18Th & 19th Century American Prose

Kate Chopin (1850-1904)

Katherine O'Flaherty known by her married name Kate Chopin, was an American author of short stories and novels

"The Awakening"

Names to associate with The Awakening:

* Edna Pontellier * Robert Lebrun

Published in 1899. The novel examines the smothering effects of late 19th-century social structures upon a woman whose simple desire is to fulfill her own potential and live her own life. It is a story of both courage and defeat, lyrically written and boldly poignant.

Edna Pontellier, the wife of a successful New Orleans business man and the mother of two, vacations with her family at a seaside resort. She spends a lot of time with Robert Lebrun, a romantic young man who has decided to attach himself to Edna for the summer. After many intimate conversations, boating excursions, and moonlit walks, they both realize that they are developing romantic feelings for each other. Edna realizes that there is much within herself that has remained dormant throughout her adult life.

When vacation ends and the Pontelliers return to New Orleans, Edna frees herself from the trappings of her old life, including her social position, her role as a mother, and her role as a wife. Moving out of her husband's house, she establishes herself in a cottage and hopes that Robert Lebrun will return soon from an extended business trip.

Upon Robert's return, Edna discovers that he is unable to come to grips with her newfound freedom. Indeed, he seems hopelessly bound by the traditional values of the French Creole community. Simultaneously, she discovers that her husband has set in motion a plan that will essentially force her to move back into his house.

Edna thereupon returns to the seaside resort in the off-season. She makes arrangements for a lunch to take with her to the beach, and carries along a towel for drying off as well. Unable to resist the lure of the water, she swims out as far as she can and, having exhausted herself, drowns. Most readers interpret this final passage as a deliberate attempt at suicide.

"Story of an Hour"

Names and phrases to associate with "Story of an Hour":

1. Mrs. Millard

2. Josephine

3. "Free! Body and soul free!"

This short story is about an hour in the life of the main character, Mrs. Millard. She is afflicted with a heart problem. Bad news has come about that her husband has died in a train accident. Her sister Josephine and Richard who is her husband's friend has to break the horrifying news to her as gently as possible. They both were concerned that the news might somehow put her in great danger with her health. Ironically, Mrs. Millard reacts to the news with excitement. Even though the news is heartbreaking she is finally free from the depressing life she was living. She keeps whispering "Free! Body and soul free!". She now is happy because she doesn't have to live for anyone but herself now. At the end of the story, Mr. Millard opens the door and is surprised by Josephine's cry. Mr. Millard didn't have a faintest idea about the accident. With a quick motion, Richard tried to block Mr. Millard's view of his wife but it was too late. The doctors said she died of a heart disease. The story ends with a short phrase "of joy that kills"

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece

“On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.”

“We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its crimes.”

In this book the hero is just arriving at manhood with the freshness of feeling that belongs to that interesting period of life, and with the power to please that properly characterizes youth. As a consequence he is loved; and, what denotes the real waywardness of humanity, more than it corresponds with theories and moral propositions, he is loved by one full of art, vanity and weakness, and loved principally for his sincerity, his modesty, and his unerring truth and probity.

--the preface which details the attraction between Judith and Natty.

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

His first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Crane released the book under a pseudonym and paid for the publishing himself. It was not a commercial success, though it was praised by several critics of the time.

This was followed by The Red Badge of Courage 1895, a powerful tale of the American Civil War. The book won international acclaim for its realism and psychological depth in telling the story of a young soldier facing the horrors and triumphs of war for the first time. Crane never experienced battle personally, but conducted interviews with a number of veterans, some of whom may have suffered from what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Because his depiction of the psychological as well as military aspect of war was so accurate, he was hired by a number of newspapers as a correspondent during the Greco-Turkish 1897 and Spanish-American wars 1898. In 1896 the boat in which he accompanied an American expedition to Cuba was wrecked, leaving Crane adrift for fourteen days. A result of the incident was Crane's development of tuberculosis, which would eventually become fatal. He recounted these experiences in The Open Boat and Other Tales 1898. In 1897, Crane settled in England, where he befriended writers Joseph Conrad and Henry James. Shortly before his death, he released Whilomville Stories 1900, the most commercially successful of the twelve books he wrote. Crane died of tuberculosis, aged only 28, in Badenweiler, Germany.

