CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE

1. Tell briefly about the social background of Early American Literature.

 After Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, many English people
travelled to and colonized America.
 America won its independence in 1776 through a 20-year revolution led by George
Washington, who later became the first president of America.
2. Tell of the basic features of Native American literature.
 Used to be rich and old-aged.
 Most of it was destroyed by the whites.
 Surviving myths describe the beginnings of the universe and the world, and of the
origin of humankind.
3. What are the characteristics of colonial and revolutionary American literature?
 Lasting for 3 centuries: 16th, 17th and 18th.
 Chiefly non-fiction with the following genres:
 Exploration Narratives, Histories, Religious Writings, Travel Narratives, Journalism,
Political Writings, of which Religious Writings were the most developed.
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CHAPTER 2: AMERICAN LITERATURE OF NATIONHOOD
RIP VAN WINKLE
1. Tell of the characteristics of American literature at the beginning of the 19th century.
 Fiction was remarkably developed.
 Non-fiction continued to develop with Travel Narratives becoming increasingly
popular while Religious Writings declining.
 Uniquely American (different from British literature).
 American Romanticism with major expressions: Legendary, Historical, Natural,
Sentimental.
2. Tell briefly of Washington Irving and his talent.
 Washington Irving (1783-1859) was one of the most influential American authors
of the first half of the 19th century.
 The father of American literature.
 He had a special talent for creating a magical, fairytale quality in his stories, which
helped shape an American folklore, giving America the feeling of tradition.
3. What are the characteristics of Rip Van Winkle and his wife?
 Rip Van Winkle:
 - Positive: simple, easy-going (pleased with a simple life), kind and gentle (ready to
help a neighbor with hard work; play with children, make them toys, and tell them
stories).
- Negative: Unable to work for profit (he had the least productive and least attractive
farm in the area).
 His wife:
- Take advantage of his meekness, regularly nagging him.
- Shrewish with a scolding tongue (ceaselessly browbeat Rip for his failings).
 Which character would you sympathize with, Rip Van Winkle or his wife? Why?
4. How did he meet the strange men. What did they look like? Who were they?
 One day, to escape his wife, he, as usual, went hunting in the Catskill Mountains,
encountering a strange old man with a liquor keg.
 He helped the man carry the keg to a hollow where he met the others.
 The strange men were short and squat with a beard and bushy hair.
 One with a large head and one with a large nose and wore old-fashionedd Dutch
clothes.
 They were the ghosts of Hendrick Hudson and his crew, the discoverers of the area.
5. How did Rip fall asleep? How long did he sleep?
 After serving the liquor to the ninepin-playing strange men, Rip sampled it.
 Fiding it excellent, he drank and drank and drifted into a deep sleep of 20 years.
6. How is the story a romantic work?
 Because it has the quality of a legend with some supernatural elements (Rip’s 20-
year sleep, the ghosts) and a historical basis (Hendrick Hudson and his crew
discovered the area in early 17th century).
7. What is the setting of the excerpt?
 Time: a bright sunny morning when Rip woke up after his 20-year sleep.
 Place: on the Catskill Mountains; at the village; and Rip’s house.
8. Which details tell you that Rip was dominated by his wife?
 As soon as he woke up, he felt worried about how to explain to his wife for not
coming home for the night.
 When he found himself stiff in the joints, he thought he might have rheumatism and
should have a difficult time with his wife.
 Feeling famished he wanted to go home for breakfast but “dreaded to meet his wife”.
9. How did Rip and the surroundings change after his sleep?
 Rip: stiff in the joints, a foot-long beard.
 The village: the local people’s dress was of a different fashion, the village was larger
and more populous.
  Rip’s house: had gone to decay.
 The mountains:
- The gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening now
was a mountain stream.
- The ravine he and the first strange man walked through last evening to the
amphitheater was now blocked with a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent
came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam.
10. What do the changes imply?
 The changes imply the changes brought about by the American Revolution to the
American society.
11. Identify and analyze the literary techniques found in the excerpt?
 “It was a bright sunny morning”.
 Visual imagery because it appeals to the sense of sight.
 “The birds were hopping and twittering”.
 Onomatopoeia because it imitates the sound made by the birds
 “He whistled after him, shouted his name”.
 Auditory imagery because it appeals to the sense of hearing.
 “But to his astonishment a moutain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from
rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs”.
 Onomatopoeia because it imitates the sound made by the stream.
 “He again called and whistled after his dog: he was only answered by the cawing of
a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny
precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the
poor man’s perplexities”.
