or surprise.” 1. A sexton is a church employee who cares for church 5. A pulpit is a raised structure from which a minister delivers a property and who may also ring and dig graves. sermon or conducts a worship service. 2. Spruce means “neat and trim in appearance” or “dapper.” 6. Goodman is a title of polite address similar to “Mister.”

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 267 CORBIS

0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 267 4/6/06 6:59:20 PM the weekly dust from his Sunday’s garb. There people. He entered with an almost noiseless step, was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. bent his head mildly to the pews on each side, Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a over his face, so low as to be shaken by his white-haired great grandsire, who occupied an breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a arm-chair in the center of the aisle. It was strange nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of to observe how slowly this venerable man became crepe,7 which entirely concealed his features, conscious of something singular in the appearance except the mouth and chin, but probably did not of his pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the intercept his sight, further than to give a dark- prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper had ascended ened aspect to all living and inanimate things. the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face With this gloomy before him, good Mr. to face with his congregation, except for the black Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet pace, veil. That mysterious emblem was never once stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath, as as is customary with abstracted8 men, yet nod- he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity ding kindly to those of his parishioners who still between him and the holy page, as he read the waited on the meeting-house steps. But so won- Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heav- der-struck were they that his greeting hardly met ily on his uplifted countenance.10 Did he seek to with a return. hide it from the dread Being “I can’t really feel as if whom he was addressing? good Mr. Hooper’s face was Such was the effect of this behind that piece of crepe,” simple piece of crepe, that said the sexton. He has changed more than one woman of del- “I don’t like it,” muttered icate nerves was forced to an old woman, as she hobbled himself into leave the meeting-house. Yet into the meeting-house. “He something awful, perhaps the pale-faced con- has changed himself into gregation was almost as fear- something awful, only by hid- only by ful a sight to the minister, as ing his face.” his black veil to them. “Our parson has gone mad!” hiding his face. Mr. Hooper had the repu- cried Goodman Gray, following tation of a good preacher, but him across the threshold. not an energetic one: he A rumor of some unac- strove to win his people heav- countable phenomenon had enward by mild, persuasive preceded Mr. Hooper into the meeting-house, and influences, rather than to drive them thither by set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain the thunders of the Word. The sermon which he from twisting their heads towards the door; many now delivered was marked by the same charac- stood upright, and turned directly about; while teristics of style and manner as the general series several little boys clambered upon the seats, and of his pulpit oratory. But there was something, came down again with a terrible racket. There was either in the sentiment of the discourse itself, or a general bustle, a rustling of the women’s in the imagination of the auditors,11 which made and shuffling of the men’s feet, greatly at variance it greatly the most powerful effort that they had with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation9 of his 10. Countenance means “face.” 11. Auditors are “those who hear” or “listeners.”

7. Crepe is a light, soft fabric with a crinkled surface. Reading Strategy Making Inferences Why do you think 8. Here, abstracted means “lost in thought” or “preoccupied.” Mr. Hooper may find his congregation a fearful sight? 9. Perturbation (pur´ tər ba¯ shən) means “agitation” or “uneasiness.” Vocabulary

Literary Element Symbol How does Mr. Hooper’s veil venerable (ven ər ə bəl) adj. deserving respect because affect the way he views the world around him? of age, character, or position

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0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 268 4/6/06 6:59:22 PM ever heard from their pastor’s lips. It was tinged, another, he paid due reverence to the hoary rather more darkly than usual, with the gentle heads,17 saluted the middle aged with kind dig- gloom of Mr. Hooper’s temperament. The subject nity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted had reference to secret sin, and those sad myster- the young with mingled authority and love, and ies which we hide from our nearest and dearest, laid his hands on the little children’s heads to and would fain12 conceal from our own con- bless them. Such was always his custom on the sciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient13 Sabbath day. Strange and bewildered looks can detect them. A subtle power was breathed repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on former into his words. Each member of the congrega- occasions, aspired to the honor of walking by tion, the most innocent girl, and the man of their pastor’s side. Old Squire Saunders, doubt- hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept less by an accidental lapse of memory, neglected upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. Many good clergyman had been wont18 to bless the spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. food, almost every Sunday since his settlement. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper He returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and, at said, at least, no violence; and yet, with every the moment of closing the door, was observed to tremor of his melancholy voice, the hearers look back upon the people, all of whom had quaked. An unsought pathos14 came hand in their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile hand with awe. So sensible were the audience of gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and some unwonted15 attribute in their minister, that flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside disappeared. the veil, almost believing that a stranger’s vis- “How strange,” said a lady, “that a simple age16 would be discovered, though the form, ges- black veil, such as any woman might wear on her ture, and voice were those of Mr. Hooper. , should become such a terrible thing on At the close of the services, the people hurried Mr. Hooper’s face!” out with indecorous confusion, eager to commu- “Something must surely be amiss with Mr. nicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious Hooper’s intellects,” observed her husband, the of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of physician of the village. “But the strangest part of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, the affair is the effect of this vagary,19 even on a huddled closely together, with their mouths all sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, whispering in the center; some went homeward though it covers only our pastor’s face, throws its alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some talked influence over his whole person, and makes him loudly, and profaned the Sabbath day with osten- ghostlike from head to foot. Do you not feel it so?” tatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious “Truly do I,” replied the lady; “and I would not heads, intimating that they could penetrate the be alone with him for the world. I wonder he is mystery; while one or two affirmed that there not afraid to be alone with himself!” was no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper’s “Men sometimes are so,” said her husband. eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp, as The afternoon service was attended with simi- to require a shade. After a brief interval, forth lar circumstances. At its conclusion, the bell came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The rela- flock. Turning his veiled face from one group to tives and friends were assembled in the house, and the more distant acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the good qualities of the 12. Fain means “gladly” or “willingly.” deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the 13. The Omniscient is “the all-knowing,” or God. 14. Pathos is a feeling of pity, compassion, or sorrow. appearance of Mr. Hooper, still covered with his 15. Unwonted means “not customary” or “unusual.” 16. Visage means “face.” 17. Hoary heads are white-haired heads. Vocabulary 18. Wont means “accustomed.” 19. A vagary is an odd or erratic action or idea. iniquity (in ik wə te¯) n. sin sagacious (sə a¯ shəs) adj. having or showing wisdom Literary Element Symbol What meaning does this com- and keen perception ment give to the symbolism of the veil?

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0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 269 4/6/06 6:59:25 PM The Sermon, 1886. Julius Gari Melchers. Oil on canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. Viewing the Art: How does this artist show different responses to the minister’s preaching?

the dead before them, and Mr. Hooper in his black veil behind. “Why do you look back?” said one in the procession to his partner. “I had a fancy,” replied she, “that the minister and the maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand.” “And so had I, at the same moment,” said the other. That night, the handsomest cou- black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The ple in Milford village were to be joined in wedlock. clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper was laid, and bent over the coffin, to take a last had a placid cheerfulness for such occasions, which farewell of his deceased parishioner. As he stooped, often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier the veil hung straight down from his forehead, so merriment would have been thrown away. There that, if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the was no quality of his disposition which made him dead maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. more beloved than this. The company at the wed- Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so hastily ding awaited his arrival with impatience, trusting caught back the black veil? A person who watched that the strange awe, which had gathered over him the interview between the dead and living, scru- throughout the day, would now be dispelled. But pled20 not to affirm, that, at the instant when the such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, clergyman’s features were disclosed, the corpse had the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud21 and horrible black veil, which had added deeper gloom cap, though the countenance retained the compo- to the funeral, and could portend23 nothing but evil sure of death. A superstitious old woman was the to the . Such was its immediate effect on only witness of this prodigy.22 From the coffin Mr. the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled dusk- Hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners, ily from beneath the black crepe, and dimmed the and thence to the head of the staircase, to make light of the candles. The bridal pair stood up before the funeral prayer. It was a tender and heart-dis- the minister. But the ’s cold fingers quivered in solving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with the tremulous hand24 of the bridegroom, and her celestial hopes, that the music of a heavenly harp, deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden swept by the fingers of the dead, seemed faintly to who had been buried a few hours before was come be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. from her grave to be married. If ever another wed- The people trembled, though they but darkly ding were so dismal, it was that famous one where understood him when he prayed that they, and they tolled the wedding knell.25 After performing himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to he trusted this young maiden had been, for the

dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their 23. Portend means “to be a warning or an indication of.” faces. The bearers went heavily forth, and the 24. A tremulous hand is one that is trembling or shaking. mourners followed, saddening all the street, with 25. Hawthorne is referring to his own short story “The Wedding Knell.” A knell is the solemn sound of a bell ringing, as at a funeral. 20. Scrupled means “hesitated.” Big Idea Power of Darkness How does Hawthorne’s 21. A shroud is a cloth used to a dead body for burial. description of the imaginings of those at the funeral service 22. Here, prodigy means “an extraordinary event that causes link his story to Gothic literature? amazement.”

270 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY

0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 270 4/6/06 6:59:28 PM his lips, wishing happiness to the newmarried cou- concealed, which caused each to shift the ple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have responsibility upon another, till at length it brightened the features of the guests, like a cheerful was found expedient to send a deputation27 of gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a the church, in order to deal with Mr. Hooper glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black about the mystery, before it should grow into a veil involved his own spirit in the horror with scandal. Never did an embassy so ill discharge which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shud- its duties. The minister received then with dered, his lips grew white, he spilt the untasted wine friendly courtesy, but became silent, after they upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil. burden of introducing their important busi- The next day, the whole village of Milford ness. The topic, it might be supposed, was talked of little else than Parson Hooper’s black obvious enough. There was the black veil veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, swathed round Mr. Hooper’s forehead, and supplied a topic for discussion between acquain- concealing every feature above his placid tances meeting in the street, and good women mouth, on which, at times, they could per- gossiping at their open windows. It was the first ceive the glimmering of a melancholy smile. item of news that the tavern-keeper told to his But that piece of crepe, to their imagination, guests. The children babbled of it on their way to seemed to hang down before his heart, the school. One imitative little imp covered his face symbol of a fearful secret between him and with an old black handkerchief, them. Were the veil but cast thereby so affrighting his play- aside, they might speak mates that the panic seized freely of it, but not till then. himself, and he well-nigh lost Thus they sat a considerable his wits by his own waggery.26 time, speechless, confused, It was remarkable that of For the Earth, and shrinking uneasily from all the busybodies and Mr. Hooper’s eye, which impertinent people in the too, had on her they felt to be fixed upon parish, not one ventured to them with an invisible put the plain to Mr. Black Veil. glance. Finally, the deputies Hooper, wherefore he did returned abashed28 to their this thing. Hitherto, when- constituents, pronouncing ever there appeared the the matter too weighty to be slightest call for such inter- handled, except by a council ference, he had never lacked of the churches, if, indeed, advisers, nor shown himself averse to be it might not require a general synod.29 guided by their judgment. If he erred at all, it But there was one person in the village was by so painful a degree of self-distrust, that unappalled by the awe with which the black even the mildest censure would lead him to veil had impressed all beside herself. When consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, the deputies returned without an explanation, though so well acquainted with this amiable or even venturing to demand one, she, with weakness, no individual among his parishio- the calm energy of her character, determined ners chose to make the black veil a subject of to chase away the strange cloud that appeared friendly remonstrance. There was a feeling of to be settling round Mr. Hooper, every dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully moment more darkly than before. As his plighted wife,30 it should be her privilege to

26. Waggery is mischievous or joking behavior.

Literary Element Symbol What is Earth’s “Black Veil”? 27. A deputation is a delegation. 28. Abashed means “ashamed” or “embarrassed.” 29. A synod is a council of church officials or a governing body Reading Strategy Making Inferences How might the of all churches. minister’s self-distrust have led him to conceal his face? 30. Plighted wife means “intended wife,” or “fiancée.”

