Hook & Pecore 1

Maya Hook & Elsa Pecore

Ms. Cooper & Ms. Whipple

AP Lang 1st, 2nd & AP U.S. History 3rd

4 Nov 2018

Irrational vs. Rational: Questioning the World Around You

During the antebellum era, light and dark ideas were depicted through literary, vocal, and

musical pieces. The antebellum era highlighted and focused on the different aspects of the

supernatural world and stories, and the darkness and goodness of man, and the temptations of the

evil. The specific gothic motif of irrational vs rational in the early republic, reflected a majority

of history and the development of the people, during that era. Through the 1800s slavery

demonstrated the motif, irrational vs rational; it displayed the consciousness in the citizens in the

early republic and the overall change throughout history, that changed the course forever.

In literature, the motif, irrational vs rational depicts the main character’s strife between an

irrational or rational world or idea. These irrational and rational conflicts typically drive the main

character to insanity or alter their life forever.

The Edgar Allan Poe short story, “​The Tell-Tale Heart”​ , demonstrates a motif of

irrational vs rational. The story is of a man, the unnamed narrator, who has committed a murder

against an old man for an irrational reason. That reason eventually lead him to become insane,

because of the strife between the rationality of the real world versus his irrational thoughts. The

motif is specifically applied when the author is talking about his reasoning for committing the

murder, which is shown to be because of his “pale blue-eye, with film over it” (Poe 2), the man

states, that whenever he saw the man's eye, “my blood ran cold” (Poe 2), which eventually lead
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him to kill the old man. The story continues and the narrator explains how he killed the man and

how he placed the bodies under the planks in the house. After the murder, the police show up,

because the neighbors report of a shriek they heard in the night previous, in the beginning the

murderer, successfully talks to the officers and believes he is acting rationally, but then the man

starts to hear noises, he starts to panic, and the story speeds up. At first, he believes its a regular

sound, but then progressively starts to become hysterical, because he believes it’s the heartbeat

of the man. The story connects to irrational and rational motif because of the man's struggle

between an rational world versus his irrational thoughts in his head.

Young Goodman Brown, by the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, exhibits the motif of

irrational vs rational. Goodman Brown has always been a good Christian man, in the town of

Salem, surrounded by other superficially exceptional Christian citizens. One night, Goodman

Brown sets off, alone, into the forest with a man. In this dreary and dark forest, he learns of the

sinfulness and evilness that goes on in his town behind closed doors. Goodman Brown has

always lived in a rationalized and benevolent society, until he takes a walk with the man in the

forest, where all is irrational, and he concludes from this meeting that all men are evil and

tempted by the devil. Goodman Brown questions this irrational world he lives in, the next

morning, and asks if “[he had] fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a

witch-meeting?” (Hawthorne). This questionable and irrational meeting in the forest causes

Goodman Brown to lose his hope in society and also his faith in the people, this drives him to

live a depressed and melancholy life.

Events in history can demonstrate this motif of irrational vs rational through the actions

and ideas of Americans, specifically in the early republic. A controversial conflict in the 1800’s
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of the United States that expresses this motif is slavery. Since the discovery of America in 1492,

it has been based and built off the cruel and inhumane acts of slavery, particularly in this time

frame, African American slaves. For over 400 years in America, it was normalized and slowly

became a part of the society, culture, and beliefs of America. As well as, it quickly became the

backbone of American economics. But, as the country began to develop rationality and became

aware of the unsophisticated values that had grown, citizens in the Early Republic became

acquainted with the irrationality of slavery. As slavery was slowly becoming irrational to many

people, Pennsylvania was the first to completely abolish slavery. Lead by George Bryan, the first

state Abolition Act was passed, that freed slaves from the plantations. Pennsylvania soon became

the role model for the rest of the United States to see and learn from. After the abolition act,

many northern states began to abolish slavery and thousands of slaves were emancipated.

Northern states, and their citizens believed slavery was irrational and completely inhumane, and

needed to be abolished everywhere, where in contrary, the Southern states, believed that the use

of slaves was needed, and did not see the negative in the situation. Slavery created tension and

became a major conflict particularly between the South and the North of the United States, that

has lasted for numerous decades.

