The Classics Circuit Gothic Literature Tour: American Short Stories of Irving and Hawthorne

 I am very excited to be a part of the Gothic Literature Classics Circuit tour this month focusing on Pre-Victorian Gothic Literature (before 1840). I should have posted this yesterday, but had a big work related meeting that consumed my time, please forgive me!

According to my friend Wikipedia, Gothic fiction combines elements of horror and romance. This genre started in England in 1764 with the publication of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Wadpole. It soon made its way across the Atlantic to America where early American gothic writers focused on the frontier wilderness anxiety and the lasting effects of the Puritan society.

Gothic fiction contains various archetypes such as an innocent virginal maiden heroine, an older foolish woman, a hero, a tyrant, a stupid/servant or clown comic relief, and a spooky setting. The setting is very important and usually involves a castle, abbey, or other usually religious edifice. In American Gothic, the building is usually replaced with unexplored territory, wilderness, or caves.

I love short stories and a few of my favorite stories by early American authors are gothic in nature. These include “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, “Young Goodman Brown” and “the Minister’s Black Veil by Nathanial Hawthorne.

Washington Irving

Washington Irving was “the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame” according to my American Literature book (edited by George McMichael). He published “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in 1820 as part of The Sketch Book Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. He moved to England for a period of years, but returned to America at the end of this life and is buried in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

I love this story; it is a perfect Halloween story as well as a great story of what life was like in a Dutch village on the Hudson back in the eighteenth century. Ichabod Crane is a schoolteacher in the quaint Dutch village of Sleepy Hollow. He is a Connecticut native and is known to be a good and fair teacher as well as a “psalmist” or one that teaches others to sing psalms at church. He has a great fondness for eating and for listening to fantastic tales. “His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spell-bound region.”

My favorite line of the story is really long and is as follows: “All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many specters in his time, and had been more than once beset by Satan in his diverse shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all of these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all of his works , if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was – a woman.”

I laughed out line at that line. Irving’s gift for writing includes really witty statements and great satire. He also has wonderful description of the scenery and characters, besides great fantastical tales.

The woman that caused poor Ichabod such angst was Katrina Van Tassel, the lovely daughter and only child of a rich Dutch farmer. Most of her appeal to Ichabod is tied up in the wealth of food that is at her parents’ house. He is a skinny man, with a giant hunger.

His rival for Katrina’s affections is Brom “Bones.” He is a local hero that is an accomplished horse rider, built, and handsome. Brom is not pleased to become the object of ridicule once Ichabod becomes a serious rival for Katrina’s affections.

The Van Tassels have giant party where ghost stories are shared right before Ichabod starts home on his borrowed beat-up horse. The favorite tail in Sleepy Hollow is about the local ghost, the headless horseman. The headless horseman was a Hessian (German mercenary in the American Revolution) that was beheaded and buried without his head in the church graveyard. The tale said that the headless horseman roamed at night looking for his head. As Ichabod is coming home, he has a very frightening ride through the dark woods followed by mysterious horsemen. As he gets a closer look, he realizes that the horseman is headless and is carrying his head. He tries to escape, but is hit by the head and falls off the horse. Ichabod is never seen again, but the townsfolk are able to figure out what happened by the hoof prints and the busted pumpkin that is left behind.

“. ..they came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him.”

An old farmer went to New York and came back to say that Ichabod was still alive and had a great life and career afterwards. Brom Bones and Katrina married, and Brom was known to laugh whenever the story of Ichabod was related, especially about the pumpkin.

What makes this story gothic? I think Ichabod is the hero/heroine. He is the naïve figure that beliefs in the spooky tales. He does get his happy ending although it is not quite what he expected. Katrina is the beautiful, virginal heroine with “vast expectations.” Brom Bones is the villain for thwarting the hero’s love interest. The setting is in the new world wilderness, or a snug Dutch settlement along the Hudson that is surrounded by a forest that spooks Ichabod.

Nathanial Hawthorne

Nathanial Hawthorne was born in Salem, home of the infamous Salem witch trials. His first ancestor in America, William Hathorne arrived in Salem in 1630 and persecuted Quakers. William’s son John was a Puritan interrogator in the Salem witch trials of 1692. The angst of the crimes of his ancestors made its way into Hawthorne’s most famous works. He first came to literary critical fame in 1837 when he published his Twice Told Tales. His most famous novel is The Scarlet Letter, a novel I hated in high school, but need to read again now that I’m older.