 Onomatopoeia because it imitates the sound made by the crows.
 Personification because idle is a human characteristic given to crows as animals.
 Personification because crows are animals which are given the human actions of
look down and scoff at.
 “He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his
heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard.”
 Onomatopoeia because it imitates the sound made by the boys.
 “He found the house gone to decay – the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and
the doors off the hinges.”
 Visual imagery because it appeals to the sense of sight.
12. Analyze the theme and some other literary elements of the story.
 Form of literature: Fiction (because it is a product of imagination).
 Genre: Short story (because it has a simple plot).
 Setting time: The story begins about five or six years before the American
Revolution and ends twenty years later.
 Setting place: in a village at the foot of the Catskill Mountains in eastern New
York, near the Hudson River.
 Conflict: Between Rip and his wife (because Rip wants to escape from his wife who
frequently browbeats him)
 Climax: The climax of the story occurs when the townpeople recognize Rip after
he returns to his village (because it is the point of greatest interest).
 Significance: The story helped shape an American folklore (to give a feeling of
tradition about America, the new country).
 Theme: Change with Continuity and Preservation of Tradition.
- Changes are necessary for the development of a society but those changes should be
based on preservation and continuity of the society’s traditions.
- The preservation of tradition refers to the fact that Hendrick Hudson and his crew
(discoverers of the region)’s ghosts visit the area every twenty years “to keep a
guardian eye” upon it.
- The continuity of tradition refers to the fact that at the end of the story Rip comes
to live with his married daughter, so now there are three generations in the house:
Rip representing the first, his daughter, her husband the second, and his
grandchildren the third.
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UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
 Who is Harriet Beecher Stowe?
 Stowe was born in Connecticut, a teacher at the Hartford Female Academy, an active
abolitionist and daughter of a clergyman.
 She wrote the novel as a response to the 1850 passage of the second Fugitivee Slave
Act.
 This act punished those who aided runaway slaves and diminished the rights of
fugitives as well as well as freed Blacks.
1. How many times is Tom sold? How do they happen?
 3 times.
 1st time: Tom is sold to a slave trader by the Shelbys, who need money to pay for
their debt.
 2nd time: Tom is sold by the slave trader to the St. Clares, who buy Tom to show
their gratitude for Tom’s saving their daughter Eva from drowning.
 3rd time: Tom is sold by Mrs St. Clare to Simon Legree, who buys Tom to work as a
general overseer for his plantation.
2. The author presents three types of masters (the Shelbys, the Augustines, Somon
Legree. How different are they? Why?
 The Shelbys: the kindest (all of them are good to their slaves).
 The St. Clares: less kind than the Shelbys (only Mr St. Claire and Eva are good to
their slaves, Mrs St. Clare sells Tom as soon as her husband and and daughter die).
 Simon Legree: quite wicked (treats his slaves badly, even killing them).
 This is to show that most of the masters (5 out of 7) in the South treat their slaves
well.
 But however good the masters are, the slaves’ life is miserable.
 They are always considered as a kind of goods which can be sold and bought
anytime, anywhere. They cannot decide their own fate, even be killed, like Tom.
3. Why is Uncle Tom’s Cabin a sentimental novel?
 Because it evokes strong emotions in readers who feel both so sorry for the slaves’
sufferings and so angry with abuses of slavery.
 Hence, it is a romantic work.
 Sentimental: connected with your emotions, rather than reason/ producing emotions
such as sympathy, romantic love, or being sad, which may be too strong or not
appropriate, feeling these emotions too much.
4. What is the setting of the excerpt?
 Time: after Cassy and Emmeline have escaped.
 Place: on the garret, in front of Legree’s house, in Legree’s office.
5. What do you learn about the slaves’ life through this excerpt?
 The slaves in the excerpt: Tom, Cassy, Emmeline, Sambo, Quimbo.
 Their common fate: bought by Legree like a kind of goods.
 Cassy and Emmeline were trying to run away and were being hunted for like
animals.
 Quimbo and Sambo hated each other and were jealous of Tom’s position.
 Tom as a slave was brutally struck by the master for not telling him where the
fugitives were.
6. What aspects of Legree and Tom’s character are shown in this excerpt?
 Legree: brutal and cruel in words (“do you know I’ve made up my mind to kill
you?”…) and actions (“Speak!” thundered Legree, striking him furiously…).
 Tom: calm (“It’s very likely, Mas’r,” said Tom, calmly); determined (“I know,
Mas’r, but I can’t tell anything. I can die!”).