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 271

0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 271 4/6/06 6:59:31 PM know what the black veil concealed. At the in the village. But Mr. Hooper’s mildness did not minister’s first visit, therefore, she entered upon forsake him. He even smiled again—that same the subject with a direct simplicity, which made sad smile, which always appeared like a faint glim- the task easier both for him and her. After he mering of light, proceeding from the obscurity had seated himself, she fixed her eyes steadfastly beneath the veil. upon the veil, but could discern nothing of the “If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause dreadful gloom that had so overawed the multi- enough,” he merely replied; “and if I cover it for tude: it was but a double fold of crepe, hanging secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?” down from his forehead to his mouth, and And with this gentle, but unconquerable slightly stirring with his breath. obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties.31 At “No,” said she aloud, and smiling, “there is length Elizabeth sat silent. For a few moments nothing terrible in this piece of crepe, except she appeared lost in thought, considering, prob- that it hides a face which I am always glad to ably, what new methods might be tried to with- look upon. Come, good sir, let the sun shine draw her lover from so dark a fantasy, which, if it from behind the cloud. First lay aside your had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom black veil: then tell me why you put it on.” of mental disease. Though of a firmer character Mr. Hooper’s smile glimmered faintly. than his own, the tears rolled down her cheeks. “There is an hour to come,” said he, “when But, in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took all of us shall cast aside our . Take it not the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed insensi- amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of bly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twi- crepe till then.” light in the air, its terrors fell around her. She “Your words are a mystery, too,” returned the arose, and stood trembling before him. young lady. “Take away the veil from them, at least.” “And do you feel it then, at last?” said he “Elizabeth, I will,” said he, “so far as my mournfully. vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a She made no reply, but covered her eyes with type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it her hand, and turned to leave the room. He ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude rushed forward and caught her arm. and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with “Have patience with me, Elizabeth!” cried he, strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mor- passionately. “Do not desert me, though this veil tal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and shade must separate me from the world: even hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!” darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal “What grievous affliction hath befallen you,” veil—it is not for ! O! you know not how she earnestly inquired, “that you should thus lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone darken your eyes forever?” behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this “If it be a sign of ,” replied Mr. miserable obscurity forever!” Hooper, “I, perhaps, like most other mortals, “Lift the veil but once, and look me in the have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a face,” said she. black veil.” “Never! It cannot be!” replied Mr. Hooper. “But what if the world will not believe that it “Then farewell!” said Elizabeth. is the type of an innocent sorrow?” urged She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and Elizabeth. “Beloved and respected as you are, slowly departed, pausing at the door, to give there may be whispers that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the 31. Entreaties are pleas. sake of your holy office, do away this scandal!” Literary Element Symbol Hawthorne closely links the The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated minister’s black veil with his “sad smile.” How does this affect the nature of the rumors that were already abroad the meaning of the symbol?

Reading Strategy Making Inferences Why do you think Literary Element Symbol How does Mr. Hooper’s reply to Elizabeth decides to break off her engagement with Mr. Elizabeth indicate another view of the veil’s meaning? Hooper?

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0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 272 4/6/06 6:59:32 PM one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost which enveloped the poor minister, so that love to penetrate the mystery of the black veil. But, or sympathy could never reach him. It was said even amid his grief, Mr. Hooper smiled to think that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. that only a material emblem had separated him With self-shudderings and outward terrors, he from happiness, though the horrors, which it walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly shadowed forth, must be drawn darkly between within his own soul, or gazing through a medium the fondest of lovers. that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless From that time no attempts were made to wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful remove Mr. Hooper’s black veil, or, by a direct secret, and never blew aside the veil. But still appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages to hide. By persons who claimed a superiority to of the worldly throng as he passed by. popular prejudice, it was reckoned merely an Among all its bad influences, the black veil eccentric whim, such as often mingles with the had the one desirable effect, of making its wearer sober actions of men otherwise rational, and a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mys- tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. terious emblem—for there was no other apparent But with the multitude, good Mr. Hooper was cause—he became a man of awful power over irreparably a bugbear.32 He could not walk the souls that were in agony for sin. His converts street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he always regarded him with a dread peculiar to that the gentle and timid would turn aside to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, avoid him, and that others would make it a point that, before he brought them to celestial light, of hardihood33 to throw themselves in his way. they had been with him behind the black veil. The impertinence of the latter class compelled Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize him to give up his customary walk at sunset to the with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried burial ground; for when he leaned pensively over aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their the gate, there would always be faces behind the breath till he appeared; though ever, as he gravestones, peeping at his black veil. A fable stooped to whisper consolation, they shuddered went the rounds that the stare of the dead people at the veiled face so near their own. Such were drove him thence. It grieved him, to the very the terrors of the black veil, even when Death depth of his kind heart, to observe how the chil- had bared his visage! Strangers came long dis- dren fled from his approach, breaking up their tances to attend service at his church, with the merriest sports, while his melancholy figure was mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure, because yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused him to it was forbidden them to behold his face. But feel more strongly than aught else, that a preter- many were made to quake ere they departed! natural34 horror was interwoven with the threads Once, during Governor Belcher’s36 administra- of the black crepe. tion, Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the In truth, his own antipathy35 to the veil was election sermon.37 Covered with his black veil, known to be so great, that he never willingly he stood before the chief magistrate, the council, passed before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at a and the representatives, and wrought38 so deep still fountain, lest, in its peaceful bosom, he an impression, that the legislative measures of should be affrighted by himself. This was what that year were characterized by all the gloom and gave plausibility to the whispers, that Mr. piety of our earliest ancestral sway.39 Hooper’s conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, 36. Jonathan Belcher was a governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire from 1730 to 1741. from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud 37. Mr. Hooper was given the honor of preaching at the into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, governor’s inaugural ceremony. 38. Here, wrought means “made.” 39. Here, sway means “influence.” 32. A bugbear is a real or imaginary object of fear. Reading Strategy Making Inferences What does 33. Hardihood is offensive boldness or daring. Hawthorne mean by “dark affections”? Why has Mr. Hooper 34. Preternatural means “supernatural.” come to understand or share these emotions? 35. Antipathy is a feeling of intense dislike.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 273

0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 273 1/9/07 2:49:30 AM In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, black veil still swathed about his brow, and irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in reaching down over his face, so that each more dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir. unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart from All through life that piece of crepe had hung men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever between him and the world: it had separated him summoned to their aid in mortal anguish. As from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, years wore on, shedding their snows above his and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his sable veil,40 he acquired a name throughout the own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to New England churches, and they called him deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and Father Hooper. Nearly all his parishioners, who shade him from the sunshine of eternity. were of mature age when he was settled, had For some time previous, his mind had been con- been borne away by many a funeral: he had one fused, wavering doubtfully between the past and congregation in the church, and a more crowded the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at one in the churchyard; and having wrought41 so intervals, into the indistinctness of the world to late into the evening, and done his work so well, come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed it was now good Father Hooper’s turn to rest. him from side to side, and wore away what little Several persons were visi- strength he had. But in his ble by the shaded candlelight, most convulsive struggles, and in the death chamber of the in the wildest vagaries of his old clergyman. Natural con- intellect, when no other nections42 he had none. But Are you ready thought retained its sober there was the decorously influence, he still showed an grave, though unmoved phy- for the lifting awful solicitude44 lest the black sician, seeking only to miti- veil should aside. Even if gate43 the last pangs of the of the veil his bewildered soul could have patient whom he could not forgotten, there was a faithful save. There were the , that shuts in time woman at this pillow, who, and other eminently pious from eternity? with averted eyes, would have members of his church. covered that aged face, which There, also, was the Reverend she had last beheld in the Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a comeliness of manhood. At young and zealous divine, length the death-stricken old who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside man lay quietly in the torpor45 of mental and of the expiring minister. There was the nurse, no bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse, and hired handmaiden of death, but one whose calm breath that grew fainter and fainter, except when a affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in long, deep, and irregular inspiration seemed to pre- solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not lude the flight of his spirit. perish, even at the dying hour. Who, but The minister of Westbury approached the bedside. Elizabeth! And there lay the hoary head of good “Venerable Father Hooper,” said he, “the Father Hooper upon the death pillow, with the moment of your release is at hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from

40. [As years … veil] This phrase refers to the fact that his hair eternity?” was turning white with time. Father Hooper at first replied merely by a 41. Here, wrought means “worked.” feeble motion of his head; then, apprehensive, 42. Natural connections are relatives. 43. Mitigate means “to make less intense, severe, or painful.”

Vocabulary 44. Solicitude means “concern” or “anxiety.” 45. Torpor is a state of being unable to move or feel. irreproachable (ir´ i pro¯ chə bəl) adj. free from blame; faultless Literary Element Symbol Several times the narrator zealous (zel´ əs) adj. filled with enthusiastic devotion; describes the movement of the veil caused by Mr. Hooper’s passionate breath. What quality does this give to the symbol?

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0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 274 4/6/06 6:59:36 PM One of the most representative examples of American colonial craft is the tombstone, which typically displays the sense of the nearness of death that was so deeply a part of this culture.

perhaps, that his meaning might be doubted, faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to he exerted himself to speak. glimmer from its obscurity, and linger on Father “Yea,” said he, in faint accents, “my soul hath Hooper’s lips. a patient weariness until that veil be lifted.” “Why do you tremble at me alone?” cried he, “And is it fitting,” resumed the Reverend Mr. turning his veiled face round the circle of pale Clark, “that a man so given to prayer, of such a spectators. “Tremble also at each other! Have blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so men avoided me, and women shown no pity, far as mortal judgment may pronounce; is it fitting and children screamed and fled, only for my that a father in the church should leave a shadow black veil? What, but the mystery which it on his memory, that may seem to blacken a life so obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crepe pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let not so awful? When the friend shows his inmost this thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your heart to his friend; the lover to his best triumphant aspect as you go to your reward. beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let me cast the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring aside this black veil from your face!” up the secret of his sin; then deem me a mon- And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark ster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, bent forward to reveal the mystery of so many and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made visage a Black Veil!” all the beholders stand aghast, Father Hooper While his auditors shrank from one another, snatched both his hands from beneath the bed- in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell back upon clothes, and pressed them strongly on the black his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lin- veil, resolute to struggle, if the minister of gering on the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in Westbury would contend with a dying man. his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to “Never!” cried the veiled clergyman. “On the grave. The grass of many years has sprung up earth, never!” and withered on that grave, the burial stone is “Dark old man!” exclaimed the affrighted moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper’s face is dust; minister, “with what horrible crime upon your but awful is still the thought that it moldered46 soul are you now passing to the judgment?” beneath the Black Veil!  Father Hooper’s breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty effort, grasping for- 46. Moldered means “turned to dust” or “crumbled.” ward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he should speak. He even raised Literary Element Symbol To what “mystery” do you think himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the minister is referring? the arms of death around him, while the black veil hung down, awful, at that last moment, in Big Idea The Power of Darkness How does this final the gathered terrors of a lifetime. And yet the detail reflect the dark side of Romanticism?

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 275 Lee Snider/Photo Image/CORBIS

0267-0275 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 275 4/6/06 6:59:39 PM AFTER YOU READ

RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond Analyze and Evaluate 1. (a)What was your first reaction to the minister’s 5. (a)What is “the one desirable effect” that the veil has black veil? (b)Did your reaction change as the story on Mr. Hooper? (b)What are the negative effects? developed? 6. (a)What does Elizabeth’s changing relationship with Mr. Hooper reveal about her personality? (b)Do Recall and Interpret you find her a sympathetic character? Explain. 2. (a)How do the townspeople react when they first 7. (a)What do you think was most puzzling about the see Mr. Hooper wearing the black veil? (b)Why story? (b)Write your thoughts down in the form of might the veil affect them as it does? question. 3. (a)What is the subject of Mr. Hooper’s sermon on Connect the first day he wears the black veil? (b)What do 8. Do you think that the veil eventually causes Mr. you think is the association between the veil and Hooper to become a better minister? Why or congregation’s interpretation of the sermon? why not? 4. (a)Briefly retell in your own words the main events of the story. (b)Which of these events was most 9. Big Idea The Power of Darkness The Puritan surprising? view of sin and human nature is a basic element of this story. How is the Romantic view of human nature also shown?

YOU’RE THE CRITIC: Different Viewpoints

HOW PESSIMISTIC WAS HAWTHORNE?