Hawthorne’s greatest achievement according to his friend Herman Melville was his “great power of blackness” or his portrayal of the dark landscapes of the human mind. He used masks, veils, shadows, emblems, ironies, and ambiguities to show the narrow difference between good and evil.

Ironically, Hawthorne is also buried in “Sleepy Hollow” cemetery, but in Concord Massachusetts, not Sleep Hollow New York.

Young Goodman Brown by Nathanial Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown was first published in 1835, although it is set much earlier during the seventeenth century at a puritan settlement. Goodman Brown has left his wife Faith as he has work to do at night. He walks through dark woods at night and is joined by a mysterious stranger. He tells the stranger that he is late as “Faith kept me back awhile.” This stranger is in the guise of his dead grandfather and it is soon becomes apparent that it is the devil. The stranger knows all of Goodman Brown’s family, politicians, and catechism teacher quite well.

Goodman Brown soon finds himself at a meeting of “saints and sinners” in the forest. He is surprised to see his wife Faith at the meeting, but she mysteriously disappears. “My Faith is gone,” Goodman Brown shouts. A figure leading the meeting (the devil) tells Goodman Brown “Depending upon one another’s hearts, yet had still hoped that virtue was not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.”

The next morning Goodman Brown can’t be sure whether he dreamed of the meeting or whether it really happened. Regardless, he lost all hope that night.

This was really a rather sad tale to lose all faith in God and mankind. I really loved how Goodman Brown’s wife name was Faith and that was used symbolically throughout the story as Goodman Brown tries to hold on and then loses his faith in mankind.

What makes this story gothic? The setting was the strange and scary wilderness with a meeting with the devil. You can’t get scarier than that! The hero is Goodman Brown with his seemingly innocent wife Faith as the heroine. The villain is the worse villain of all – the devil himself.

The Minister’s Black Veil by Nathanial Hawthorne

One day, the minister of a town, Mr. Hooper, appears on the street wearing a black veil. The townsfolk are disturbed and spend their time talking and wondering. “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.”

No one would ask Mr. Hooper why he was wearing a black veil, until finally his intended, Elizabeth dared to ask. He said that the “veil is a type and symbol,” and refused to take it off. They did not marry.

Mr. Hooper became a very effective pastor and was viewed with dread by his congregation. At the end of his life, Mr. Hooper was attended by his lost love Elizabeth and refused at the very end to take off his veil. He said that everyone has secret sins hidden behind “black veils” and that he was the only one that was truthful and upfront about it.

Another dark look at the nature of mankind that has the same message, mankind is evil. People make act good and hid their sins behind “black veils,” but overall they are bad.

What makes this story gothic? The setting doesn’t in this case, but the symbol and use of the black veil is very gothic. The hero is mysterious, but also seems like a villain. The heroine, Elizabeth, is young and virtuous and devotes her life to her love although they never marry. “The Minister’s Black Veil” is a perfect combination of thwarted love and the horror of a black veil.

"Flight" - The Steinbeck Classics Circuit Tour

I am honored to be a part of the The Classics Circuit Tour on literary master, John Steinbeck. I have read and enjoyed several of his novels including East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and The Red Pony. I must admit that I had a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with The Grapes of Wrath in high school. I really need to reread it again now that I'm older .. . but I just can't quite convince myself!

I enjoyed Steinbeck's story "Flight" in high school, college, and in several short story collections I've read since then. In order to prepare myself for this tour, I reread the story and also looked for my review that I typed up for my American Literature class in at Michigan Technological University back in 1999. I loved American Lit as we had an awesome professor. As part of the class, you had to write a brief summary of each story/poem/book that we read in class. I enjoyed doing it and it was part of the reason I wanted to start my blog many years later. I enjoyed my impressions from 1999 and decided that my retro review would be interesting to post . . .

Flight Review from 1999
Steinbeck was a writer that carried on the naturalistic tradition from the previous century. In other words, he wrote about how a person’s life is shaped by the world in which they live in, that there is nothing that one can do to stop events from occuring, and that nature is indifferent. I believe that these are all characteristics in Steinbeck’s story, “Flight,” and in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath.