7. Why is the tittle of the excerpt Martyr?
 Martyr is someone ready to die for a noble cause,
 Refer to Tom, who is ready to die to protect his fellow slaves (Cassy and Emmeline).
8. Identify and analyze the literary techniques used in the excerpt?
 “If it succeeded, well and good; if not, he would summon Tom before him, and - his
teeth clenched and his blood boiled.”
 Hyperbole: exaggeration of “he’s very angry”.
 “In the fury of man’s mad will, he will wittingly, and with open eye, sell his own
soul to the devil to gain his ends…”
 Metaphor because the way he sells his own soul is implicitly compared with the way
people sell something.
 Figurative meaning: he will do his best to gain his ends.
 “Three or four mounted horsemen were curvetting about, on the space in front of the
house; and one or two leashes of strange dogs were struggling with the negroes who
held them, baying and barking at each other.”
 Auditory imagery because it appeals to the sense of hearing.
 “The old cuss is at the bottom of this yer whole matter”; and “I’ll have it out of his
old black hide” or “I’ll know the reason why!”
 Hyperbole: exaggeration of “I’ll make old Tom tell me about their escape”, or “I’ll
know the reason why!”
 “D’ye hear?” Said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an incensed lion.
 Simile: explicit comparison between Legree’s roar and that of an incensed lion, using
“like”.
 “I’ll count every drop of blood there is in you and take ‘em, one by one, till ye give
up!”
 Hyperbole: exaggeration of “I’ll kill you”.
9. Analyze the theme and some other elements of the story?
 Full title: Uncle Tom’s Cabin or, Life Among The Lowly.
 Form of Literature: Fiction (because it is a product of imagination).
 Genre: Novel (because it has considerable length with a complicated plot).
 Subgenre:
- Anti-slavery novel (because it exposes the evils/ abuses of slavery).
- Novel of social protest (because it is against slavery, a social problem of
contemporary American).
 Setting time: Around the early 1850s.
 Setting place: The American South, through Ohio, then into Canada.
 Major conflict: Between masters and slaves (masters attempt to maintain slaves to
work for them, slaves struggle to free themselves).
  Climax (It is the point of greatest interest): Uncle Tom’s renewal of religious faith
(After he has two visions of Jesus and Eva) and his death (he is beaten to death by
Sambo and Quimbo for not revealing the fugitives’ concealment).
 Significance:
- The novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and
slavery in the United States.
- People positively changed their attitudes and view on African Americans and slavery
in the United States.
- Intensifying the sectional conflict (beetween the North and the South) leading to the
American Civil War (1861 – 1865).
 Theme: Slavery is evil (slaves are considered as a kind of goods which can be sold
and bought anytime, anywhere; they can’t decide their own fate), so it needs to be
abolished.
 Symbols:
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin (the destructive power of slavery – slavery breaks down
slaves’ families and destroy their life – and the power of Christian love to defeat it –
Legree’s failure to crush Tom’s Christianity is victory of Christianity over slavery
and Tom’s Christian love turns Sambo and Quimbo with “debased and servile
natures” into Christians).
- Geography (North represents freedom – The North suggested abolition of slavery,
South represents slavery and oppression – The Sourth attempted to keep slaves to
work for them).
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THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
1. Tell briefly about American realism and about Mark Twain.
 Realism is the cultural movement taking place in Europe and American chiefly
during the second half of the 19th Century.
 Realism is the depiction of the subjects as they really are.
 It aims to reproduce “objective reality”, and focused on showing everyday activities
and life, primarily among the middle or lower class society, without romantic
idealization.
 Mark Twain (1835 – 1910) was both a regionalist (for his vivid portrayals of
Southern character and dialect) and a realist (for his portrayal of many sides of life
as they really are).
 He is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
2. What are the characteristics of Tom Sawyer you see from the plot summary?
 Adventurous (making 4 adventures).
 Imaginative (imaging a cure for warts, imaging himself a pirate, imaging some
buried treasures at the haunted house, imaging some mysteries to be discovered in
the cave).
 Mischievous (fighting, playing hooky, stealing aunt Polly’s jam, sugar,…) .
3. What are the adventures that Tom makes?
 To the graveyard, to Jackson’s Island, to the haunted house, MacDougal’s Cave
(why, with whom, what happens?).
 Tom accompanies Huck to the graveyard at night to try out a “cure” for warts.
There they witness the murder by Injun Joe.