Read the two excerpts of literary criticism below. Both Group Activity Discuss the following questions with critics agree that Hawthorne’s writing has a light and classmates. Refer to the excerpts and cite evidence a dark side. As you read the excerpts, notice the differ- from “The Minister’s Black Veil” for support. ence in emphasis between the two critics. 1. (a)What is the difference in emphasis between James and Melville? (b)Which critic do you “What pleased [Hawthorne in gloomy subjects] was think comes closer to an accurate assessment of their picturesqueness, their rich duskiness of color, Hawthorne’s pessimism? Explain. their chiaroscuro; but they were not the expression of a hopeless, or even of a predominantly 2. Chiaroscuro is a melancholy, feeling about the human soul.” technique used —Henry James by visual artists to balance light and shadow. “Perhaps no writer has ever wielded this terrific How might this thought [Original Sin] with greater terror than this technique apply same harmless Hawthorne. Still more: this black to Hawthorne’s conceit pervades him through and through. You outlook on the may be witched by his sunlight,—transported by human condition? the bright gildings in the skies he builds over you; but . . . even his bright gildings but fringe and play upon the edges of thunder-clouds.” —Herman Melville

276 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Gustave Courbet/Musee de la Vie Romantique, Paris, , Lauros/Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library

0265-0278 U2P2APP-845481.indd 276 1/9/07 5:48:14 AM LITERARY ANALYSIS READING AND VOCABULARY

Literary Element Symbol Reading Strategy Making Inferences There are two basic types of symbols—traditional and Inferences About Theme The subtitle of “The original. Traditional symbols usually have a single Minister’s Black Veil” is “A Parable.” A parable is a story meaning. For example, the theater shown here that teaches a moral lesson. By calling his story a par- are traditional symbols representing the two sides of able, Hawthorne implies that it has a central message, drama—comedy and tragedy. or theme, but this theme is never directly stated. Review the inference chart you created for clues about the theme of this story. 1. What do you think is the theme of “The Minister’s Black Veil”? 2. In support of your opinion, list three important details from the story and the inferences you drew from them. In contrast, writers often create original symbols that have no familiar meanings to readers. This allows writers more freedom to develop what the symbols Vocabulary Practice represent. Practice with Synonyms Find the synonym for 1. What kind of symbol—traditional or original—does each vocabulary word from “The Minister’s Black Hawthorne use in “The Minister’s Black Veil”? Explain. Veil” listed in the first column. Use a dictionary or a thesaurus if you need help. 2. What different meanings do you think the black veil represents for Mr. Hooper, Elizabeth, and the 1. venerable a. esteemed b. famous townspeople? 2. iniquity a. guilt b. wickedness 3. Why do you think Hawthorne chose not to explain 3. sagacious a. wise b. foolish why Mr. Hooper wears the veil? How does this choice contribute to the power of the veil as a 4. irreproachable a. reckless b. faultless symbol? 5. zealous a. uncaring b. enthusiastic

Review: Characterization Characterization refers to the various methods that a Academic Vocabulary writer uses to develop the personality of a character. Here are two vocabulary words from the vocab- Partner Activity Meet with a classmate and talk ulary list on page R86. about how you got to know Mr. Hooper better as you read the story. Working with your partner, create a culture (kul chər) n. a people’s unique way of web diagram like the one below. Then fill it in with a life—customs, art, rituals, and beliefs striking example for each method of characterization that Hawthorne uses to portray Mr. Hooper. ideology (ə¯´ de¯ ˘o l ə je¯ ) n. a set of principles and thoughts that guides an individual or a group physical other characters’ comments appearance Practice and Apply 1. What did you learn about Puritan culture from Mr. Hooper reading “The Minister’s Black Veil”? 2. How would you describe the ideology that actions narrator’s guides Mr. Hooper’s role as minister? comments spoken words

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 277 PhotoDisc

0265-0278 U2P2APP-845481.indd 277 4/11/06 3:52:01 PM 1/9/07 5:07:22 AM . e t or literal oli the positive or and the and – is clearer than t mp i e infer nosy ried, skinny cheap t nn Negative respectively uninterested bo denotation, : ectives that evoke a ectives that evoke j Minister’s Black “The In connotation is clearer than t is clearer than n paleness” e e secret” v l e black veil” n awthorne’s story for other examples i k with a partner Work to improve word t ro fu H t hli s er t thin imply GRAMMAR ANDSTYLE thrifty curious Positive can mp i horrible dread dea S respectfully

disinterested awthorne chooses ad y ectives with positive or negative connotations H it j v the verb , ective “ “ “ Be sensitive to a word’s Make sure negative association that the word can evoke. supportsthat the connotation of the words you choose words below the meaning and tone you intend. The connotations. have similar meanings but very different Make sure that the word’s have in definition, expresses the meaning you between mind. Be especially careful to differentiate such words whose meanings are often confused, as the examples below. t j cti

Revising Check Precise Words Minister’s Black Veil.” choices in your essay for “The • A of ad suggesting gloom. Make a list of them to read aloud and explain to the class. Hawthorne’s Language and Style Language and Hawthorne’s Precise Words Choosing Veil,” gloomy mood, or atmosphere help readers your betterTo picture ideas,your use words withspecific meanings. For example, in “The theMinister’s noun Black Veil,” ha ad • a oe called P For eFlashcards, For Twice-Told Tales, acket “The for Minister’s uotation and the position j q resent your interpretation of Add supporting evidence. Briefly summarize your position and consider offering a related insight. P the you plan to defend. ▲ ▲ ▲ Web Activities Activities Web Minister’s narrator of “The The short descriptions from reviews — . In his review of awthorne’s short stories, H AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Body Body S TART WRITING AND EXTENDING ➧ FINISH

➧ Conclusion Introduction Paragraph(s) Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to Selection Quick Checks, and other Web www.glencoe.com that might appear on a book AsBlack write you Veil.” the blurbs, praise the story for merits. its greatest Group Activity collection of “The Minister’s Black a “masterly Veil” composition.” Meet with a few classmates of your collaborate to on writing five blurbs revisions. Then proofread edit and draft your errors for in spelling, punctuation. and grammar, Literary Criticism After complete you draft, your meet with a peer reviewer evaluate to each other’s work suggest to and experience to defend your position. experience to defend As draft, you write from start finish. to Follow the writ- pathing shown here help to organize you essay your keepand on you track. Respond to Theme to Theme Respond own heart states that one’s is “the saddest Black Veil” a brief essay explain- Write 274). of all prisons” (page ing why you agree or disagree this assertion. with Use story and examples from your own evidence from the Writing About Literature About Writing UNIT 2 278 0265-0278 U2P2APP-845481.indd 278 Grammar Workshop Sentence Structure

Correcting Dangling Modifiers º Participial Phrases “Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a A participle is a verb graver gait, in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes.” form that ends in –ed or –ing. Participial phrases —Nathaniel Hawthorne, from The Minister’s Black Veil always act as adjectives. A participial phrase at the Connecting to Literature Notice how Hawthorne places the phrase “with beginning of a sentence bright faces” directly after the noun it modifies, children. If he had placed that is usually followed by a modifier later in the sentence, its meaning may not have been clear. For exam- comma. ple, if Hawthorne had written “Children tripped merrily beside their parents with º Test-Taking Tip bright faces . . . ,” one could interpret that “with bright faces” modifies parents. Read grammar questions A modifier changes the meaning of a word. Although modifiers can help readers carefully on standardized clarify meaning, a dangling modifier creates confusion. A dangling modifier is a tests, such as the SAT. It phrase that does not clearly or logically modify any word in a sentence. Very is easy to miss dangling often, a dangling modifier is a participle or participial phrase. modifiers. You may understand the writer’s The dangling modifier is circled in the first sentence of each pair below. As writ- intention while missing ten, these sentences seem to mean that a fire worked all night and that a door the grammatical error. ran across a room. To correct a sentence that has a dangling modifier, make sure º Language Handbook that the participial phrase, or modifier, clearly and sensibly modifies a word. For more on modifiers, Below, an arrow points from the modifier to the word it modifies. see Language Handbook p. R46–R47. Dangling: Working all night long, the blaze was finally extinguished.

Corrected: Working all night long, the firefighters finally extinguished the blaze.

Dangling: eWorkbooks To link to Sprinting across the room, the heavy door slammed in my face. the Grammar and Language eWorkbook, go to Corrected: Sprinting across the room, I saw the heavy door slam in my face. www.glencoe.com.

Exercise OBJECTIVES Revise for Clarity Rewrite these sentences, correcting the dangling • Correct dangling modifiers. modifiers. • Demonstrate control over the placement of modifiers. 1. Looking for movie ideas, Poe’s stories were discovered. • Use participles correctly. 2. Working feverishly, the script was finally finished. 3. Watching the 1926 film The Scarlet Letter, the theater was filled. 4. Gesturing wildly, the audience smiled at the silent film actress. 5. Admitted to the theater late, the lights were out.

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from Moby-Dick

MEET HERMAN MELVILLE

O! in thunder.” This, according to Herman Melville, is what the true writer Nsays. With his own great “NO!” Melville set himself against the optimism of Emerson and the Transcendentalists, challenged conformity, and rejected the idea of progress and prosperity that inherently evil, and they wrote fiction that dominated the American mind in the 1800s. explored the dark side of life. Hawthorne’s influence can be seen in Melville’s later Born in New York City, Adventure and Fame work, beginning with his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, a Melville faced many misfortunes in his youth despite whaling story of great complexity and power, meant being the son of a wealthy merchant. He was forced to rival the work of Shakespeare. Published in 1851, to leave school at twelve and instead of studying, he this tale of the obsessed hero-villain Captain Ahab focused on finding a profession. Unable to do so, in and his doomed search for the white whale is now 1841 he became a sailor aboard the whale ship regarded as one of the greatest American novels. Acushnet, bound for the South Pacific. When the novel first appeared, however, it met with During his time as a sailor, Melville jumped ship neither critical nor popular acclaim. and lived for a month with the Typee, a supposedly The commercial failure of his next two works con- cannibalistic tribe that nevertheless treated him vinced Melville that he could not support his fam- graciously, took part in a , and spent time in ily by writing. He was forced to sell his farm and jail on the island of Tahiti. These sailing years gave spend nearly twenty years at a routine job, a cus- him the background knowledge of ships and exotic toms inspector in New York City. Literary circles islands that served him well in his first two novels, lost track of Melville. In his later years, he pub- Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), both popular tales lished some poems, which were overlooked by the of adventure. public, and at his death he left behind the manu- The success of these novels brought temporary script of his last work, the novel Billy Budd. It was stability into Melville’s life. In 1847, he married published posthumously in 1924. Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the chief justice During his life, Herman Melville achieved fame of Massachusetts. He became a literary celebrity and then watched it fade to nothing. His most in both England and America. His sudden suc- important achievements were ridiculed by critics cess, however, was short-lived because he refused and ignored by the public. Nathaniel Hawthorne, to continue writing the sort of adventure books however, asserted that no “writer ever put . . . real- the public craved. His third novel, Mardi (1849), ity before his reader more unflinchingly” than did written in a new allegorical style, was not what Herman Melville. Generations later, readers began readers of that era expected from an author of to discover the depth and power of his writing and adventures, and as a result it was poorly received. to accept his bold rendering of reality. Critical Neglect In 1850, Melville purchased a Herman Melville was born in 1819 and died in 1891. farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and befriended the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived just six miles away. The two writers had much in com- Author Search For more about Author Search For more about Herman Melville, go to www.glencoe.com. mon: they shared the Puritan view of humanity as this author, go to www.literature.glencoe.com.

280 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Bettmann/CORBIS

0280-0291 U2P2APP-845481.indd 280 4/6/06 7:09:50 PM LITERATURE PREVIEW READING PREVIEW

Connecting to the Story Reading Strategy Monitoring Have you ever met someone with a magnetic personal- Comprehension ity, perhaps a teacher, a coach, or a political speaker? In Monitoring comprehension is a helpful way to make the following selection, Melville presents such a character sure that you understand what you are reading. in Captain Ahab. As you read, think about the following Melville’s style is highly ornate, with long, complicated questions: passages and sentences rich in descriptive detail. To • What makes a personality magnetic? get the most from this selection, reread challenging • How do others usually respond to such an passages and break down difficult sentences. individual’s message? Reading Tip: Breaking Down Difficult Sentences Building Background Use the following tips to break down difficult sentences: Melville’s novel is set in the early 1800s. It describes 1. Identify the subject. the voyage of the Pequod, a whale ship, which hunts 2. Isolate the verb or verb phrase. and kills sperm whales for their oil. Ishmael, the young 3. Rephrase the sentence in your own words. sailor who narrates the book, signs on because he is penniless but curious to find out what life aboard a whale ship is like. Such reasons for joining a whaling Vocabulary crew were common during the height of the whaling fortitude ( ) n. strength, particularly industry. Despite dangerous work, fierce weather, low for tə too¯¯¯ d´ strength of mind that enables one to encounter pay, bad food, and harsh treatment, both Americans danger or bear adversity with courage; p. 284 and foreigners alike were drawn to the adventure. Of The soldier showed fortitude in facing the enemy. course, the possibility of conquering “the mightiest creature on earth”—and living to tell about it—also pro- genial (jen¯ yəl) adj. mild or friendly; p. 284 vided an incentive. Despite her severe illness, my grandmother remained genial. Setting Purposes for Reading recluse (rek loo¯¯¯s) n. someone who leads a Big Idea The Power of Darkness secluded or solitary life; p. 284 The author was As you read, consider why Captain Ahab regards the considered a recluse because he granted no inter- white whale as evil. views and never spoke in public. misanthropic (mis´ ən throp ik) adj. having Literary Element Motivation hatred for humankind; p. 284 Lack of compas- Motivation refers to the stated or implied reason or sion may be a sign of a misanthropic cast of mind. cause for a character’s actions. A character’s motiva- inscrutable (in skroo¯¯¯ tə bəl) adj. mysterious, or tion helps the reader understand why he or she not able to be interpreted or understood; p. 287 behaves in a certain way. In a great literary work such Her actions may be clear, but her intentions are as Moby-Dick, the main character’s motivation is com- inscrutable. plex, but comprehensible. As you read, consider why Captain Ahab acts as he does. Vocabulary Tip: Antonyms Words that have opposite meanings and are the same part of See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R11. • speech are called antonyms. For instance, incense and pacify are antonyms. Interactive Literary Elements Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements, go to www.glencoe.com.