"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets"

Names and phrases to associate with Maggie:

1. Maggie

2. Jimmie

3. Pete

As the novel opens, Jimmie, a young boy, is leading a street fight against a troop of youngsters from another part of New York City's impoverished Bowery neighborhood. Jimmie is rescued by Pete, a teenager who seems to be a casual acquaintance of his. They encounter Jimmie's offhandedly brutal father, who brings Jimmie home, where we are introduced to his timid older sister Maggie and little brother Tommie, and to Mary, the family's drunken, vicious matriarch. The evening that follows seems typical: the father goes to bars to drink himself into oblivion while the mother stays home and rages until she, too, drops off into a drunken stupor. The children huddle in a corner, terrified.

As time passes, both the father and Tommie die. Jimmie hardens into a sneering, aggressive, cynical youth. He gets a job as a teamster. Maggie, by contrast, seems somehow immune to the corrupting influence of abject poverty; underneath the grime, she is physically beautiful and, even more surprising, both hopeful and naïve. When Pete--now a bartender--makes his return to the scene, he entrances Maggie with his bravado and show of bourgeois trappings. Pete senses easy prey, and they begin dating; she is taken--and taken in--by his relative worldliness and his ostentatious displays of confidence. She sees in him the promise of wealth and culture, an escape from the misery of her childhood.

Theodore Dresier (1871-1945)

An American naturalist author known for dealing with the gritty reality of life.

"Sister Carrie"

Names to associate with Sister Carrie:

1. Caroline (Carrie) Meeber

2. Hurstwood

Sister Carrie (1900 ) is a novel about a young country girl who moves to the big city where she starts realizing American Dream by embarking on a life of sin rather than by hard work and perseverance.

Leaving her rural Wisconsin home, 18 year-old Caroline Meeber heads for Chicago, Illinois , where she wants to live with her older sister's family. Soon, however, Carrie finds out that working in a sweatshop and living in a squalid and overcrowded apartment is not what she wants. When she meets a man named Drouet, a travelling salesman whose acquaintance she already made on the train to Chicago, she readily leaves behind her family—they never see "Sister Carrie" again—when he offers to look after her. Drouet installs her in a much larger apartment in return for her favours. Through Drouet, Carrie meets Hurstwood, the manager of a respectable bar. From the moment he sets eyes on her, Hurstwood is infatuated with the young girl, whereas for Carrie, Hurstwood is just a wealthy man past the prime of his life. Before long they start an affair, communicating and meeting secretly in the expanding, anonymous city. Although Hurstwood has a family and Carrie might conclude that he does, the lovers never talk about it and it never seems to occur to Carrie to ask.

One night, at his job, Hurstwood is presented with the opportunity to embezzle a large sum of money. He succumbs to the temptation and decides, on the spur of the moment, to leave everything behind and start a new life with Carrie. Under a pretext, he lures Carrie onto a northbound train and escapes with her to Canada . After a while, his guilty conscience makes him pay back most of the money, but there is no way he could return to his former life so the couple eventually decide to move to the East coast.

The second part of the book is set in New York City . Hurstwood and Carrie rent a flat where they live as man and wife under an assumed name. Gradually, Hurstwood realizes that finding a new job is not easy at all. As his money is slowly running out, the couple have to start economizing, which Carrie does not like at all. She starts looking for a job herself and finds employment at one of the many theatres. Her rise to stardom is sharply contrasted with Hurstwood's downfall: she leaves him, and the rapidly ageing Hurstwood, overwhelmed by apathy, is left all alone, without a job and without any money. At one point, during a strike , he even works as a scab driving a Brooklyn streetcar . He joins the homeless of New York and finally, in a cheap hotel, puts an end to his life.