 Tom, Huck, and Tom’s friend – Joe Harper run away to Jackson’s Island, in the
middle of the Mississippi River to play the game of piracy. The villagers think they
are drowned.
 Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck go hunting for buried treasure in an old
abandoned haunted house. They see Injun Joe and his partner coming to bury their
robbed money.
 Tom goes on picnic to McDougal’s Cave with Becky and their classmates. While
exploring, Tom and Becky get lost and left behind. Their absence is not discovered
until the following morning.
4. What do you know about the other characters you find in the plot summary?
 Sid: Tom’s half brother, enjoys getting Tom into trouble, mean-spirited, the opposite
of Tom.
 Huck: living a wild life without schooling, motherless, homeless, with his father as a
town drunk. He is as adventurous as Tom.
 Injun Joe: violent and villainous half-breed robber, murdering Dr. Robinson,
suffering social exclusion, starved to death in the cave.
 Becky: pretty, yellow-haired daughter of Judge Thatcher, in a romantic childish love
with Tom.
 Judge Thatcher: A local celebrity, having the cave closed for safety reasons and
taking charge of the boys’ treasure money.
 Joe Harper: Tom’s close friend and companion to Jackson’s Island.
 Who is your favorite character? Why?
5. What is the setting of the excerpt?
 In a Sunday school after Tom has traded tickets for the Bible–awarding ceremony.
Judge Thatcher and his family attend the school.
6. Which details show that the children were not interested in the Sunday school?
 “One little girl … is looking out of the window”.
 “The superintendent’s speech was marred by fights, fidgeting and whisperings”.
7. How and why the people were showing off?
 Mr. Walters was showing off with all sort of official bustlings and activities, giving
orders, delivering judgements, discharging directions here, there.
 The librarian was running hither and hither with his arms full of books and making
a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority delights in.
  The young lady teachers were bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being
boxed, lifting pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and pating good one
lovingly.
 The young gentlemen teachers were showing off with small scoldings and other
little displays of authority.
 The judge was sitting and beaming a majestic judicial smile upon all the house.
 They showed off to superficially show they were devoted and important people.
8. What does the writer intend to satirize through the excerpt?
 Hypocrisy and small-mindedness of the local authorities.
9. Identify and analyze the literary techniques used in the excerpt?
 “The little girls “showed off” in various ways, and the little boys “showed off” with
such diligence that the air was thick with paper wads and the murmur of scuffings.”
 Onomatopoeia: the word is made by imitating the sound produced by scuffings.
 “He would have given worlds, now, to have that German lad back again with a
sound mind.”
 Hyperbole: He would have given worlds is an exaggeration because he could not
literally give worlds.
 Figurative meaning: He would be ready to give something, he would like to do
something very much.
 “And now at this moment, when hope was dead.”
 Personification: hope is an abstraction which is given the human characteristic of
dead.
 Figurative meaning: There was no hope.
 “This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.”
 Metaphor: This (Tom Sawyer came forward with nine yellow tickets, nine read
tickets, and ten blue ones, and demanded a Bible) is implicitly compared with a
thunderbolt out of clear sky.
 Figurative meaning: This fact was impossible.
 “Walters was not expecting an applicationfrom this source (Tom) for the next ten
years.”
 Hyperbole: an application from this source for the next ten years is an exaggeration.
 Figurative meaning: the possibility for Tom to apply for a Bible is rare.
 “These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake
in the grass.”
  Simile: the boys explicitly (using “as”) compare themselves with dupes of a wily
fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.
 “It was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two thousand sheaves of
Scriptual wisdom on his premises – a dozen would strain his capacity, without a
doubt.”
 Hyperbole: his poor capacity (of his mind) is exaggerated.
 Figurative meaning: He could learn very little Bible.
 “Tom was introduced to the Judge; but his tongue was tied.”
 Metaphor: the way he could not speak is implicitly compared with the way his
tongue is tied.
 Figurative meaning: He could not speak a word.
10. Analyze the theme and some other elements of the story.
 Form of literature: Fiction (product of imagination not based on facts).
 Genre: Novel (with a considerable length and a complicated plot).
 Setting time: Not specified, but probably around 1845.
 Setting place: The fictional village of St. Petersburg, Missouri (which resembles
Twain’s home village of Hannibal).
 Major conflict:
- Injun Joe vs. Tom and Huck (external conflict between a character and other
characters).