OBJECTIVES In studying this selection, you will focus on the following: • monitoring comprehension • analyzing literary periods • analyzing motivation and metaphor

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0280-0291 U2P2APP-845481.indd 281 1/9/07 1:50:03 AM Herman Melville

Ahab For several days after leaving , nothing a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at above hatches1 was seen of Captain Ahab. The times by the ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoher- mates regularly relieved each other at the , ences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle and for aught2 that could be seen to the contrary, energy I could not have before conceived of. But they seemed to be the only commanders of the poorly could I withstand them, much as in other ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the it was plain they but commanded vicariously. Yes, wharves.4 But whatever it was of apprehensive- their supreme lord and dictator was there, though ness or uneasiness—to call it so—which I felt, hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to pen- yet whenever I came to look about me in the etrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin. ship, it seemed against all warranty to cherish Every time I ascended to the deck from my such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with watches below, I instantly gazed aft3 to mark if the great body of the crew, were a far more bar- any strange face were visible; for my first vague baric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the disquietude touching the unknown captain, tame merchant-ship companies which my previ- now in the seclusion of the sea, became almost ous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed this—and rightly ascribed it—to

1. Above hatches means “on deck.” 2. Here, aught means “anything” or “all.” 4. Before the Pequod set sail, an odd sailor, Elijah, warned 3. Aft means “the rear section of a ship.” Ishmael about Captain Ahab.

Literary Element Motivation Why does Ahab isolate Reading Strategy Monitoring Comprehension Whom himself from his crew? does Ishmael describe in this passage?

282 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Paolo Curto/Getty Images

0282-0289 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 282 4/6/06 7:21:46 PM the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that grooves out the bark from top to bottom, ere wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so running off into the soil, leaving the tree still abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the was born with him, or whether it was the scar mates, which was most forcibly calculated to left by some desperate wound, no one could allay these colorless misgivings, and induce certainly say. By some tacit consent, through- confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment out the voyage little or no allusion was made of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officers to it, especially by the mates. But once and men, each in his own different way, could not Tashtego’s senior, an old Gayhead Indian7 readily be found, and they were every one of the among the crew, superstitiously asserted that Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a not till he was full forty years old did Ahab man. Now, it being when the ship shot become that way branded, and then it came from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, weather, though all the time running away from it but in an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild to the southward; and by every degree and minute hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that grey Manxman8 insinuated, an old sepulchral merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather man, who, having never before sailed out of behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-tradi- when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through tions, the immemorial credulities, popularly the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and mel- invested this old Manxman with preternatural ancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at powers of discernment. So that no white sailor the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled seriously contradicted him when he said that if my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid ran over me. Reality outran apprehension; Captain out—which might hardly come to pass, so he Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.5 muttered—then, whoever should do that last There seemed no sign of common bodily ill- office for the dead, would find a birthmark on ness about him, nor of the recovery from any. him from to sole. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the Ahab affect me, and the livid9 brand which limbs without consuming them, or taking away streaked it, that for the first few moments I one particle from their compacted aged robust- hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing ness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable upon which he partly stood. It had previously mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus.6 Threading its come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been way out from among his grey hairs, and continu- fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm ing right down one side of his tawny scorched whale’s jaw. “Aye, he was dismasted10 off Japan,” face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, said the old Gayhead Indian once; “but like his you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes coming home for it. He has a quiver of ’em.” made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, I was struck with the singular posture he when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, maintained. Upon each side of the Pequod’s and without wrenching a single twig, peels and quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizen

5. The quarter-deck is the part of a ship set aside by the 7. Gayhead Indian refers to a Native American from Gayhead, captain for official use. a town in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. 6. Cellini’s cast Perseus refers to Benvenuto Cellini’s bronze 8. A Manxman is someone from the Isle of Man, an island in statue that shows Perseus, a Greek mythological hero, the Irish Sea. holding Medusa’s severed head. 9. Here, livid means “pale.” Big Idea The Power of Darkness How does this detail 10. Literally, dismasted means “with the mast removed or suggest that Ahab is strange, perhaps even unnatural? broken off.” This term is used figuratively to describe Ahab’s loss of his leg.

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0282-0289 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 283 4/6/06 7:21:49 PM shrouds,11 there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship’s ever- pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wil- fulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedi- cation of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, con- sciousness of being under a troubled master- eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe. Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he with- drew into his cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either standing

in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he Breaching ’s tail fin. had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew New Zealand Photographer: Flip Nicklin. less gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as if, when little or nothing, out of himself to employ or the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the that he was almost continually in the air; but, as loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather as another mast. But the Pequod was only making we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing whaling preparatives needing supervision the girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, mates were fully competent to, so that there was misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such 11. Shrouds means “sails.” glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a

Literary Element Motivation What is revealed about little respond to the playful allurings of that girl- Ahab’s past that may help explain his present or future ish air. More than once did he put forth the faint actions? blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile. Reading Strategy Monitoring Comprehension What is happening in this sentence? Rephrase the sentence in your AS THE PEQUOD SAILS FARTHER SOUTH, AHAB own words. GROWS INCREASINGLY RESTLESS. HE PACES THE DECK EVEN IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT WHEN MOST OF Vocabulary THE CREW ARE ASLEEP. NO LONGER ABLE TO fortitude (for tə too¯¯¯ d´) n. strength, particularly strength RELAX AND ENJOY SIMPLE PLEASURES, HE TOSSES of mind that enables one to encounter danger or bear HIS PIPE INTO THE SEA. adversity with courage genial (jen¯ yəl) adj. mild or friendly Vocabulary recluse (rek loo¯¯¯s) n. someone who leads a secluded or misanthropic (mis´ ən throp ik) adj. having hatred for solitary life humankind

284 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Flip Nicklin/Getty Images

0282-0289 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 284 1/9/07 3:08:44 AM The Quarter-Deck “Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order sel- (Enter Ahab: Then, all.) dom or never given on shipboard except in some It was not a great while after the affair of the extraordinary case. pipe, that one morning shortly after breakfast, “Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mast- Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the cabin- heads, there! come down!” gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usu- When the entire ship’s company were assem- ally walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after bled, and with curious and not wholly unappre- the same meal, take a few turns in the garden. hensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not Soon his steady, ivory stride12 was heard, as to unlike the weather horizon when a storm is com- and fro he paced his old rounds, upon planks so ing up, Ahab, after rapidly glancing over the bul- familiar to his tread, that they were all over warks, and then darting his eyes among the crew, started from his stand-point; and as though not a dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar 16 mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon soul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you upon the deck. With bent head and half- would see still stranger foot-prints—the foot- slouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought. the wondering whispering among the men; till But on the occasion in question, those dents Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab looked deeper, even as his nervous step that morn- must have summoned them there for the purpose ing left a deeper mark. And, so full of his thought of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:— now at the main-mast and now at the binnacle,13 “What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?” “Sing out for him!” was the impulsive you could almost see that thought turn in him as he 17 turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices. possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the “Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in inward mould of every outer movement. his tones; observing the hearty animation into “D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; which his unexpected question had so magneti- “the chick that’s in him pecks the shell. ’Twill cally thrown them. soon be out.” “And what do ye next, men?” The hours wore on;—Ahab now shut up within “Lower away, and after him!” “And what tune is it ye pull to, men?” his cabin; anon, pacing the deck, with the same 18 intense bigotry of purpose14 in his aspect. “A dead whale or a stove boat!” More and more strangely and fiercely glad and It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he 19 came to a halt by the bulwarks,15 and inserting approving grew the countenance of the old his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and with man at every shout; while the mariners began to one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how to send everybody aft. it was that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions. But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now 12. Ivory stride refers to Ahab’s walking with an artificial leg half-revolving in his pivot-hole, with one hand made from a whale’s jawbone. reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost con- 13. A binnacle is a compartment on a ship for the ship’s lamp vulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:— and compass. 14. Bigotry of purpose refers to Ahab’s fierce single-mindedness. “All ye mast-headers have before now heard 15. The sides of a ship above the upper deck are known as the me give orders about a white whale. Look ye! bulwarks. d’ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?”—holding

Big Idea The Power of Darkness What effect does Melville create by describing the routine walks of other sea captains and country gentlemen before describing 16. Here, nigh means “close” or “near.” Ahab’s pacing? 17. An impulsive rejoinder is a spontaneous response or reply. 18. A dead whale or a stove boat! is a whaler’s motto meaning, “We kill a whale or wreck our boat in the attempt!” Literary Element Motivation Why does Ahab pace the 19. Countenance refers to the appearance or expression of the deck so resolutely? face that reveals mood or emotion.

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0282-0289 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 285 4/6/06 7:21:54 PM Man in Boat Looking at White Whale. Christopher Zacharow. Viewing the Art: Does this painting match your view of Ahab’s character? Explain.

up a broad bright coin to the sun—“it is a six- “It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he teen dollar piece, men,—a doubloon. D’ye see it? threw down the topmaul; “a white whale. Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon topmaul.” your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white While the mate was getting the hammer, water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.” Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and gold piece against the of his , as if to Queequeg22 had looked on with even more heighten its lustre, and without using any words intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, pro- the mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked ducing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticu- jaw they had started as if each was separately late that it seemed the mechanical humming of touched by some specific recollection. the wheels of his vitality in him. “Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white Receiving the topmaul from Starbuck, he whale must be the same that some call Moby advanced towards the main-mast with the ham- Dick.” mer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold “Moby Dick?” shouted Ahab. “Do ye know the with the other, and with a high raised voice white whale then, Tash?” exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises20 me a “Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a goes down?” said the Gayheader deliberately. crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that “And has he a curious spout, too,” said Daggoo, white-headed whale, with three holes punctured “very bushy, even for a parmacetty,23 and mighty in his starboard fluke21—look ye, whosoever of quick, Captain Ahab?” ye raises me that same white whale, he shall “And he have one, two, tree—oh! good have this gold ounce, my boys!” many iron in him hide, too, Captain,” cried “Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with Queequeg disjointedly, “all twiske-tee betwisk, swinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. 22. Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg are the harpooneers on the Pequod; Ishmael befriended Queequeg in Nantucket before signing up for the voyage. 20. To raise a whale is to spot or identify it in the sea. 23. Parmacetty (or spermaceti) is a white, waxy solid found in 21. Starboard fluke means “the right half of a whale’s tail.” the oil of whales. Here, it refers to the whale itself.

286 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Images.com/CORBIS

0282-0289 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 286 1/23/07 11:45:13 AM like him—him—” faltering hard for a word, and “God bless ye,” he seemed to half sob and half screwing his hand round and round as though shout. “God bless ye, men. Steward! go draw the uncorking a bottle—“like him—him—” great measure of grog.28 But what’s this long face “Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, “aye, Queequeg, about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white the harpoons lie all and wrenched in whale? art not game for Moby Dick?” him;24 aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a “I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep- the way of the business we follow; but I came here shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance. split jib in a squall.25 Death and ! men, it How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee is Moby Dick ye have seen—Moby Dick— even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not Moby Dick!” fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.” “Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with “Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Stubb and Flask, had thus far been eyeing his Starbuck; thou requirest a little lower layer. If mon- superior with increasing surprise, but at last ey’s to be the measurer, man, and the accountants seemed struck with a thought which somewhat have computed their great counting-house the explained all the wonder. “Captain Ahab, I have globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every heard of Moby Dick—but it was not Moby Dick three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee, that that took off thy leg?” my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!” “Who told thee that?” cried Ahab; then paus- “He smites29 his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s ing, “Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; it that for? methinks it rings most vast, but hollow.” was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick “Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, that brought me to this dead stump I stand on “that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! now. Aye, aye,” he shouted with a terrific, loud, Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.” “Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that “Hark ye yet again,—the little lower layer. All razeed26 me; made a poor pegging lubber of me visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. for ever and a day!” Then tossing both arms, But in each event—in the living act, the with measureless imprecations he shouted out: undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still “Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its fea- and round the Horn, and round the Norway tures from behind the unreasoning mask. If man Maelstrom, and round perdition’s27 flames before will strike, strike through the mask! How can the I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through for, men! to chase that white whale on both the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an do look brave.” inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable “Aye, aye!” shouted the harpooneers and sea- thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white men, running closer to the excited old man: “A whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I sharp eye for the White Whale; a sharp for Moby Dick!” 28. Grog is alcoholic liquor, such as rum, often diluted with water. 24. Moby Dick has survived many attacks and bears the 29. To smite is to strike sharply. wounds (and mangled harpoons) inflicted by those who Reading Strategy failed to kill him. Monitoring Comprehension Whom 25. Like a split jib in a squall means “like a torn sail in a does Ahab describe in this passage? storm.” 26. A razee is a “cut-off” ship, or a ship with its upper decks Vocabulary removed. Ahab, too, has had a part of himself removed, inscrutable (in skro¯¯o¯ tə bəl) adj. mysterious, or not able namely, his leg. to be interpreted or understood 27. Here, perdition is hell.