"An American Tragedy"

Names to associate with An American Tragedy:

1. Clyde Griffiths

2. Robert Alden

3. Sondra Finchley

An American Tragedy (1925) is a famous American novel, by Theodore Dreiser. Written in 1925, the book is the story of a young man Clyde Griffiths, whose troubles with women and the law take him from his religious upbringing in Kansas City to the fictional town of Lycurgus ,New York . Among Clyde's love interests are the materialistic Hortense Briggs, the charming farmer's daughter Roberta Alden and the aristocratic Sondra Finchley. The book is naturalistic in style, containing subject matter such as religion, capital punishment and abortion, and attempting to shed light on societal evils.

Clyde's downfall begins when he takes a job as a bell-boy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are much more liberal than he, and they introduce Clyde to the world of alcohol and prostitution. Clyde enjoys his new lifestyle, and does everything in his power to win the affections of the flirtatious Hortense Briggs. But Clyde's life is forever changed when a stolen car he is travelling in with friends kills a young child. Clyde is forced to flee Kansas City , and after a brief stay in Chicago , he reestablishes himself at the collar factory of his uncle in Lycurgus ,New York .

Although Clyde vows not to give in to women in the way that caused his Kansas City downfall, he quickly succumbs to the charms of Roberta Alden , a poor girl working under him at the factory. While Clyde initially feels fulfilled by Roberta, his ambition forces him to realize that he could never marry her. He dreams of the aristocratic Sondra Finchley , the daughter of a wealthy Lycurgus man, and a family friend of his uncle's. As developments between him and Sondra begin to look promising, Roberta discovers that she is pregnant.

Trying unsuccessfully to secure an abortion of the child, Clyde procrastinates the decision while his relationship with Sondra continues to mature. As he realizes that he has a wonderful opportunity to marry into such an aristocratic family, Clyde hatches a diabolic scheme to drown Roberta in a manner that seems accidental.

Upon taking Roberta for a canoe ride in one of the Finger Lakes in upstate New York , Clyde loses the nerve to murder her -- however, Roberta accidentally falls out of the boat and drowns, Clyde being too cowardly to save her. The trail of circumstantial evidence points to murder, and the local authorities are only too eager to convict Clyde. Following a sensational trial before an unsympathetic audience, and with no legal support from his wealthy relatives, Clyde is found guilty and sentenced to death. The jailhouse scenes and the correspondence between Clyde and his mother stand out as an exemplar of pathos in modern literature.

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

Dunbar is largely noteworthy (at least in his literary career) as a forerunner to the Harlem Renaissance, which ETS does stress.

Dunbar was a seminal African-American poet in the late 19th and early 20th century. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life. Born in Dayton, Ohio to parents who had escaped from slavery, Dunbar died from tuberculosis at 34.

His first collection of poetry, Oak and Ivy was published in 1892 and attracted the attention of James Whitcomb Riley, the popular "Hoosier Poet". Both Riley and Dunbar wrote poems in both standard English and dialect. His second book, Majors and Minors (1895) brought him national fame and the patronage of William Dean Howells, the novelist and critic and editor of Harper's Weekly. He was closely associated with Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

He wrote a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, and five novels and a play. His essays and poems were published widely in the leading journals of the day. During his life, considerable emphasis was laid on the fact that Dunbar was of pure black descent, with no white ancestors.

Dunbar's work is known for its colorful language and use of dialect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister in a famous line of ministers; Emerson was later to become a Unitarian minister himself. He gradually drifted from the doctrines of his peers, then formulated and first expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his essay Nature.

"Nature"

An essay published anonymously in 1836. It is in this essay where the foundation of transcendentalism is put forth, a belief system that espouses a non-traditional vision of nature. Building on his early lectures, Emerson defines nature as an all-encompassing divine entity inherently known to us in our unfettered innocence, rather than as merely a component of a world ruled by a divine, separate being learned by us through passed-on teachings in our experience.

* Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generation beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe. Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? * Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. * If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! * Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. * The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of a child. * Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. * Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. * Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. * We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned, bereft of reason, and eating grass like an ox.

* A man is a god in ruins.

"Poet"

It is not about "men of poetical talents, or of industry and skill in meter, but of the true poet."

The final lines in the essay are, "Wherever snow falls or water flows or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love,--there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble."

"Self Reliance"

In the essay he formulates his philosophy of self-reliance an essential part of which is to trust in one's present thoughts and impressions rather than those of other people or of one's past self. This culminates in the quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."He stresses originality, believing in one's own genius and living from within. From this springs the quote: "Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide."

"Two Rivers"

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, Repeats the music of the rain; But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through the Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: The stream I love unbounded goes Through flood and sea and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet, I hear the spending of the steam Through years, through men, through Nature fleet, Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Musketaquit, a goblin strong, Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; They lose their grief who hear his song, And where he winds is the day of day.

So forth and brighter fares my stream,-- Who drink it shall not thirst again; No darkness taints its equal gleam, And ages drop in it like rain.

"Brahma"

If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame. They recon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode, And pine in vain the sacred Seven; But thou, meek lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

"The Dial"

You probably don't need to know too much about Transcendentalism to ace all the questions that might pop up on the GRE, but you should know about The Dial, which was a Transcendentalist periodical. Ohter names you should associate with the movement and the periodical are:

Henry David Thoreau Margaret Fuller Jones Very

Harriet Jacobs

In 1861, she published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl under the pseudonym Linda Brent.

Jacobs was one of many escaped slaves who wrote autobiographical narratives in an effort to shape opinion in the Northern states concerning the "peculiar instiution" of slavery. She appealed mainly to middle-class white Christian women in the north, through her descriptions of slavery destroying the virtue of women through harassment and rape.

She criticized the religion of the South as being un-Christian, and as emphasizing the value of money ("If I am going to hell, bury my money with me," says a particularly brutal and uneducated slaveholder). She described another slaveholder with the sentence, "He boasted the name and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower." Jacobs argued that these men were not exceptions to the general rule. The cruelty of slavery destroyed the virtue of an entire society, and "is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks".

Much of "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" is devoted to the protagonist's struggle to free her two children (born out of wedlock through a consensual relationship with a white man who wasn't her master), after she runs away herself. She spends seven years trapped in a tiny space built into her grandmother's barn to occasionally see and hear the voices of her children.

*Herman Melville (1819-1891)

"Moby Dick"

"Call me Ishmael," Moby-Dick begins, in one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western literature.[25] The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold, gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage.

In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship’s captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him — a "grand, ungodly, godlike man,"[26] who has "been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals," according to one of the owners. The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day.

The ship’s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate is responsible for a whaling boat, and each whaling boat of the Pequod has its own pagan harpooneer assigned to it. Some time after sailing, Ahab finally appears on the quarter-deck one morning, an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over the narrator. One of his legs is missing from the knee down and has been replaced by a prosthesis fashioned from a sperm whale's jawbone.

He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness... Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. —Moby-Dick, Ch. 28

Soon gathering the crewmen together, with a rousing speech Ahab secures their support for his single, secret purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing Moby Dick, an old, very large sperm whale, with a snow-white hump and mottled skin, that crippled Ahab on his last whaling voyage. Only Starbuck shows any sign of resistance to the charismatic but monomaniacal captain. The first mate argues repeatedly that the ship’s purpose should be to hunt whales for their oil, with luck returning home profitably, safely, and quickly, but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular — and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring misgivings.

The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious harpooneer named Fedallah (also referred to as 'the Parsee'), an inscrutable figure with a sinister influence over Ahab. Later, while watching one night over a captured whale carcass, Fedallah gives dark prophecies to Ahab regarding their twin deaths.

