Writing the Nation A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO AMERIcaN LITERATURE 1 8 6 5 TO P RESENT Amy Berke, PhD Robert R. Bleil, PhD Jordan Cofer, PhD Doug Davis, PhD Writing the Nation A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO AMERIcaN LITERATURE 1 8 6 5 TO P RESENT Amy Berke, PhD Robert R. Bleil, PhD Jordan Cofer, PhD Doug Davis, PhD Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature—1865 to Present is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This license allows you to remix, tweak, and build upon this work, even commercially, as long as you credit this original source for the creation and license the new creation under identical terms. If you reuse this content elsewhere, in order to comply with the attribution requirements of the license please attribute the original source to the University System of Georgia. NOTE: The above copyright license which University System of Georgia uses for their original content does not extend to or include content which was accessed and incorporated, and which is licensed under various other CC Licenses, such as ND licenses. Nor does it extend to or include any Special Permissions which were granted to us by the rightsholders for our use of their content. Image Disclaimer: All images and figures in this book are believed to be (after a reasonable investigation) either public domain or carry a compatible Creative Commons license. If you are the copyright owner of images in this book and you have not authorized the use of your work under these terms, please contact the University of North Georgia Press at [email protected] to have the content removed. ISBN: 978-1-940771-34-2 Produced by: University System of Georgia Published by: University of North Georgia Press Dahlonega, Georgia Cover Design and Layout Design: Corey Parson For more information, please visit http://ung.edu/university-press Or email [email protected] If you need this text in another format, please contact [email protected] or call 706-864-1556 TABLE OF C ONTENTS CHAPTER 1: LATE ROMANTICISM (1855-1870) 1 1.1 Learning Outcomes 1 1.2 Introduction 2 1.3 Walt Whitman 4 1.3.1 Song of Myself 5 1.3.2 “Oh Captain! My Captain!” 42 1.3.3 “CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY” 43 1.3.4 Reading and Review Questions 47 1.4 Emily Dickinson 48 1.4.1 “I TASTE A LIQUOR NEVER BREWED” 49 1.4.2 “THE SOUL SELECTS HER OWN SOCIETY” 49 1.4.3 “BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH” 50 1.4.4 “MY LIFE HAD STOOD—A LOADED GUN” 50 1.4.4 Reading and Review Questions 51 1.5 Key Terms 51 CHAPTER 2: REALISM (1865-1890) 52 2.1 Learning Outcomes 52 2.2 Introduction 53 2.2.1 Local Color (1865-1885) 54 2.2.2 Regionalism (1875-1895) 55 2.3 Mark Twain 56 2.3.1 “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” 57 2.3.2 Selections From Roughing It 61 2.3.3 “The War Prayer” 67 2.3.4 Reading and Review Questions 70 2.4 William Dean Howells 70 2.4.1 “Editha” 71 2.4.2 Reading and Review Questions 81 2.5 Ambrose Bierce 81 2.5.1 “Chickamauga” 82 2.5.2 “Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge” 87 2.5.3 Reading and Review Questions 93 2.6 Henry James 94 2.6.1 Daisy Miller: A Study 95 2.6.2 Reading and Review Questions 135 Page | iii 2.7 Sarah Orne Jewett 136 2.7.1 “A White Heron” 137 2.7.2 Reading and Review Questions 144 2.8 Kate Chopin 145 2.8.1 “At The ‘Cadian Ball” 146 2.8.2 ”The Storm” 153 2.8.3 Reading and Review Questions 157 2.9 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman 157 2.9.1 “A New England Nun” 158 2.9.2 “The Revolt of ‘Mother’” 167 2.9.3 Reading and Review Questions 178 2.10 Charles Waddell Chesnutt 179 2.10.1 “The Passing of Grandison” 180 2.10.2 Reading and Review Questions 192 2.11 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 192 2.11.1 “The Yellow Wall-Paper” 193 2.11.2 Reading and Review Questions 205 2.12 Key Terms 205 CHAPTER 3: NATURALISM (1890-1914) 206 3.1 Learning Outcomes 206 3.2 Introduction 207 3.3 Frank Norris 208 3.3.1 “A Plea For Romantic Fiction” 209 3.3.2 Selections from McTeague 212 3.3.3 Reading and Review Questions 297 3.4 Stephen Crane 298 3.4.1 “The Open Boat” 299 3.4.2 Reading and Review Questions 316 3.5 Jack London 317 3.5.1 “To Build a Fire” 318 3.5.2 Reading and Review Questions 329 3.6 Key Terms 329 CHAPTER 4: TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND THE GROWTH OF MODERNISM (1893 - 1914) 330 4.1 Learning Outcomes 330 4.2 Introduction 331 4.3 Booker T. Washington 332 4.3.1 Selections from Up From Slavery 333 Page | iv 4.3.2 Reading and Review Questions 350 4.4 W. E. B. Du Bois 350 4.4.1 Selections from The Souls of Black Folk 351 4.4.2 Reading and Review Questions 367 4.5 Zane Grey 367 4.5.1 Riders of the Purple Sage 368 4.5.2 Reading and Review Questions 559 4.6 Key Terms 559 CHAPTER 5: MODERNISM (1914 - 1945) 560 5.1 Learning Outcomes 