HERMAN MELVILLE 287

0282-0289 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 287 4/6/06 7:22:00 PM will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted in the cordage;34 nor yet the hollow flap of the me. For could the sun do that, then could I do sails against the masts, as for a moment their the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play hearts sank in. For again Starbuck’s downcast eyes herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But lighted up with the stubbornness of life; the sub- not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s terranean35 laugh died away; the winds blew on; over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; stay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye pre- my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look dictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing much predictions from without, as verifications of unsays itself. There are men from whom warm the foregoing things within. For with little exter- words are small indignity.30 I meant not to nal to constrain us, the innermost necessities in incense31 thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder our being, these still drive us on. Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living, breath- “The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab. ing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan32 Receiving the brimming pewter, and turn- leopards—the unrecking and unworshipping ing to the harpooneers, he ordered them to things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons produce their weapons. Then ranging them for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the before him near the capstan, with their har- crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in poons in their hands, while his three mates this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! stood at his side with their , and the See yonder Chilean! he snorts to think of it. rest of the ship’s company formed a circle Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one round the group; he stood for an instant tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But Reckon it. ’Tis but to help strike a fin; no won- those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes drous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of , ere he rushes on at their head in the all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into when every foremast-hand has clutched a whet- the hidden snare of the Indian. stone? Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the “Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!—Aye, aye! heavy charged flagon to the nearest seaman. thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside) “The crew alone now drink. Round with it, Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has round! Short draughts—long swallows, men; inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; ’tis hot as ’s hoof. So, so; it goes round cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.” excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the “God keep me!—keep us all!” murmured serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost Starbuck, lowly. drained. That way it went, this way it comes. But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquies- Hand it me—here’s a hollow! Men, ye seem cence of the mate, Ahab did not hear his forebod- the years; so brimming life is gulped and gone. ing invocation;33 nor yet the low laugh from the Steward, refill! “Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan;36 and ye mates, flank me 30. An indignity is an insult. 31. Incense means “to cause extreme anger.” 32. Pagan describes someone with little or no religion. 34. Cordage is the rope used in a ship’s rigging. 33. An invocation is the act of calling on an authority for help 35. Here, subterranean refers to something below the deck of or support. the ship. 36. A capstan is a vertical drum around which a cable is turned Big Idea The Power of Darkness What does this pas- to move or raise weights. sage suggest about Ahab? Reading Strategy Monitoring Comprehension What Literary Element Motivation Why does Ahab not hear happens to the leader of the prairie wolves in this comparison? Starbuck’s invocation? Who on the ship is compared to that leader?

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0282-0289 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 288 4/6/06 7:22:02 PM Scrimshaw on Whalebone. New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA.

pagan kinsmen there—yon three most honorable gentle- men and noblemen, my val- iant harpooneers. Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beg- gars, using his for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals!41 your own condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not order with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, poles, ye harpooneers!” ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a Silently obeying the order, the three har- noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. pooneers now stood with the detached iron O men, you will yet see that—Ha! boy, come part of their harpoons so me three feet long, back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. held, barbs up, before him. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, “Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; wert not thou St. Vitus’37 imp—away, thou ague! cant them over! know ye not the goblet end? “Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers, before me. Well done! Let me touch the axis.” advance. The irons! take them; hold them while So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the I fill!” Forthwith, slowly going from one officer three level, radiating lances at their crossed to the other, he brimmed the harpoon sockets centre; while so doing, suddenly and nervously with the fiery waters from the pewter. twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently “Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It murderous ! Bestow them, ye who are now seemed as though, by some nameless, interior made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha! volition,38 he would fain39 have shocked into Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun them the same fiery emotion accumulated now waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! within the Leyden jar40 of his own magnetic drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful life. The three mates quailed before his strong, whaleboat’s bow—Death to Moby Dick! God sustained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his looked sideways from him; the honest eye of death!” The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted; Starbuck fell downright. and to cries and maledictions42 against the white “In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed For did ye three but once take the full-forced down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and shock, then mine own electric thing, that had shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew; would have dropped ye dead. Perchance ye when, waving his free hand to them, they all dis- need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I persed; and Ahab retired within his cabin.  do appoint ye three cup-bearers to my three

37. St. Vitus’ or St. Vitus’ Dance is a nervous disorder that causes 41. Cardinals are high officials of the Roman ; shaking of the limbs. Ahab mocks the steward for having a Ahab addresses his three mates as cardinals. shaky hand and spilling some of the liquor. An ague is a fever. 42. A malediction is a curse. 38. Volition is an act of choosing or willing something. Big Idea The Power of Darkness How does Ahab’s use 39. Here, fain means “rather.” of religious language and ritual reveal the darker side of his 40. A Leyden jar is a form of capacitor, or “electrical circuit intention? element that can store an electrical charge temporarily.”

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RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond 6. (a)Why does Starbuck accuse Ahab of blasphemy? (b)Is Ahab guilty of blasphemy or not? 1. Would you want to sail with a captain like Ahab? Explain. Explain. 7. (a)Why does the crew choose to follow Ahab in Recall and Interpret his mission to kill Moby Dick? (b)How do you 2. (a)What does Ishmael notice about Ahab’s account for the “magnetism” between Ahab and appearance? (b)How does Ahab’s appearance his crew? influence Ishmael’s impression of him? 8. Is Ahab justified in not revealing the Pequod’s true 3. (a)Describe Ahab’s posture as he stands on the mission until the voyage is well underway? quarter-deck. (b)How does his stance affirm his Support your answer with evidence from the story. position as captain? Connect 4. (a)What is Starbuck’s reaction to Ahab’s intention to hunt Moby Dick? (b)Why does he react this way? 9. Big Idea The Power of Darkness How does Melville use Ahab and his mission as a means of Analyze and Evaluate exploring the mystery of evil in the world? 5. (a)What does Moby Dick represent to Ahab, Starbuck, and the crew of the Pequod? (b)Why does Melville present different perceptions of the whale?

LITERARY ANALYSIS

Literary Element Motivation Review: Metaphor Motivation is a central feature of psychological real- Metaphor refers to a figure of speech that equates ism, the attempt to portray characters in a plausible, two seemingly unlike things. In a metaphor the com- objective manner. Above all else, psychological realism parison is implied, rather than stated directly. insists that characters be clearly motivated; they Partner Activity With a partner, discuss the implied should not act without apparent reason. comparison in Ahab’s statement “it was Moby Dick In Moby-Dick, Ahab’s words and actions as well as the that dismasted me.” Then review the story to identify words and thoughts of the other characters, particu- at least two other metaphors and explain what is being larly Ishmael, provide clues to Ahab’s motivation. compared in them. 1. Are Ahab’s motivations clearly depicted? Support your answer. Metaphor What Is Why It Is 2. Is Ahab’s motivation in hunting Moby Dick purely Compared Appropriate revenge? Explain. p. 287 “it was Moby Dick that dismasted me”

Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to www.glencoe.com.

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Reading Strategy Monitoring Writing About Literature Comprehension Analyze Character Ishmael describes Ahab as seem- Reread this passage from page 288. Then break it ingly “made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalter- down and answer the questions below. able mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus” (page 283). The statue to which Ishmael alludes shows Perseus holding “And what is it? Reckon it. ’Tis but to help strike a fin; Medusa’s head after he has decapitated her. In the no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From Greek myth, Medusa is a gorgon, or monster, that this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all turns to stone anyone who looks at her. Using a mir- Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every rored shield for protection, Perseus is able to kill foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone?” Medusa. 1. To whom is Ahab speaking? Analyze the importance of this allusion as a tool for 2. What is Ahab trying to do? understanding Ahab’s character. Identify and list details in the story that reinforce the connection between Ahab 3. How would you summarize what happens in the and Perseus as monster-killers. Beside each detail, write passage? a brief explanation of the connection. After you complete your draft, meet with a peer Vocabulary reviewer to evaluate each other’s work and to suggest Practice with Antonyms Find the antonym for revisions. Then edit and proofread your draft for errors each vocabulary word from Moby-Dick listed in the in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. first column. Use a dictionary or a thesaurus if you need help. 1. fortitude morose 2. recluse clear 3. misanthropic cowardice 4. inscrutable charitable 5. genial socialite

Academic Vocabulary

Here are two words from the vocabulary list on page R86. Literary Criticism Reviews of Moby-Dick consisted of both the congratu- authority (ə tho rə te¯) n. the ability to influ- latory and the condemnatory. Despite the lack of criti- ence others’ actions, thoughts, and behavior cal consensus on the book, the London Leader goal (o¯ l) n. the desired result; aim proclaimed in its 1851 review that “Criticism may pick many holes in this work; but no criticism will thwart its Practice and Apply fascination. . . .” Do you agree with this statement? 1. How would you describe Ahab’s authority over Write a short literary review of the excerpts from his crew? Moby-Dick that you read in this selection. Then 2. What is Ahab’s goal in hunting down Moby Dick? explain how the characteristics you identified in your review affected your overall experience of the work.

HERMAN MELVILLE 291 Scala/Art Resource, NY

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Nathaniel Philbrick

NationalNational BookBook AwardAward WinnerWinner

Building Background S DARKNESS APPROACHED AT THE END OF In 1820 a sperm whale sank the Nantucket whaling the first day, the wind built steadily, 1 ship Essex. The crew was lost at sea for four months; kicking up a steep, irregular chop. The EssexA whaleboats were hybrids—built for rowing eight survived. This event inspired Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. In the chapters “Ahab” and “The Quarter- but now adapted to sail—and the men were still Deck” (see pages 282 –289), Melville models his por- learning how they handled. Instead of a rudder, trayal of Captain Ahab on first mate Owen Chase’s each boat was equipped with a steering oar. This account of the tragedy. The following selection, from eighteen-foot lever enabled a rowed whaleboat historian ’s nonfiction book, to spin around in its own length, but it was not describes the Essex crew’s first days stranded at sea. so effective in guiding a sailboat, and required the helmsman to stand at the cumbersome oar. Set a Purpose for Reading At this early stage in the voyage, the whaleboats Read to discover the historical basis for Melville’s were dangerously overloaded. Instead of five novel Moby-Dick. hundred pounds of whaling equipment, each Reading Strategy boat contained close to a thousand pounds of bread, water, and tortoises,2 and waves broke Analyzing Historical Context over the built-up gunnels3 and soaked the men. Analyzing historical context involves gathering back- The boats were also without centerboards or ground information and exploring social forces that skegs4 to help them track through the water, influenced the writing of a literary work. As you read, forcing the helmsmen to tug and push their take notes on the historical context for Melville’s tale. Use a two-column chart like the one below. 1. Here, chop means “waves.” 2. Tortoises were commonly kept aboard whaleships to be World of Ahab World of Owen Chase used as food for the crew. 3. A gunnel is the upper edge of a boat’s side. 4. A skeg is the rear, or stern of a ship’s keel, or main timber. A centerboard is a retractable keel.

292 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM William Page/Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA/Bridgeman Art Library

0292-0295 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 292 4/6/06 3:45:28 PM Informational Text steering oars as their little, deeply laden boats boats’ lapped sides would accompany them for corkscrewed in the turbulent seas. the duration of the voyage. Each boat-crew was divided into two watches. Even at night the crews were able to maintain While half the men attempted to rest—curling a lively three-way conversation among the boats. up with the Galapagos tortoises in the bilge5 or The subject on everyone’s mind was of course the leaning uncomfortably against the seats—the “means and prospects of our deliverance.” It was others steered, tended the sails, and bailed. They agreed that their best chance of survival lay in also attempted to keep an eye on the other happening upon a whaleship. The Essex had sunk boats, which would sometimes disappear entirely about three hundred miles north of the Offshore from view when they dipped down into the Ground.9 They still had about five days of sailing trough of a wave. before they entered the Ground, where, they des- At the start it had been decided that every perately hoped, they would come across a whaler. effort would be made to keep the three boats A circumstance in their favor was that, unlike together. Together they could help if one of them merchant vessels, whaleships almost always had a Nathaniel Philbrick ran into trouble; together they could keep one lookout posted at the masthead, so in whaling anothers’ spirits up. “[U]naided, and territory they had a better chance of unencouraged by each other,” Chase6 being seen. Against them was the observed, “there were with us many immensity of the Offshore Ground. whose weak minds, I am confident, It encompassed an enormous would have sunk under the dismal amount of ocean—more than retrospections of the past catas- twice the area of the state of trophe, and who did not possess Texas, a rectangle about three either sense or firmness enough hundred miles north to south to contemplate our approaching and almost two thousand miles destiny, without the cheering of from east to west. There were at some more determined counte- least seven whaleships on the nance than their own.” Offshore Ground at this time. But There was also a more practical even if there were double that reason for staying together: there First Mate Owen Chase number, the odds were poor that was not enough navigational equip- three whaleboats sailing along a ment to go around. Pollard7 and Chase straight line through the Ground (which each had a compass, a quadrant, and a copy might take only four or five days to cross) of Bowditch’s Navigator, but Joy8 had nothing. If would be spotted by a ship. his boat-crew should become separated from the One possibility was to extend their time in other two, they would be unable to find their the Offshore Ground and actively search for way across the ocean. whalers. But that was a gamble. If they searched Night came on. Although moon and starlight the region and didn’t find a ship, they would still made it possible to detect the ghostly pale- jeopardize their chances of reaching South ness of the whaleboats’ sails, the men’s field of America before their food supplies ran out. As it vision shrank dramatically in the darkness even was, they would be entering the western extreme as their perception of sounds was heightened. of the Ground and would have a difficult time The whaleboats’ clinker, or lapstrake, construc- heading east against the southeasterly trades.10 tion (with planks overlapping, resembling the There was another factor influencing their clapboards of a house) made them much noisier decision to continue on with the original plan. than a smooth-bottomed boat, and the fussy, After having fallen victim to such a seemingly fluted sound of water licking up against their random and inexplicable attack, the men felt an