The novel describes numerous "gams," social meetings of two ships on the open sea. Crews normally visit each other during a gam, captains on one vessel and chief mates on the other. Mail may be exchanged and the men talk of whale sightings or other news. For Ahab, however, there is but one relevant question to ask of another ship: “Hast seen the White Whale?” After meeting several other whaling ships, which have their own peculiar stories, the Pequod enters the Pacific Ocean. Queequeg becomes deathly ill and requests that a coffin be built for him by the ship’s carpenter. Just as everyone has given up hope, Queequeg changes his mind, deciding to live after all, and recovers quickly. His coffin becomes his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's life buoy.

Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its boats is missing; the captain’s youngest son had been aboard. The Rachel's captain begs Ahab to aid in the search for the missing boat, but Ahab is resolute; the Pequod is very near the White Whale now and will not stop to help. Finally the Delight is met, even as its captain buries a sailor who had been killed by Moby Dick. Starbuck begs Ahab one final time to reconsider his thirst for vengeance, but to no avail.

The next day, the Pequod meets Moby Dick. For two days, the Pequod's crew pursues the whale, which wreaks widespread destruction, including the disappearance of Fedallah. On the third day, Moby Dick rises up to reveal Fedallah tied to him by harpoon ropes, clearly dead. Even after the initial battle on the third day, it is clear that while Ahab is a vengeful whale-hunter, Moby-Dick, while dangerous and fearless, is not motivated to hunt humans. As he swims away from the Pequod, Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that:

"Moby-Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!". —Moby-Dick, Ch. 135

Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequod itself, which begins to sink. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, the unfolding harpoon-line catches him around his neck and he is dragged into the depths of the sea by the diving Moby Dick. The boat is caught up in the whirlpool of the sinking ship, which takes almost all the crew to their deaths. Only Ishmael survives, clinging to Queequeg’s coffin-turned-life buoy for an entire day and night before the Rachel rescues him.

"Billy Bud"

The plot follows Billy Budd, a seaman pressed into service aboard the HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the British Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by Napoleon's military ambitions. Billy, suffused with innocence, openness, and natural charisma, is adored by the crew, but for unexplainable reasons arouses the antagonism of the ship's Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, who falsely accuses Billy of conspiracy to mutiny. Brought before the Captain Edward Fairfax "Starry" Vere to answer to the charges, Billy is unable to find the words to respond, and lashes out seemingly involuntarily at Claggart, killing him with a single blow. Vere, an eminently thoughtful man whose name recalls the Latin words "veritas" (truth) and "vir" (man), is convinced of Billy's innocence before God but insists on following the letter of the Mutiny Act and sentencing Billy to death, arguing that any appearance of weakness in the officers and failure to enforce discipline could stir the already-turbulent waters of mutiny throughout the British fleet. Condemned to be hanged from the ship's yardarm at dawn the morning after the killing, Billy's final words are, "God bless Captain Vere!"

"Bartleby the Scribner"

The narrator of the story is an unnamed lawyer with offices on Wall Street in New York City. He describes himself as doing "a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title-deeds." He has three employees: "First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut," each of whom is described. He advertises for a fourth, and Bartleby appears, "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!"

At first Bartleby appears to be a competent worker, but later he refuses to work when requested, repeatedly uttering the phrase "I would prefer not to." He is also found to be living in the lawyer's office. Bartleby refuses to explain his behavior, and also refuses to leave when dismissed. The lawyer moves offices to avoid any further confrontation, and Bartleby is taken away. At the end of the story, Bartleby slowly starves in prison, finally expiring during a visit by the lawyer.

H.L. Mencken

A twentieth century journalist, satirist and social critic, a cynic and a freethinker, known as the "Sage of Baltimore" and the "American Nietzsche". He is often regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th century.

Perhaps Mencken's most important contribution to American letters is his satirical style. Mencken, influenced heavily by Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift, believed the lampoon was more powerful than the lament; his hilariously overwrought indictments of nearly every subject (and more than a couple that were unmentionable at the time) are certainly worth reading as examples of fine craftsmanship.