Even the beginning of Steinbeck’s story, “Flight” seemed reminiscent of earlier naturalist authors such as Ambrose Bierce and Stephan Crane in that in each of their stories, they start by setting up a scene with complete and vivid description. I really like this as it allow the reader to understand what naturalistic environment the main character is coming from. In “Flight,” the beginning scenery sets up the fact that Pepe`, the main character has come from a poor, and harsh environment.

This story seemed to be a story of Pepe`’s journey from boyhood to manhood, which is facilitated by a cold and indifferent world. At the beginning of the story, Pepe` is cheerful and good-natured boy with a knife as his only valuable possession. After a dispute, he kills a man who was making fun of him, and in running of his life, he becomes a cold and serious man. In the harsh environment of the mountains to which he tries to escape in, it is easy to see that nature has no sympathy for him, a rattlesnake tries to bite him, and a mountain lion watches him as though Pepe` might make a nice snack. Also, the men who are chasing him seem to have no sympathy to Pepe` as a human being, they never try to offer him an alternative rather than death.

I liked this story with its stark naturalistic description and story line. I also like how Steinbeck ended it with Pepe` standing up bravely against the forces that were out to get him. This seemed to complete Pepe`’s transition to manhood.

Thoughts from 2011
I agree with my previous review of Flight. As I read the story this time around, I was struck by the many start contrasts that Steinbeck has written into the description in this story. Everything is white and black visually, but the story itself is a shade of grey. True Pepe' did kill a man in anger after being provoked, but did he deserve to then be brutally killed himself?

As a mother, I thought about Pepe's mother and how she said he was now a man after killing another and how she helped him go on the run. I wonder if I would saddle one of my sons up after such a crime knowing that they would not get a fair shot in the justice system . . . . and maybe I've just answered my own question!

I also thought this story was very similar to the Johnny Cash song, "Don't Take Your Guns to Town, " although Pepe' had a knife rather than a gun. It could be Pepe's theme song.

I think overall, "Flight" is a riveting story that truly represents Steinbeck's style artistically and also on a social justice front.

Have you read "Flight?" What are your thoughts?

The Classics Circuit: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

I am participating in the Harlem Renaissance Tour that is being hosted by The Classics Circuit to celebrate Black History Month. I have had Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston sitting on my shelf for nine years (when my friend Lauren passed it on to me) and I decided this was the push I needed to finally read it.

I can’t believe I waited so long to read such an excellent novel! Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of Janie Crawford. Janie is a beautiful young girl that was raised by her grandmother. She is the product of violence. Her grandmother was impregnated during the civil war by her white slave owner and her mother was raped by her school teacher. Janie’s mother took to drink after her birth and disappeared. Janie’s grandmother is afraid that Janie will end up with a no good man so she marries her off to Logan Killicks, a well-of older farmer.

Janie has many ideas of marriage from a wonderful scene where bees are getting the nectar from a pear tree. “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of tree from root to the tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was marriage!” Logan Killicks does not meet her definition of marriage, especially after he wants her to do hard labor on the farm.

At this point in time Janie meets Jody Sparks, a man with big plans and ideas. They elope and move to an all black community in Florida. Joe becomes Mayor of the town and starts a general store. Jealous of any attention paid to Janie, Joe berates her and makes her keep her hair tied up in a kerchief. Janie longs to participate in the wonderful storytelling on the porch, but Joe won’t allow it.

After 20 years of marriage, Joe passes away a bitter old man. Janie is a wealthy 40-year old widow and is in no hurry to meet anyone new. One day Janie meets Tea Cake, a younger idealist man. Tea Cake takes Janie fishing, listens to her, and allows her to experience life as no ever has. The two leave town to start life anew, but things do not always go as planned.

I had a hard time at first with the Southern African American dialect of the characters, but once I got used to it, it was easier to read the novel. I love how this novel is an important African American novel, but also an important feminist novel. I love Janie’s journey to find herself and her happiness. She finally found her “voice” with Tea Cake.