5. In this context bilge means “the lowest part of a ship’s hull.“ 9. The Offshore Ground was a heavily whaled expanse of 6. Owen Chase was the first mate aboard the Essex. ocean off the coast of Peru. 7. George Pollard was the captain of the Essex. 10. The trades are trade winds, or winds that always move in 8. Matthew Joy was second mate aboard the Essex. the same direction.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK 293 Courtesy of Nantucket Historical Association

0292-0295 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 293 4/6/06 3:45:33 PM Informational Text But as they would soon discover, their greatest concern was not food but rather water. The human body, which is 70 percent water, requires a bare minimum of a pint a day to remove its waste prod- ucts. The men of the Essex would have to make do with half that daily amount. If they experienced any hot weather, the deficit would only increase. That first night of their journey, Chase, Pollard, and Joy distributed the rations of bread and water to their boat-crews. It was two days after the sinking now, and the men’s interest in The sea chest of food had finally returned; the bread was quickly Captain George Pollard eaten. There was something else they craved: tobacco. A whaleman almost always had a quid11 overpowering need to reclaim at least some control of tobacco in his mouth, going through more of their own destiny. Being sighted by a whaleship than seventy pounds of it in a single voyage. In would, according to Chase, not “depend on our addition to all their other woes, the crew of the own exertions, but on chance alone.” Reaching Essex had to contend with the jittery withdrawal South America, on the other hand, depended “on symptoms associated with nicotine addiction. our own labors.” From Chase’s perspective, this After the meager meal, the men not on watch made all the difference and demanded that they went to sleep. “Nature became at last worn out not “lose sight, for one moment, of the strong with the watchings and anxieties of the two pre- probabilities which, under Divine Providence, ceding nights,” Chase recalled, “and sleep came there were of our reaching land by the route we insensibly upon us.” But as his men fell into what had prescribed to ourselves.” he judged to be a dreamless stupor, Chase found The plan had one iron requirement: they had himself in the middle of a waking nightmare. to make their provisions last two months. Each Unable to sleep for the third night in a row, he man would get six ounces of hardtack and half a continued to dwell obsessively on the circum- pint of water a day. Hardtack was a simple dried stances of the ship’s sinking. He could not get the bread made out of flour and water. Baked into a creature out of his mind: “[T]he horrid aspect and moisture-free rock to prevent spoilage, hardtack revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflec- had to be broken into small pieces or soaked in tions.” In his desperate attempts to find some water before it was eaten, if a sailor didn’t want explanation for how a normally passive creature to crack a tooth. could suddenly become a predator, Chase was The daily ration was equivalent to six slices of plagued by what psychologists call a “tormenting bread, and it provided about five hundred calo- memory”—a common response to disasters. Forced ries. Chase estimated that this amounted to less to relive the trauma over and over again, the survi- than a third of the nourishment required by “an vor finds larger, hidden forces operating through ordinary man.” Modern dietary analysis indicates the incident. The philosopher William James felt that for a five-foot, eight-inch person weighing this compulsion firsthand some years later. After 145 pounds, these provisions met about a quarter the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, he wrote: “I of his daily energy needs. True, the men of the realize now how inevitable were men’s earlier Essex had more than just bread; they had tor- mythological versions [of disaster] and how artificial toises. Each tortoise was a pod of fresh meat, fat, and against the grain of our spontaneous perceiving and blood that was capable of providing as many are the later habits which science educates us.” as 4,500 calories per man—the equivalent of For most disaster victims, the repeated flashbacks nine days of hardtack. Yet, even augmented by of a tormenting memory have a therapeutic value, the tortoises, their daily rations amounted to a gradually weaning the sufferer from anxieties that starvation diet. If they did succeed in reaching South America in sixty days, each man knew he would be little more than a breathing skeleton. 11. A quid means “a cut of something chewable.”

294 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Courtesy of Nantucket Historical Association

0292-0295 U2P2SEL-845481.indd 294 4/6/06 3:45:36 PM Sketch of the attack by cabin boy

might otherwise interfere with his ability to sur- Locked in his own private chamber of hor- vive. There are some, however, who cannot rid rors, Ahab resolved that his only escape was themselves of the memory. Melville, building upon through hunting down and killing Moby Dick: Chase’s account, would make his Captain Ahab a “How can the prisoner reach outside except by man who never emerged from the psychic depths thrusting through the wall? To me, the white in which Chase had writhed these three nights. whale is that wall, shoved near to me.” Chase, Just as Chase was convinced that the whale that on a tiny boat a thousand miles from land, did attacked the Essex exhibited “decided, calculating not have the possibility of revenge. Ahab was mischief,” so was Ahab haunted by a sense of the fighting a symbol; Chase and his shipmates white whale’s “outrageous strength, with an inscru- were fighting for their lives. table malice sinewing12 it.”

12. Sinewing means “supporting.”

RESPONDING AND THINKING CRITICALLY Respond 5. After being attacked by a whale, the Essex crew “felt an overpowering need to reclaim at least some 1. Are you surprised that the whale’s attack on the control of their own destiny”. Do you think that this Essex haunted Chase? Why or why not? need for control drove Ahab’s obsessive quest to Recall and Interpret hunt Moby Dick? Why or why not? 2. Philbrick writes that “there was another factor influ- Connect encing [the crew’s] decision to continue on with 6. In an interview, Philbrick states, “I think all of us the original plan.” (a)What was that factor? (b)Do wonder while reading a survival tale, what would I you think the crew was right to consider this factor? have done in this situation? Would I have made it?” 3. (a)According to Philbrick, how did Chase’s account What questions did you think about as you read influence Melville’s portrayal of Ahab? (b)Why did the story? Explain. Chase fascinate Melville? STANDARDS FOCUS Analyze and Evaluate OBJECTIVES • Read to enhance understanding of history and American 4. Both Chase and Ahab believe that the whales that culture. attacked them had evil intentions. Do you think this • Analyze the influences of historical context that shape elements of a literary work. is a reasonable conclusion? Why or why not? • Connect a literary work, including character, plot, and setting, to the historical context.

NATHANIEL PHILBRICK 295 Courtesy of Nantucket Historical Association

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Reflective Essay ➥ Reflecting on Nature The Writing Process In this workshop, you will “Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, follow the stages of the writing process. At any stage, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any you may think of new ideas occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect to include and better ways to express them. Feel free exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.” to return to earlier stages as —, from “Nature” you write.

Prewriting

Drafting Connecting to Literature In his writing Emerson often looks back, or reflects, on his experiences and uses them as jumping-off places for exploring his thoughts Revising on a subject. This type of writing is usually referred to as the reflective essay. In a reflective essay, you narrate and describe a personal experience to show both Focus Lesson: ➥ what the experience taught you and what it might teach others. To write a suc- Elaborating Ideas cessful essay you will need to learn the goals of reflective writing and the strate- Editing & Proofreading gies to achieve those goals. These goals and strategies form the defining features of a reflective essay. ➥ Focus Lesson: Correcting Comma Splices

Presenting Rubric: Features of Reflective Essays Goals Strategies

To share a life lesson or ✓ Explore the meaning of a personal fresh insight experience or observation

To present events or actions ✓ Use narrative details to tell a story with in a clear order a clear beginning, middle, and end

Writing Models For models To make vivid observations ✓ Use descriptive details to create a and other writing activities, go to www.glencoe.com. picture for your reader ✓ Use active verbs and striking adjectives

OBJECTIVES To connect with an audience ✓ Use first-person point of view • Write a reflective essay exploring the meaning of ✓ Use a thoughtful but conversational a personal experience. style to help develop your personal Use narration and description • writing voice in a reflective essay.

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Real-World Connection º Assignment For college applications, you Write a reflective essay that describes one of your experiences with the natu- might be asked to write an ral world and expresses the insight you gained. As you move through the essay about a personal experi- stages of the writing process, keep your audience and purpose in mind. ence. Think about some ideas you might like to explore in Audience: peers and classmates a college application essay. As you will see in this Writing Purpose: to explore the significance of a personal experience Workshop assignment, the key to success is to clearly show the significance of your experience. Analyzing a Professional Model

In her autobiography, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard reflects on the significance of a childhood encounter with a moth. As you read the following passage, note how Dillard uses both narrative and descriptive details to convey her unique voice. Pay close attention to the comments in the margin. They point out features that you might want to include in your own reflective essay.

From An American Childhood by Annie Dillard

First-Person Point of View At school I saw a searing sight. It turned me to books; it turned me to jelly; Use the pronoun I to speak it turned me much later, I suppose, into an early version of a runaway, directly to your reader

a scapegrace. It was only a freshly hatched Polyphemus moth crippled Introduction because its mason jar was too small. Connect with your reader by The mason jar sat on the teacher’s desk; the big moth emerged inside it. starting your reflective essay in the middle of the action. The moth had clawed a hole in its hot cocoon and crawled out, as if agoniz- ingly, over the course of an hour, one leg at a time; we children watched around the desk, transfixed. After it emerged, the wet, mashed thing turned around walking on the green jar’s bottom, then painstakingly climbed the twig with which the jar was furnished. Narrative Details/ Chronological Order There, at the twig’s top, the moth shook its sodden clumps of wings. Guide your reader from When it spread those wings—those beautiful wings—blood would fill their one event to the next by veins, and the birth fluids on the wings’ frail sheets would harden to make using transitional words and phrases such as when, while, them tough as sails. But the moth could not spread its wide wings at all; and at the top. the jar was too small. The wings could not fill, so they hardened while they were still crumpled from the cocoon. A smaller moth could have spread its

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0296-0303 U2P2 WW-845481.indd 297 1/9/07 5:54:05 AM wings to their utmost in that mason jar, but the Polyphemus moth was big. Its gold furred body was almost as big as a mouse. Its brown, , , and wings would have extended six inches from tip to tip, if there had Descriptive Details been no mason jar. It would have been as big as a wren. Show, don’t tell. Use vivid details to create a clear The teacher let the deformed creature go. We all left the classroom picture. and paraded outside behind the teacher with pomp and circumstance. She bounced the moth from its jar and set it on the school’s asphalt driveway. Narrative Details The moth set out walking. It could only heave the golden wrinkly clumps Give precise details that tell your audience what where its wings should have been; it could only crawl down the school happened or what you driveway on its six frail legs. The moth crawled down the driveway toward observed and when. the rest of Shadyside, an area of fine houses, expensive apartments, and landscape fashionable shops. It crawled down the driveway because its shriveled wings nature poetry science were glued shut. It crawled down the driveway toward Shadyside, one of nature several sections of town where people like me were expected to settle after college, renting an apartment until they married one of the boys and bought “tame” “wild” Conversational Tone a house. I watched it go. Share your personal obser- wild animals vations and thoughts by I knew that this particular moth, the big walking moth, could not travel pets using an open and conver- more than a few yards before a bird or cat began to eat it, or a car ran over animal rescue sational tone. it. Nevertheless, it was crawling with what seemed wonderful vigor, as if, I thought at the time, it was still excited from being born. I watched it go till the bell rang and I had to go in. I have told this story before, and may yet tell it again, to lay the moth’s ghost, for I still see it crawl down the broad Conclusion black driveway, and I still see its golden wing clumps heave. Discuss the impact your experience had on your life. Explain any insights or lessons you might have learned and want to share. Reading-Writing Connection Think about the writing techniques that you just encountered and try them out in the reflective essay that you write.

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Prewriting

Gather Ideas Prewriting is the stage of the writing process during which Top Ten you generate ideas. You can use many different strategies: Create a personal “Nature’s Best” list: best landscape, º Approach the idea of the natural world from different angles. Keep in mind body of water, season, that the natural world doesn’t just mean a wilderness or the countryside. time of day, weather, cloud Weather is a part of nature. Nature is also present in cities and suburbs, as formation, tree, flower, well as in parks, gardens, zoos, museums, and many other places. mammal, bird, fish, insect, and so on. What experiences º If you keep a journal, you might review it for entries dealing with nature. Thoreau referred to his journal as he wrote Walden. do you associate with these choices? º Look at family videos or photograph albums to recall events that relate to the natural world, such as a trip to a national park, a zoo, or a natural history museum.