560 5.2 Introduction 561 5.2.1 The Great War 561 5.2.2 Une Generation Perdue…(A Lost Generation) 562 5.2.3 A Modern Nation 562 5.2.3 Technology 563 5.2.4 Modernist Literature 563 5.2.5 Further Reading: Additional Secondary Sources 565 5.3 Robert Frost 566 5.3.1 “Mending Wall” 567 5.3.2 “Home Burial” 568 5.3.3 Reading and Review Questions 571 5.4 Wallace Stevens 572 5.4.1 “The Emperor of Ice Cream” 573 5.4.2 “Of Modern Poetry” 573 5.4.3 Reading and Review Questions 573 5.5 William Carlos Williams 574 5.5.1 “The Red Wheelbarrow” 575 5.5.2 “This Is Just To Say” 575 5.5.3 “The Dead Baby” 575 5.5.4 Reading and Review Questions 575 5.6 Ezra Pound 575 5.6.1 “In a Station of the Metro” 576 5.6.2 Reading and Review Questions 576 5.7 Marianne Moore 577 5.7.1 “Poetry” 578 5.7.2 Reading and Review Questions 579 5.8 T. S. Eliot 579 5.8.1 “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 580 5.8.2 Reading and Review Questions 584 Page | v 5.9 Edna St. Vincent Millay 584 5.9.1 “First Fig” 585 5.9.2 “I Think I Should Have Loved You Presently” 585 5.9.3 Reading and Review Questions 586 5.10 e. e. cummings 586 5.10.1 “in Just-” 587 5.10.2 Reading and Review Questions 588 5.11 F. Scott Fitzgerald 589 5.11.1 “Winter Dreams” 590 5.11.2 “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” 606 5.11.3 “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” 635 5.11.4 Reading and Review Questions 653 5.12 Ernest Hemingway 653 5.12.1 “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” 654 5.12.2 “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” 654 5.12.3 Reading and Review Questions 654 5.13 Arthur Miller 655 5.13.1 Death of a Salesman 656 5.13.2 Reading and Review Questions 656 5.11 Southern Renaissance – First Wave 656 5.14 Ellen Glasgow 658 5.14.1 “Dare’s Gift” 659 5.14.2 Reading and Review Questions 682 5.15 William Faulkner 683 5.15.1 “A Rose For Emily” 684 5.15.2 “Barn Burning” 684 5.15.3 Reading and Review Questions 684 5.16 Eudora Alice Welty 685 5.16.1 “A Worn Path” 686 5.16.2 Reading and Review Questions 686 5.17 The Harlem Renaissance 686 5.17 Jessie Redmon Fauset 687 5.17.1 “The Sleeper Wakes” 688 5.17.2 Reading and Review Questions 707 5.18 Zora Neale Hurston 708 5.18.1 “Sweat” 709 5.18.2 Reading and Review Questions 709 5.19 Nella Larsen 709 5.19.1 “Sanctuary” 710 5.19.2 Reading and Review Questions 710 Page | vi 5.20 Langston Hughes 711 5.20.1 “Christ in Alabama” 712 5.20.2 “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” 712 5.20.3 “Theme for English B” 713 5.20.4 Reading and Review Questions 713 5.21 Countee Cullen 713 5.21.1 “Heritage” 714 5.21.2 “Yet Do I Marvel” 715 5.21.3 Reading and Review Questions 715 5.22 Jean Toomer 715 5.22.1 Selections from Cane 716 5.22.2 Reading and Review Questions 716 5.23 Key Terms 717 CHAPTER 6: AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE 1945 (1945 - PRESENT) 718 6.1 Learning Outcomes 718 6.2 Introduction 719 6.3 Southern Literary Renaissance - Second Wave (1945-1965) 723 6.3.1 The Cold War and the Southern Literary Renaissance 723 6.3.2 Economic Prosperity 723 6.3.3 The Civil Rights Movement in the South 724 6.3.4 New Criticism and the Rise of the MFA program 724 6.3.5 Innovation 725 6.4 Tennessee Williams 725 6.4.1 A Street Car Named Desire 726 6.4.2 Reading and Review Questions 726 6.5 James Dickey 727 6.5.1 “Cherrylog Road” 728 6.5.2 Reading and Review Questions 728 6.6 Flannery O’Connor 729 6.6.1 “A Good Man is Hard to Find” 730 6.6.2 “Good Country People” 730 6.6.3 Reading and Review Questions 730 6.7 Postmodernism 730 6.8 Theodore Roethke 733 6.8.1 “My Papa’s Waltz” 734 6.8.2 Reading and Review Questions 734 6.9 Ralph Ellison 734 6.9.1 Selection from Invisible Man 735 6.9.2 Reading and Review Questions 735 Page | vii 6.10 James Baldwin 736 6.10.1 “Sonny’s Blues” 737 6.10.2 Reading and Review Questions 737 6.11 Allen Ginsberg 737 6.10.2 “Supermarket in California” 738 6.10.3 Reading and Review Questions 738 6.11 Adrienne Rich 739 6.11.1 “Diving into the Wreck” 740 6.11.2 Reading and Review Questions 740 6.12 Toni Morrison 741 6.12.1 “Recitatif” 742 6.12.2 Reading and Review Questions 742 6.13 Donald Barthelme 742 6.13.1 “The School” 743 6.13.2 Reading and Review Questions 743 6.14 Sylvia Plath 744 6.14.1 “Daddy” 745 6.14.2 “Fever 103” 745 6.14.3 Reading and Review Questions 745 6.15 Don DeLillo 746 6.15.1 “The Most Photographed Barn in America” (excerpt from White Noise) 747 6.15.2 Reading and Review Questions 747 6.16 Alice Walker 748 6.16.1 “Everyday Use” 749 6.16.2 Reading and Review Questions 749 6.17 Leslie Marmon Silko 749 6.17.1 “The Yellow Woman” 750 6.17.2 Reading and Review Questions 750 6.18 David Foster Wallace 751 6.18.1 “This is Water” 752 6.18.2 “Consider the Lobster” 752 6.18.3 Reading and Review Questions 752 6.19 Key Terms 752 GLOSSARY 754 Page | viii LATE ROMANTICISM (1855-1870) Robert R.