The introduction and afterward talked about Zora Neale Hurston and her said neglect in the cannon of the Harlem Renaissance. As this novel was a very feminist novel, the mail authors of the Harlem Renaissance, looked down on it. It went out of print and Hurston died at the St. Lucie County Welfare Home in 1960. She came back into prominence after Alice Walker searched for and marked her grave and then wrote a piece about it for Ms. Indeed, it was very easy to see reading the groundbreaking Their Eyes Were Watching God how much this work inspired works by Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.

I was also surprised at how sensual a novel Their Eyes Were Watching God was for 1937. While there are no explicit details, there is enough beautiful prose to realize that Jane is looking for and finds pleasure with Tea Cake.

Some of my favorite quotes:

Janie wondering about marriage when she is leaving Logan Killicks: “Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated? Did marriage compel love like the sun the day?” I love the wording, so lyrical and beautiful.

Janie talking about her grandmother: “She was borned in slavery time when folks, dat is black folks, didn’t sit down anytime dey felt lak it. So sittin’ on porches lak de white madam looked lak uh might fine thing tu her. Dat’s whut she wanted for me – don’t keer whut cost.” Poor Janie was forced to fulfill her grandmother’s dreams by marrying Logan Killicks, even though they were not her own dreams.

“Jane, Ah done watched it time and time again; each and every white man think he know all de GOOD darkies already . . . So far as he’s concerned, all dem he don’t know oughta be tried and sentenced tuh six months behind de United States privy house at hard smellin’.” Some things have not changed. Members of my family in the previous generation who shall remain nameless are sure that the few African Americans that they know are different than all others who fit the racist characterizations. Very sad.

Overall, this book was a beautifully written, compelling, and original work. I am very glad that I read it as part of Harlem Renaissance Tour.

Book Source: My friend Lauren passed it on to me 9 years ago!!! I need to now pass it on myself . . .

The Classics Circuit: Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton is one of my favorite authors of all time. Wharton was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize (for The Age of Innocence). Her novels are beautifully written accounts of mostly upper class Americans during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The novels have a high degree of irony and wit in them, both qualities that I extremely enjoy in a novel. Her novels and short stories also often explore many themes including morality, a theme that I found common through Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas.

As this book contained four novellas, I am going to break them down and discuss each one on its own merits.

The Touchstone (1900)
As a young college student, Glennard fell in love with Mrs. Aubyn, a young woman who had separated from her husband. He enjoyed her intellectual capabilities and she soon becomes a successful author. While he did once enjoy her intelligence, Glennard soon discovers that he does not like to be in Mrs. Aubyn’s shadow and loses his love for her.

My favorite quote describes this transformation:
“The sense of metal equality had been gratifying to his raw ambition; but as his self knowledge defined itself, his understanding of her also increased; and if a man is at times indirectly flattered by the moral superiority of woman, her mental ascendancy is extenuated by no such oblique tribute to his powers.”

They separate and Mrs. Aubyn moves to Europe and corresponds with Glennard until her death. The novella opens with Glennard discovering that the letters he received may be worth something as Margaret Aubyn had few friends and there was not much correspondence from her that was known. He is at a point in life where he would like to marry his beloved, Miss Trent, but has no money. He struggles with whether to publish the letters and use the money to fund his happiness with Miss Trent as it would be a betrayal to Margaret Aubyn’s trust and love of him.

I loved the moral struggle within the novella on whether it is right to use personal private letters written with love for personal monetary benefit. It is also a great love story between Miss Trent and Glennard. I love how the story puts morality and love hand in hand, how does the morality of the one you love, change your love and respect for that person? It was an interesting prospective of how a man can be threatened by the intellect of a woman and loses his love for her. Not much has changed . . . for some men!

Sanctuary (1903)
Kate Orme is happily engaged to Denis Peyton. Peyton has recently come into some money upon the death of his stepbrother. Denis confides a deep dark secret to Kate about the source of the money and her love and view of him and his moralities is changed forever. She raises their son to have a higher moral standard, but when this is threatened by circumstances and love for a woman, Kate worries that her son will suffer the same moral failings as his father.
My favorite quote from Sanctuary is about Denis: “His conscience responded only to the concrete pressure of facts.” What a beautiful sentence that says so much about Denis.

This was a very interesting story about morality and ethics, how far will one bend their own sense or ethics in order to achieve fame and wealth. Sadly with many of the financial problems our country has had lately, some people like Bernie Madoff are willing to bend them a lot, but luckily there are still a lot of people with ethics out there.