º Use a cluster diagram. Start by putting the idea “nature” in the center and jot down general areas that you associate with nature. Then move outward to more specific associations until you think of an experience you want to write about. Using the diagram below, one student focused on a meeting with an animal rescuer.

landscape nature poetry science nature

“tame” “wild”

Test Prep wild animals pets If you were writing this essay as part of an examination, animal rescue how would you work differ- ently? Time management is crucial to success in an Choose a Subject After reviewing some of your experiences with nature, essay test, especially in the choose one of them as a subject for your reflective essay. prewriting stage.

Talk About Your Ideas Meet with a partner to help focus on what you will say to your readers and how you will say it. Think about your essay as a conversation on the page in which you, the writer, do all the talking. To help develop your writing voice, take turns telling each other the most vivid details of your experience. As you and your partner speak, listen to the style of your language and your original approach to ideas. Jot down notes and refer to them when you are developing your essay.

Next, explore the significance of your experience.

º How did you feel about your experience at the time? º Looking back, do you feel different about your experience now?

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Just Jump In When you begin writing, don’t get bogged down trying to find the perfect word or to make your sentences flow smoothly. You can polish your essay later. Do take the time to stop occasionally and reflect on your unfinished draft. If your writing is leading you in an unexpected direction, you may want to follow it. You could gain new insights about your experience—and yourself. Analyzing a Workshop Model

Here is a final draft of a reflective essay. Read the essay and answer the questions in the margin. Use the answers to these questions to guide you as you write.

Animal 911

Introduction I generally like nature to keep its distance—wild things belong outside. So Do the opening sentences introduce the essay topic in when I saw a white-flecked feather on the third step of the stairs leading up an exciting and suspenseful to the second floor, I knew it was a bad sign. There were two more feathers way? Why or why not? on the fifth step. I followed the trail of fluff to the kitchen, where I found

First-Person Point of View the rest of the bird. I didn’t know what kind of bird it was—just a small What are the advantages of round creature with a long bill. It had somehow managed to survive a meet- using the first-person point ing with our family cat. By the time I managed to corner and capture the of view? What effect would these sentences have if bird, it seemed to be in deep shock. I wasn’t feeling too well myself. they were written in the With no bird experts around to consult, I had no way of knowing how third-person? seriously injured the poor creature was. Should I simply put the bird outside Conversational Tone on the porch and let nature—the neighborhood cats—take its course? I called How does asking a question create a the vet who looked after our cat. He suggested I get in touch with a Mrs. conversational tone? Roberts, who lived not too far away. This woman took in injured animals that people brought her and cared for them until they were well enough to return to the wild. She sounded like just the person I needed. I put my injured bird into a box lined with tissue and took the bus to see Mrs. Roberts. Narrative Details/ Along the way, I began to think about the person I was about to meet. Chronological Order To start with, what would Mrs. Roberts look like? Since she was in the busi- How do transitional phrases help your readers follow ness of looking after hurt animals, I began to picture her as a very sweet and your ideas? gentle sort of person—sort of cuddly. I was wrong. When I got to her house, I rang the bell. Nobody responded, so I walked around to the back yard. I knew immediately I had come to the right place.

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There were some large screened-in areas, where I could see a several different animals, including a deer. There were also two or three upright posts. A large, fierce-looking bird—some kind of hawk, I guess— gripped the top of one of these. It glared at me as if I were a mouse. As I Descriptive Details stood there, I was startled by a clear, low voice behind me. How do these details “May I help you?” she asked. I spun around, nearly dropping my shoe box. help your readers visualize “Mrs. Roberts?” I responded. She simply nodded in reply. My cuddly the scene? How do they create tension? fantasy of an animal rescuer was immediately replaced by a far tougher reality. She was an old woman but clearly still very strong and sturdy, Descriptive Details with dark eyes and sharp features. She looked a bit like a hawk herself. How do these details help “I have an injured bird here,” I began, offering her my shoe box. the readers visualize Mrs. As she took the box and removed the lid, I noticed she seemed to smile. Roberts? What do they tell about her character? It may have been the sight of the tissue paper in which I had put the injured bird. She probably thought it looked like a doll bed created by a little kid. She picked up the bird in one strong, brown hand and studied it for a time before returning it to the box and replacing the cover. “It’s a starling,” Mrs. Roberts said, as if she understood I wouldn’t know. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for it.” “Really?” I asked, feeling a sharp stab of disappointment. “I thought you took care of—are you sure there’s nothing?” Narrative Details/Dialogue “It’s a very old bird,” she explained. How does the use of dia- This comment was also a bit of shock. During my bus ride, I had logue show your readers decided—based on no knowledge at all—that the bird was young. Part what is happening? Does it place the readers in the of my fantasy had been visiting the bird as it got better. middle of the action? “People bring me so many animals that I have to limit myself to aid- ing those that are worth saving,” Mrs. Roberts explained. “This starling just isn’t. Sorry. I’ll dispose of the bird for you.” I was grateful she had relieved me of responsibility for the injured bird, but I still felt that somehow Mrs. Roberts didn’t “care” for nature in the way I had expected. She wasn’t cuddly. Thinking about her later, however, it was clear that she cared very much; but she only applied her Conclusion concern to creatures that could benefit from it. My meeting with Mrs. Why is it important that you Roberts taught me that to love nature does not mean to be sentimental express how you felt at the about wild creatures. You can be both realistic and caring. time of your experience and how you feel now?

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Peer Review Ask a peer reviewer to help you assess your essay. Talk over your ideas and ask your partner for feedback. Identify any strengths and weaknesses Traits of Strong Writing you find. Remember to refer to the traits of strong writing. Ideas message or theme Use the rubric below to evaluate your writing. and the details that develop it Rubric: Writing an Effective Reflective Essay Organization arrangement ✓ Do you explore a personal experience about nature? of main ideas and support- ing details ✓ Do you explain the insights you gained from the experience?

Voice writer’s unique way ✓ Does your essay have a clear beginning, middle, and end? of using tone and style ✓ Do you vividly describe the details of your experience?

Word Choice vocabulary ✓ Do you use first-person point of view? a writer uses to convey ✓ meaning Do you write in a conversational tone that allows your own voice to come through? Sentence Fluency rhythm and flow of sentences

Conventions correct º Focus Lesson spelling, grammar, usage, and mechanics Elaborating Ideas Give your readers a detailed picture of what is happening and when. Presentation the way Elaboration is a technique you can use to include details that develop, words and design elements support, or explain the ideas presented in your essay. Here is a sentence look on a page from the Workshop Model followed by three kinds of elaboration—reasons, For more information on descriptions, and dialogue—you might want to try. using the Traits of Strong Draft: Writing, see pages R33–R34 of the Writing Handbook.

As she took the box and removed the lid, I noticed she seemed to smile.

Revision:

As she took the box and removed the lid, I noticed she seemed to smile. It might have been the sight of the tissue paper in which I had put the injured bird.1 She probably thought it looked like a doll bed created by a little kid.2 “It’s a starling,” Mrs. Roberts said.3 1: Reasons 2: Descriptions 3: Dialogue

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0296-0303 U2P2 WW-845481.indd 302 1/9/07 5:59:38 AM Narration / Description Editing and Proofreading

Get It Right When you have completed the final draft of your essay, proofread for errors in grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling. Refer to the Language Handbook, pages R45–R59, as a guide.

º Focus Lesson Corrrecting Comma Splices Give It a Rest A comma splice is a type of run-on sentence that occurs when two main Try putting your essay clauses are joined only by a comma. Below is an example of a run-on sentence aside for a day or two. from the Workshop Model. Note the three ways to correct this problem. When you return to it after a time, you may catch Comma Splice: errors you missed earlier. How Was That? I was grateful she had relieved me of responsibility for the injured bird, I still felt that somehow Mrs. Roberts didn’t “care” for nature in Try reading your essay the way I had expected. aloud. Often you will be able to “hear” a mistake Solution A: Replace the comma with an end mark of punctuation, such as that you might not “see.” a period or a question mark, and begin the new sentence with a capital letter.

I was grateful she had relieved me of responsibility for the injured bird. I still felt that somehow Mrs. Roberts didn’t “care” for nature in the way I had expected.

Solution B: Place a semicolon between the two main clauses.

I was grateful she had relieved me of responsibility for the injured bird; I still felt that somehow Mrs. Roberts didn’t “care” for nature in the way I had expected.

Solution C: Add a coordinating conjunction after the comma.

I was grateful she had relieved me of responsibility for the injured bird, but I still felt that somehow Mrs. Roberts didn’t “care” for nature in the way I had expected.

Writer’sW rit er’s Portfolio Place a copy of your reflective essay in Presenting your portfolio to review later. Appearance Matters Make your essay inviting to read. Handwritten papers should be neat and legible. If you are working on a word processor, double-space the lines of text and use a readable font, or typeface. Other design elements— such as boldfaced headings or pictures—can help you present information effec- Writing Models For models tively as well as make your essay look more appealing. Be sure to check with your and other writing activities, go to teacher about presentation guidelines. www.glencoe.com.

WRITING WORKSHOP 303 Philip Marazzi; Papilio/CORBIS

0296-0303 U2P2 WW-845481.indd 303 4/6/06 3:51:19 PM Speaking, Listening, and Viewing Workshop

Delivering a Reflective Presentation

Connecting to Literature During Ralph Waldo Emerson’s lifetime, more Americans probably became acquainted with his ideas from hearing him lecture than from reading his essays. After he spoke in Cincinnati, a newspaper there observed that “without his own language, his manner, his delivery,” no report could really convey the effect he created. Emerson’s speaking style was very much a part of the appeal of his thoughts. In this workshop, you will deliver an oral presentation of your reflective essay on nature. ▲ Assignment Create an oral presentation of your reflective essay on nature and perform it for an audience.

Planning Your Presentation

When you wrote your reflective essay, you were addressing an audience of readers. When you deliver your reflective presentation, you will be addressing an audience of listeners. Use your essay as a starting point.

• Read your essay aloud to a peer. Discuss which ideas you should keep or delete and how your might adjust the language to fit the purpose. For example, you might add informal expressions or vary sentence structure to make your essay sound even more conversational. • Jot down vivid details, striking dialogue, and key ideas on note cards. Arrange the note cards in the same order as the elements appear in your essay. Use your note cards as a speaking prompt. • Make sure that you note the significance of the personal experience you explored in your essay.

—to me, wild animals belong outside — not happy when I found an injured bird in the kitchen

304 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

0304-0305 U2P2 SLV-845481.indd 304 4/6/06 3:55:38 PM Creating Your Visual Media

As you work though the organization of your essay, think about how visual media, such as a photograph, collage, drawing, or computer presentation can make your ideas clearer to your audience. Reflect on how symbols, colors, and Use a Mirror organization may work within your visual to effectively convey your point. Use Practice your gestures in front the chart below to brainstorm ideas with a partner. of a mirror until your body language looks natural.

What parts of my What images can How will I use my Sound Check essay best reflect I create of my essay to choice of media to who I am? illustrate these parts? express myself? Record your presentation and play it back to check on whether your voice expresses the right mood and your words are understandable. Rehearsing

Videotape Rehearsing your speech will strengthen your presentation. You will become familiar with the language and organization of your speech, and you will be able to identify Videotape your performance any delivery flaws or grammar errors that you missed earlier. Rehearsing will also and provide your own critique. help you know when best to utilize visual aids and how to present them skillfully. It is helpful to rehearse in front of a family member or friend—you can practice eye contact and get feedback on details such as your pronunciation and pacing. Speak loudly, even when practicing, so you are familiar with volume, or how loudly you need to speak so that the whole class can hear you.

Use some of the verbal and nonverbal techniques listed below to ensure that your audience clearly understands you and is engaged in what you have to say.

Rubric: Techniques for Delivering a Presentation

Verbal Techniques Nonverbal Techniques

✓ Volume Speak loudly enough ✓ Posture Stand up tall with your so that everyone can hear you. head straight.

✓ Pronunciation Speak clearly, ✓ Eye Contact Make eye contact pronouncing all the words. with people throughout your audience. ✓ ✓ OBJECTIVES Pace Speak at a moderate Facial Expressions Vary your • Adapt a reflective essay for speed, but vary the rate and use facial expressions to reflect what oral presentation. • Use voice, gesture, sound, pauses to convey your meaning. you are saying. and visual effects to enhance ✓ ✓ your performance. Tone Speak in an animated Gestures Use natural gestures to • Polish your presentation in voice. reinforce your ideas. rehearsal.

✓ Emphasis Stress important ✓ Visual Aids Use a photograph, words and ideas. collage, drawing, or computer presentation to enhance your presentation.