Andrew Harris, the author of our primary source, was an educated African American man

who was an activist and abolitionist fighting against the spread of slavery. In his speech, Harris

describes the oppression and terror that slaves had faced for hundreds of years. Harris utilizes

rhetorical devices in order to create an intense and compelling argument for the abolition of

slavery. Harris explains that slavery stems from the “corruption of the human heart” (Harris). By

using this metaphor, Harris explains it is mankind’s fault for the uprising of slavery, this want for
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slavery comes from the darkness and evilness of mankind. Harris futhers his argument by

describing that “slavery has developed a passion in the human heart that is stronger than the love

of money; for they refuse to gratify this disposition which the bible says is the root of all evil,

through the influence of that still deeper root of evil, prejudice” (Harris). Harris uses this idea of

the darkness of “human heart” in order to demonstrate that it is no one’s fault, but man’s for the

cruelty of slavery. Humans are money-driven creatures, but Harris illustrates that the passion to

have slaves is stronger than their love and passion for money. He says that even though the bible

says slavery is not rational, people use their predispositioned ideas of prejudice against black

people in order to justify slavery without even realizing it. This speech by Harris explains slavery

as irrational. Harris describes the hardships facing slavery and the oppression against people of

color that has stemmed from this tragedy and this darkness of man. But, people try to rationalize

slavery with their prejudices, and predisposition ideas and racism.

On the contrary of the abolitionists, ideas that slavery helped the economy and ideas that

people of color are property arose the defenders and supporters of slavery. Mostly being

southerners that defended slavery believed that black people were their property. This textbook

explains that “slave labor was the foundation of [the Southerner’s] economy” and to emancipate

slaves would destroy their economy and profits off of cash crops (Ushistory.org). Southerners

rationalized the growth and conservation of slavery by explaining that slaves helped their

economy and increased the profit while the Southerners did as little work as possible. This

textbook furthered their argument by explaining that slavery was “the natural state of mankind”

(Ushistory.org). To have slaves was normalized in many societies including ancient Greece and

Rome. Southerners strongly believed that because slavery went on for so many years prior to
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their keeping of slaves it was justified to them. This textbook sheds light of the argument of the

Southerners in the 1800s, and their ideals that slavery was rational.

For our creative piece, we decided to make a painting that depicted the rationalization

and irrational beliefs of slavery in the Early Republic, while also including the antebellum eras,

gothic romance pieces. In our painting, we drew an African American person, specifically a

slave of that time, in handcuffs. The handcuffs on the slave depicts the oppression and inhumane

treatment, the African American people handled during the 1800’s and later. The chains

symbolize the entrapment of the slaves, and their inability to escape slavery. In addition to the

slave, our canvas is divided into two sections; irrational and rational. The left side shows a

beautiful sunset, with a confederate flag blowing in the wind, symbolizing the confederacy

during that time, that believed slavery was a rational form of treatment, and that it increased

economic power. The left side shows beauty and serene, which is what the American

confederates believed slavery to be, and struggled to show to the people of the Early Republic.

The right side of our painting is a dreary and dark forest, with many trees, that look dead and

eerie. The dark forest is a reference to the Nathaniel Hawthorne story, ​Young Goodman Brown,

in the passage, the main character encounters an irrational experience when he enters the forest,

wondering what is really real and what is not. This side of the painting is describing the gothic

romance and oppression of the slaves, by showing a heart at the bottom of the page. The heart is

referencing to the Edgar Allan Poe short story, ​The Tell-Tale Heart​, where in the story, the main

character faces the irrationality of hearing a dead man’s heartbeat. At the bottom of the the

painting the words “Evil of Man” are used to portray how slavery was rooted from the evilness

of mankind.
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In conclusion, ideas from literature in the antebellum era reflected the beliefs and events

occuring at the time. The motif of irrational vs rational can observed in both gothic romance

pieces of literature and the ideas and events of slavery in the 1800’s. These ideas of irrational and

rational casted a dark and twisted set of ideals over the American people that made them

question themselves about what is right.

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Works Cited

Harris, Andrew. “Black Abolitionist Archive | Andrew Harris.” ​Libraries.udmercy.edu​,

Emancipator, 16 May 1839,

libraries.udmercy.edu/archives/special-collections/index.php?collectionCode=baa&recor

d_id=545.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” ​Americanliterature.com,​ American

Literature, 1846,

americanliterature.com/author/nathaniel-hawthorne/short-story/young-goodman-brown.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” ​Http://Xroads.virginia.edu,​ American Studies at the

University of Virginia, 1999, xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/telltale.html.

Ushistory.org. “The Southern Argument for Slavery.” ​Ushistory.org​, Independence Hall

Association, ​www.ushistory.org/us/27f.asp​.