The Mencken style influenced many writers; American author Richard Wright described the power of Mencken's technique (his exposure to Mencken would inspire him to become a writer himself). In his autobiographical Black Boy, Wright recalls his reaction to A Book of Prefaces and one of the volumes of the Prejudices series:

“I was jarred and shocked by the clear, clean, sweeping sentences ... Why did he write like that? I pictured the man as a raging demon, slashing with his pen ... denouncing everything American ... laughing ... mocking God, authority ... This man was fighting, fighting with words. He was using words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club ... I read on and what amazed me was not what he said, but how on earth anybody had the courage to say it.”

"The American Language"

The American Language is H. L. Mencken's 1919 book about changes Americans had made to the English Language.

Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his favourite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United Statese.'" The book was preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" It would appear that he answered his own question.

In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend "Americanisms" against the English, whom he increasingly detested.

The book discusses the beginnings of American variations from English, the spread of these variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colourful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart.

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

"The Murders on the Rue Morgue"

A short story from 1841 which features the brilliant deductions of Auguste Dupin and is one of the first detective stories (“The Purloined Letter” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget” also feature Dupin). "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is almost certainly the first locked room mystery (a story in which the reader is presented with a puzzle and encouraged to solve it before finishing the story and being told the solution).

The detective Auguste Dupin investigates a series of baffling murders, whose victims are brutally killed in apparently inaccessible rooms along the rue Morgue, a street in Paris. Dupin reaches the astounding conclusion that killings were not murder per se but were carried out by a wild "Ourang-Outang," (orangutan) the escaped pet of a sailor.

"Annabel Lee"/1849

Annabel Lee is Poe's last poem. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after his death that same year, appearing in two newspapers. Like Poe's The Raven it tells of a man mourning a dead lover. It is unclear whether the character referred to a real person. Some say it for his wife, or a lover, and others that it was the product of Poe's gloomy imagination. Annabel Lee is six stanzas, three with six lines and three with eight, with the rhyme pattern differing slightly in each one. The poem begins as if from a storyteller's point of view, where Poe begins to explain the couple's love, which dates from their growing up together.

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee-

Annabel Lee dies because "the angels" envied the couple's great love.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me - Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

Born Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, an abolitionist, and writer of more than 10 books, the most famous being Uncle Tom's Cabin which describes life in slavery, and which was first published in serial form from 1851 to 1852 in an abolitionist organ, the National Era, edited by Gamaliel Bailey. Her second novel was Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, another anti-slavery novel.

When Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 (during the Civil War), he allegedly greeted her, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"

"Uncle Tom's Cabin"

Names to associate with Uncle Tom's Cabin:

1. Uncle Tom

2. Shelby family

3. Eliza

4. Tom Loker

5. Cassy

The book opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby about to lose his farm due to massive debts. Even though he and his wife (Emily Shelby) believe they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise money by selling two of his slaves — Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and child, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby’s maid Eliza — to a slave trader. Emily Shelby hates to do this because she had promised Eliza that Shelby would not sell her son, while her son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he considers the slave to be his friend.

When Eliza overhears a conversation between the slave trader and his wife, she warns Uncle Tom, then takes Harry and flees to the North. The slave trader, Mr. Haley, pursues Eliza but she escapes capture by crossing into the free state of Ohio, so Haley hires a slave hunter named Tom Loker to bring Eliza and Harry back to Kentucky. Meanwhile, Eliza and Harry arrive in a safe Quaker settlement, where they are joined by Eliza's husband George, who had escaped earlier. He agrees to go with his wife and child to Canada, via the Underground Railroad.

While all of this is happening, Uncle Tom is sold and taken down the Mississippi River by the slave trader to a slave market. On the boat, Tom meets a young white girl named Eva, who quickly befriends him. When Eva falls into the river, Tom saves her. In gratitude, Eva's father, Augustine St. Clare, buys Tom from Haley and take him with the family to their home in New Orleans.