SPEAKING, LISTENING, AND VIEWING WORKSHOP 305

0304-0305 U2P2 SLV-845481.indd 305 1/9/07 7:38:09 PM LITERATURELITERATURE OFOF THETHE TIMETIME

“[The Scarlet Letter] is so terrible in its pictures of diseased human nature For Independent Reading as to produce most questionable delight. The reader’s interest never flags for a moment. There is nothing of episode or digression. The author is always N THE LATE 1700 s, READERS AND CRITICS BEGAN, FOR THE FIRST TIME, telling his one story with a concentration of energy which, as we can to accept the novel as a legitimate literary form. This shift can be partly attributed to understand, must have made it impossible for him to deviate. The reader Ithe novels of English author Samuel Richardson. Specifically, his massive multi-volume will certainly go on with it to the end very quickly, entranced, excited, novels Pamela and Clarissa, which were touted as books that “cultivate the principles of shuddering, and at times almost wretched. His consolation will be that he virtue and religion in the minds of the youth,” received overwhelming popular acclaim in too has been able to see into these black deeps of the human heart.” the mid-1700s. The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, by William Hill Brown, —Anthony Trollope, The North American Review mimicked Richardson’s sentimental works and helped to inspire the rush of American September 1879 imitators that followed until the end of the century. By the 1820s, however, the first truly American novels emerged. Romanticism started to take hold in Europe and American writers embraced the movement’s celebration of the individual, freedom from old forms, and love of nature.

Two Years Before the Mast Richard Henry Dana (1840) Dana’s novel is based on his own experiences as a sailor for two years aboard the merchant ship Pilgrim. Americans were fascinated by the day- to-day duties of a Yankee captain and crew. Dana’s vivid descriptions of the captain’s cruelty toward the crew led to public outcry and legal action against such treatment aboard ship. The novel’s factual details influenced Herman Melville’s writing of his sea adventures, including Typee, Omoo, and his masterpiece, The Last of the Mohicans Moby-Dick. (1826) James Fenimore Cooper’s five-part series The Leatherstocking Tales, about a wilderness scout named Natty Bumppo, contains the first novels to depict realistic American frontier scenes and characters. The Last of the Mohicans, the second installment in the series, is set during the French and Indian War and portrays a group of Native Americans whose way of life is quickly disappearing. The novel presents a thrilling chase, punctuated by captures, escapes, unexpected attacks, and heroic rescues. Two ways of life are contrasted in the novel: the Native Americans’ freedom and reverence for nature, and the settlers’ drive to build farms and towns.

306 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM (l)Stock Montage/SuperStock, (r)Bettmann/CORBIS

0306-0307 U2P2LOT-845481.indd 306 4/6/06 4:01:37 PM CRITICS’ CORNER

“[The Scarlet Letter] is so terrible in its pictures of diseased human nature as to produce most questionable delight. The reader’s interest never flags for a moment. There is nothing of episode or digression. The author is always telling his one story with a concentration of energy which, as we can understand, must have made it impossible for him to deviate. The reader will certainly go on with it to the end very quickly, entranced, excited, shuddering, and at times almost wretched. His consolation will be that he too has been able to see into these black deeps of the human heart.”

—Anthony Trollope, The North American Review September 1879

From the Glencoe Literature Library Billy Budd Herman Melville An industrious young sailor accidentally kills the tyrannical master-at-arms who victimized him.

The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne For two centuries, the inhabitants of a New England mansion experience mysterious The Scarlet Letter misfortunes that stem from the moral corruption Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) of its first owner. Rooted in American Puritanism, this tragic tale of colonial New England examines three complex characters—a woman who follows her heart rather Walden than Puritan standards of behavior, a minister torn Henry David Thoreau by guilt, and a husband consumed by hatred and revenge. Hawthorne, who called this a novel of Thoreau abandons society “frailty and human sorrow,” peers deeply into the and its comforts to pursue a mind and heart of each character to reveal solitary and independent life tortuous moral dilemmas. in the woods.

LITERATURE OF THE TIME 307 (t)North Wind Picture Archives, (cl)Christie’s Images, (c)North Wind Picture Archives, (Lit. Library)file photo

0306-0307 U2P2LOT-845481.indd 307 4/6/06 4:01:57 PM Test Preparation and Practice

English Language Arts

Reading: Nonfiction

Carefully read the following passage. Use context clues to help you define any words with which you are unfamiliar. Pay close attention to the author’s main idea and use of rhetorical devices. Then, on a separate sheet of paper, answer the questions on pages 309–310.

from Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson line Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them. And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the 5 want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates what he has, if he see that it is 10 accidental,—came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man is does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes. . . . It is only as a man puts off 15 all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and, in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, 20 stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head. So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and 25 shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

308 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM 1. What literary or rhetorical device does Emerson 6. What can you infer from the sentence He is use in the first sentence? weaker by every recruit to his banner in lines A. parallelism 15 and 16? B. connotative language A. The individual should look for support C. hyperbole from others. D. metaphor B. The individual cannot help but receive E. rhetorical question support from others. C. The individual becomes weak from relying 2. What type or types of rhetorical appeal does on the support of others. Emerson make in the first paragraph? D. Every cause is weakened by the individual. A. ethical appeal E. Only the individual can prevail. B. appeal to reason C. appeal to emotion 7. What literary or rhetorical device does Emerson D. appeal to emotion and ethical appeal use in the sentence Is not a man better than a E. appeals to emotion and reason town? in line 16? A. parallelism 3. According to Emerson, why do people deprecate B. connotative language assaults on religious, learned, and civil institutions? C. metaphor A. They hate property. D. rhetorical question B. They believe that these assaults are on property. E. allusion C. They believe in self-reliance. D. They believe that people should rely solely on 8. To what does endless mutation, in lines 16 and the government. 17, refer? E. They are afraid of all criticism. A. the physical world the fi rm column 4. Why does the cultivated man become ashamed of B. his property? C. all people foreign support A. No robber or revolution has taken it away. D. E. inborn power B. He has stolen his property. C. His property comes from an inheritance. 9. From the context, what does the word rights in D. He realizes that property is alien to his line 19 mean? true nature. A. justifi es E. He has allowed his property to deteriorate. B. subjects 5. From the context, what does the word beck in C. corrects line 13 mean? D. claims as true A. command E. liberates B. failure C. creation D. loss E. help

TEST PREPARATION AND PRACTICE 309 10. By referring to the wheel of fortune, what 13. On the basis of this passage, with which of the literary technique is Emerson using? following statements would Emerson be most A. foreshadowing likely to agree? B. A. People are generally solitary. C. allusion B. Individuals are stronger than communities. D. motif C. There is no such thing as community. E. analogy D. Only governments can protect private property. E. Private property must be outlawed. 11. Which trait of good writing is Emerson demonstrating in the sentence Do not believe it, 14. On the basis of this passage, what is the overall in line 27? tone of this essay? A. organization A. despairing B. presentation B. ironic C. word choice C. authoritative D. sentence variety D. angry E. voice E. sarcastic

12. What type of essay is this? 15. What is the main idea of this passage? A. informal A. The individual is greedy and corrupt. B. persuasive B. Individuals should reject society. C. expository C. There is no such thing as chance. D. narrative D. People must reject governments and property. E. personal E. Individuals must look to themselves to be free.

310 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Vocabulary Skills: Sentence Completion

For each item in the Vocabulary Skills section, choose the word or words that best complete the sentence. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

1. For the writers of the era, Romanticism was both a 6. In their writings, Poe and Hawthorne often deal political and a literary movement. with evil, or . A. prejudice A. expedient B. ideology B. admonition C. din C. iniquity D. issue D. lethargy E. debate E. torpor

2. The agrarian South had few cities, whereas the 7. Individualism, the concern of the cities in the North were heavily Transcendentalists, remains an important issue industrialized. to this day. A. manifest A. diffuse B. inherent B. occult C. myriad C. impregnable D. blithe D. perennial E. latent E. melancholy

3. The Age of Reform was marked by the rise of 8. Poe crafted his stories of the in many religious organizations that hoped to order to convey a sense of horror to the reader. increase the overall of America. A. melancholy . . . occult A. melancholy . . . lethargy B. irreproachable . . . culture B. perennial . . . cognizance C. sublime . . . sage C. expedient . . . alacrity D. sagacious . . . culture D. deliberately . . . resignation E. prevalent . . . sublime E. zealous . . . integrity 9. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a writer and 4. The and clamor of the cities drove philosopher, known as “The Sage of Concord.” Thoreau into nature and a quiet life of seclusion. A. pessimistic A. wealth B. venerable B. size C. popular C. greed D. sinister D. din E. superficial E. pollution

5. Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond was a response to 10. Hawthorne was drawn to the stark Puritan his own to live simply and deliberately. of the past. A. iniquity A. morality B. cognizance B. behavior C. decorum C. culture D. admonition D. landscape E. discord E. sermons

TEST PREPARATION AND PRACTICE 311 Grammar and Writing Skills: Paragraph Improvement

Paragraph Improvement As you read the following paragraphs from the first draft of a student’s reflective essay, pay close attention to the writer’s use of grammar, parallel construction, modifiers, and adjectives. Then answer the questions below. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

1. Which of the following is the best way to write sentences 2 and 3? A. When troubles emerge; I try my hardest to (1) I’ve always thought of myself as an optimistic make those troubles work to my advantage. person. (2) When troubles emerge. (3) I try my hardest B. When troubles emerge, I try my hardest to make them work to my advantage. to make those troubles work to my advantage. (4) I can C. I try my hardest to make those troubles work remember plenty of times throughout my life when to my advantage—when troubles emerge. things seem particularly gloomy. (5) However, I D. I try my hardest to make troubles work to my advantage—when those troubles emerge. improved the situation by looking at it in another way. E. Emerging troubles, I try my hardest to turn to my advantage.

(6) I was on summer break. (7) Just before my 2. Which of the following is the best revision of sophomore year. (8) My mom, dad, and sister have gone sentence 4? A. I can remember plenty of times during my to visit my grandmother, who had recently moved to life when things seem particularly gloomy. Alaska. (9) Stuck having rehearsal for jazz band, Alaska B. There have been plenty of times during my was so far away. (10) It was horrible! (11) Even my life, when thing seemed particularly gloomy. C. I can remember plenty of times mom’s most trustworthy promise—to take us to visit throughout my life when things seemed grandma that following Christmas—was not enough to particularly gloomy. get rid of my deep disappointment. D. Plenty of times throughout my life, that I can remember, seem gloomy. E. There are many times that seem gloomy.

(12) They were going to be gone for two whole 3. Which of the following is the best way to weeks, to go fishing, hike, and white-water rafting, while improve sentence 5? A. Change improved to improve. I stayed at home, practicing my drums. (13) If things B. Change However to Although. weren’t bad enough, all of my friends were either on C. Change I improved to I was usually able to vacation with their families, or too busy with summer improve. D. Change improved to seldom improved. jobs, to notice that I was all by myself. E. Change I improved to couldn’t possibly improve.

4. Which of the following sentences could the writer insert at the start of the second paragraph to improve the essay’s organization? A. Lots of bad things have happened to me. B. In general I’ve been pretty lucky in the past. C. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. D. A different perspective can be a really good thing. E. One occasion in particular springs to mind.

312 UNIT 2 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM 5. Which of the following is the best way to write 8. Which of the following sentences could replace sentences 6 and 7? sentence 10 to illustrate better the reason for the A. I was on summer break, just before my writer’s feelings? sophomore year. A. Alaska was so far away! B. Around the start of my sophomore year—I was B. I’d never been outside of my home state, and on summer break. Alaska sure seemed exciting. C. Just as my sophomore year was getting ready to C. I was pretty sure that Alaska wasn’t start, I had summer break. horrible. D. In August, before the start of my sophomore D. Going to Alaska is about as exciting as going year in high school, I had summer break. to jazz band. E. Just before the start of my sophomore year— E. It is really unfair—my family should never I had summer break. have gone to Alaska.

6. Which of the following errors appears in sentence 8? 9. Which of the following errors appears in A. run-on sentence sentence 12? B. incorrect parallelism A. run-on sentence C. fragment B. misplaced modifier D. incorrect verb tense C. fragment E. misplaced modifier D. incorrect verb tense E. incorrect parallelism 7. Which of the following is the best revision of sentence 9? 10. While writing the concluding paragraphs of this A. Stuck having rehearsal for jazz band, Alaska draft, what information should the writer include stays far away. to illustrate the essay’s general idea? B. Because I was stuck with rehearsal for jazz A. examples of other people wasting their band, I couldn’t go to Alaska. free time C. Because there was rehearsal for jazz band, B. how to get a summer job Alaska was far away from me. C. how the writer’s optimism improved the D. I have rehearsal for jazz band, so Alaska was situation far away. D. details about band rehearsal E. Jazz band rehearsal had me stuck, so Alaska E. details about his family’s trip to Alaska was so far away.

Essay

Ralph Waldo Emerson claimed that “nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” Do you agree with this statement? Write a short reflective essay that expresses your ideas about individualism and Emerson’s claim. As you write, keep in mind that your essay will be checked for ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation.

Unit Assessment To prepare for the Unit test, go to www.glencoe.com.

TEST PREPARATION AND PRACTICE 313

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