Midterm Exam
Select four of the following questions write a developed response of about 250 words. 25 points max each. You may use the textbook only for this exam. Use only the following authors: Franklin, Wheatley, Crevecoeur, Hawthorne, Melville, and only works that are on the course syllabus.
Upload your responses as one file to the link on Moodle by the due date.
1. Discuss how the voyage of the Pequod in Moby-Dick is a commentary on both the religious and economic beginnings of the United States.
2. Choose any two writers from Franklin to Hawthorne (excluding Melville) and discuss how they both incorporate and criticize Puritan thinking.
3. Discuss how Wheatley and Crevecoeur’s status as outsiders in the United States is apparent in their writing.
4. Discuss how “The Birth-Mark” can be read as a comment on Americans becoming less religious and more secular.
5. Although Crevecoeur describes people as they are, and Franklin presents himself as a model, compare how they both depict the qualities of Americans in the new country.
Notes for the LIT-201 Midterm:
Benjamin Franklin: The “self-made man”; self educated, rises from nothing to become one of the greatest figures in American history. His “plan for self-improvement”: studying his own faults to make sure he reduces them.
Hector St. John de Crevecoeur: French, lived in the US and observed the changes that democracy brought to the country. He write that everything changes, but his attitude is ambiguous because while he says that now all people are interested in the government, he also states that Americans have poor manners and that the lessening of religious belief will affect moral instruction. The section in which he encounters a slave being tortured is extremely powerful, particularly the last sentence.
Phillis Wheatley: African-American poet. Probably first African-American woman to be published. Her poetry is influenced by traditional European models, but she writes about slavery. In one poem she describes being brought from Africa as salvation and appeals to a white audience by stating that Africans can be redeemed as Christians.
Nathaniel Hawthorne: often wrote about effects of Puritan legacy. In “The Birth-Mark,” Aylmer the scientist is obsessed with his wife’s beauty mark. He believes he can improve nature by removing it and making her “perfect.” He does remove it but as a result, she dies, and a theme of the work is that all mortals are flawed and we cannot play God.
Melville’s Moby-Dick: focus on the chapters that introduce Ahab and his announcement that the purpose of the voyage is to hunt Moby-Dick. Also note Starbuck as the voice of reason. How does Ahab command the crew?
Two very important chapters in Moby-Dick are 41, “Moby-Dick,” and 42, “The Whiteness of the Whale.” Much of 41 describes the supernatural nature of the white whale as stories have grown over time. Pay attention to the details Ishmael gives us about the whale’s appearance and the beliefs that the whale could be everywhere at all times.
The other part of 41 details Ahab’s reactions after Moby-Dick bit off his leg. It affected his soul and made Ahab forever joined to Moby-Dick, and Ahab makes the whale the source of the entire history of human pain and suffering. Think about the allegory of the novel and what this chapter is saying about the history of human religions, how we as a species once becoming aware have tried to explain the unexplainable in life.
Chapter 42 is regarded as one of the high points of the novel. “The Whiteness of the Whale” is a meditation on the nature of evil and of symbolism itself. Ishmael begin by reminding us that white is associated with positive things like beauty. The problem is when whiteness is disconnected from the positive associations. Then it can be associated with horrible things like polar bears and white sharks. As the chapter continues,Ishmael points out that the true horror of whiteness is when it isn’t associated with anything concrete, but rather with vague thoughts and fears. Here you can consider this an allegory of how symbolism works on different levels. And at the most abstract level, without a clear connection to one object, symbolism can cause the mind to contemplate all manner of things, some of which can drive a person insane. Finally, on the last page of the chapter, Ishmael concludes that white is so confounding because it is really the absence of all color.
The chapter is worth pausing over and reading very carefully as it is one of the core elements of the novel. You can also consider it a statement on race, as this issue threads its way through the novel.