As George and Eliza attempt to reach Canada, they are cornered by Loker and his men, causing George to shoot Loker. Worried that Loker may die, Eliza convinces George and the Quakers to bring the slave hunter to a nearby Quaker settlement for medical treatment. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, St. Clare debates slavery with his cousin Ophelia, who opposes slavery but also hates black people. St. Clare, by contrast, says he feels no hostility against blacks but tolerates slavery because he is powerless to change it. To help Ophelia overcome her bigotry, he buys Topsy, a young black girl who was abused by her past master, and asks Ophelia to educate her.

After Tom has lived with the St. Clares for two years, Eva grows very ill. She eventually dies, but not before she has a vision of heaven, which she shares with the people around her. Her death has a profound effect on everyone. Ophelia resolves to love her slaves, Topsy says she will learn to trust others, and St. Clare decides to set Tom free as he promised to his daughter before her death. However, before he can do so St. Clare gets stabbed to death while trying to end a fight.

St. Clare’s cruel wife, Marie, sells Tom to a vicious plantation owner named Simon Legree. Tom is taken to rural Louisiana with other new slaves such as Emmeline, whom Legree purchased as a sex slave. Legree takes a strong dislike to Tom when he refuses Legree's order to whip a fellow slave. Tom receives a severe beating, and Legree resolves to crush Tom's faith in God. While at the plantation, Tom meets Cassy, who was Legree's previous sex slave. Casey was previously separated from her daughter by slavery. When she became pregnant again she killed her child to save the child from the same fate.

At this time Tom Loker returns to the story. Loker is now a changed man after being healed by the Quakers. In addition, George, Eliza, and Harry obtained their freedom after they cross over into Canada. In Louisiana, Tom almost loses his faith in God due to the hardships of the plantation. However, he has two visions — one of Jesus and one of Eva — which renew his strength and faith. He encourages Cassy to escape, which she does so, taking Emmeline with her. When Tom refuses to tell Legree where Cassy and Emmeline have gone, the cruel master had him beaten to near death. As Tom is dying, he forgives Legree and Legree's overseers. George Shelby (Authur Shelby's son) arrives with money in hand to buy Tom’s freedom, but he is too late. He can only watch as Tom dies a martyr’s death.

On their boat ride to freedom, Cassy and Emmeline meet George Harris’s sister and travel with her to Canada, where Cassy realizes that Eliza is her long-lost daughter. The newly reunited family travel to France and eventually Liberia, the African nation created for former American slaves. George Shelby returns to the Kentucky farm, where, after his father’s death, he sets all the slaves free in honor of Tom’s memory. Before they go, he tells them to remember Tom’s sacrifice every time they look at his cabin and to lead a pious Christian life, just as Tom did.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

An American author, development critic, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, tax resister and philosopher who is famous for Walden, on simple living amongst nature, and Civil Disobedience, on resistance to civil government and many other articles and essays. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

"Walden"

Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's life for two years, two months, and two days in second-growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond, not far from his friends and family in Concord, Massachusetts. Walden was written so that the stay appears to be a year, with expressed seasonal divisions. Thoreau called it an experiment in simple living.

Walden is neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but a social critique of the Western World, with each chapter heralding some aspect of humanity that needed to be either renounced or praised. Along with his critique of the civilized world, Thoreau examines other issues afflicting man in society, ranging from economy (the first chapter of the book) and reading to solitude and higher laws. He also takes time to talk about the experience at Walden Pond itself, commenting on the animals and the way people treated him for living there, using those experiences to bring out his philosophical positions. This extended commentary on nature has often been interpreted as a strong statement to the natural religion that transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson were preaching.

"Civil Disobedience"

Civil Disobedience is an essay published in 1849 under the title Resistance to Civil Government, it expressed Thoreau’s belief that people should not allow governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty both to avoid doing injustice directly and to avoid allowing their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War.

One of the most famous quotes often mistakenly attributed to either Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine, "That government is best which governs least", actually came from Thoreau in this essay.