- Tom vs. his imaginative world (Tom’s imaginative world always gets him into
troubles: in conflict with Injun Joe, remoseful at the suffering of the villagers about
the funeral; getting lost in the cave) and the expectations and rules of adult society
(Tom falls to live up to the expectations and rules of adult society. External conflict
between a character and an outside factor).
 Climax (point of greatest interest): Tom encounters Injun Joe when he and Becky
are stranded in the cave.
 Significance: The book is a masterpiece for both children (its main character is a
young boy) an adults (satirizing the hypocrisy and small-mindedness of American
local authorities of the time).
 Theme: The book ridicules the hypocrisy and small-mindedness of American
local authorities of the time (an example is through the showing off of the people at
the Sunday class).
 Symbol: the village (symbolizes the whole contemporary American society).
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THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
 The Magi (in the Bible):
 The three wise men from the East who are said to have brought presents to the baby
Jesus.
 In which city was baby Jesus born?
 The town of Bethlehem
 Why did Herod meet the wise men?
 He wanted the wise men to discover where Jesus was so he could have him killed.
 What gifts did the three wise men give baby Jesus?
 Gold, frankincense, myrrh.
1. What was the most valuable possessions that the couple had? How many valuable
were they?
 Jim’ watch: materially valuable: made of gold; spiritually valuable: an heirloom
from his father and grandfather.
 Della’s hair: materially valuable: sold at $20 (big sum of money), spiritually
valuable: beautiful (rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters, it reached
below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her).
2. What gifts did the couple give each other? Why?
 Fob chain: materially, Jim’s watch is made of gold but it has a leather strap;
spiritually, Della knows it is what Jim has been wishing for.
 Set of combs: materially, they will make Della’s beautiful hair more valuable;
spiritually, Jim knows they are what Della has been wishing for.
3. How do you understand the title of the story – “The gift of the magi”?
 The magi metaphorically refers to Della and Jim, who are, by giving gifts to each
other at Christmas, praised as the magi.
- Three wise men, or magi, brought gifts to the baby Jesus and so invented the giving
of Christmas gifts  wise gifts.
- Della and Jim have unwisely sacrificed their most precious possessions.
4. What is both wonderful and terrible about each gift? Use details from the story to
explain the irony of the situation.
 Wonderful: The gifts are both materially and spiritually valuable, they were both
things that each person wanted, and they were thoughtful.
 Terrible: Though the gifts cost the couple’s only treasures, they become useless.
They can’t really use them since they both made sacrifices.
5. Identify and analize the literary techniques used in the exceprt.
 “Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable
man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of
parsimony that such close dealing implied.”
 Hyperbole: exaggeration of “bargaining so hard”.
  “Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by
the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray
backyard.”
 Symbolism: symbolizing Della’s gloomy mood.
 “So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of
brown waters.”
 Simile: explicitly comparing Della’s hair with a cascade of brown.
 “Down rippled the brown cascade.”
 Metaphor: Implicitly comparing the brown cascade with Della’s hair without using
“like” or “as”.
 “She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else.”
 Hyperbole: Exaggeration of “It was suitable for Jim”.
 “Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at scent of quail.”
 Simile: explicitly comparing Jim’s immovableness with that of a setter at the scent of
quail, using “as”.
 “Jim, darling,” She cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold
because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present.”
 Hyperbole: exaggeration of “I must give you a present”.
 “For there lay The Combs – the set of combs, side and back, that Della had
worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with
jewelled rims.”
 Visual imagery: because it appeals to the sense of sight.
 “And Della leaped up like a little singed cat.”
 Simile: Explicitly comparing the way Della leaped up with the way a little singed cat
did, using “like”.
 “Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the
time a hundred times a day now.”
 Hyperbole: exaggeration of “You’ll often look at the time”.
6. Analyze the theme and some other elements of the story.
 Form of literature: Fiction.
 Genre: Christmas Story (it takes place at Christmas).
 Setting time: On Christmas Eve.
 Setting place: at Della and Jim’s flat, the hair shop (where Della sells her hair), in
New York.
 Major conflict: (external conflict because it is between a fact and another fact): The
couple’s poverty (they earn $20 a week but have to pay $8 for the furnished flat) and
their extravagant way (buying valuable, expensive gifts for each other) of showing
their deep love to each other. (as a result, they have nothing valuable in the house).
 Climax: The climax occurs when Della and Jim open their gifts.
 Theme: True Love is the Greatest Gift of All. The couple have already had true
love: they take good care of each other in spite of their poverty, which is the greatest
gift of all, but they wrongly believe that only expensive gifts can show their true
love.
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