Denis and Kate’s son is an up and coming architect, which was very interesting to read about. I also love how Kate was a strong, educated woman with a strong sense of her self and her own morals.

Madame de Treymes
While the first two novellas were set in New York, Madame de Treymes is set in France, but is primarily about Americans (from New York) living in uneasy terms with the native French aristocracy. John Durham visited France and discovered his old friend from younger days; Fanny Frisbee is separated from her very unmoral husband the Marquis de Malrive. John falls in love with the mystery of Madame de Malrive and would like to marry her. The Malrive family is Catholic and does not believe in divorce. Fanny does not want to risk losing her son by divorcing her husband. John talks to one of the heads of the family, Fanny’s sister-in-law Madame de Treymes, in order to determine a smooth path to allow Fanny to be free to divorce and marry John. All does not flow smoothly and John is left to decide whether to stick to his morals and lose the woman he loves or to betray him and win Fanny.

One of my favorite quotes is about how John did not love Fanny Frisbee, but does love Fanny Malrive.

“She was the same, but so mysteriously changed! And it was the mystery, the sense of unprobed depths of initiation which drew him to her as her freshness had never drawn him.”

My other favorite quote was a catty one from John’s sister when they arrive at Fanny’s house to visit, “Well, if this is all she got by marrying a Marquis!”

I loved the moral struggle and slightly ambiguous ending of this story. There was also a sensual undercurrent between Madame de Treymes and John that I found fascinating. I loved all of their conversations together and found them more exciting then John and Fanny. It was also a great social commentary on the French elite and Americans in France. As Wharton lived in France for much her later life, it as a commentary written from her own personal experiences and observations.

Bunner Sisters (1916)
Bunner Sisters is the one novella that really sticks out in this collection. As I began to read it, I realized I had read it in a different collection at some point in the past. This story is not set among the upper classes; it is about two sisters that are barely getting by with their small shop in New York City. The story line also does not have the morality and love storyline that characterized the first three novellas. It was an excellent story, but I don’t feel that it belonged in this collection.

Ann Eliza and Evelina are two old maid sisters that enjoy a calm and unexciting existence. One day, Ann Eliza buys a clock for Evelina and the two sisters meet Mr. Ramy. Both sisters fall in love with him and once must make a choice to allow the other to be happy. There is a twist in the story at this point that I will not give away. It was unexpected.

I was mostly struck by this story at how hard it was to be a woman one-hundred years ago. It was hard work just to make it and it didn’t take much for you to lose it all. This novella would make a good companion to The House of Mirth.

Overall this collection was excellent and very thought provoking. I love the examination of morality, ethics, hypocrisy, and love.

I am happy to be a part of The Classics Circuit today. A month long celebration of Edith Wharton is always something that I would love to be a part of.

Book Source: I purchased this book at the ½ Off Book Store in Battle Creek, Michigan that no longer exists during a Wharton frenzy that I went through in college at least ten years ago. I held this book back to read at some later date . . . and the day finally came with the help of The Classics Circuit.

The Classics Circuit: Christmas Storms and Sunshine by Elizabeth Gaskell

I am honored to be a stop on The Classics Circuit today. The Classics Circuit is a wonderful way in which classic authors enjoy the honor of being celebrated on blogs in the way that new authors are when they release a new book.

I was very excited that Elizabeth Gaskell was chosen to be so honored. I first read an Elizabeth Gaskell novel when I was a teenager obsessed with everything Bronte and read her Diary of Charlotte Bronte. At that point she was “Mrs. Gaskell” and I read that she was a famous novelist and wondered what novels she had written. It wasn’t until the wonderful Wives and Daughters mini-series was going to air on Masterpiece Theatre that I finally read that novel and loved it. I then read Cranford and Lady Ludlow and Other Stories in preparation of Cranford also appearing on Masterpiece Theatre. I have enjoyed what I have read of Gaskell and hope to read more.

Gaskell is a master at writing the minutia of small town life in Victorian England. “Christmas Storms and Sunshine” is a short story from 1848 that is an excellent example of this. Mr. Hodgson is the chief compositor of the democratic Examiner paper in town while Mr. Jenkins holds the same position at the Tory Flying Post paper. Both are married men and both happen to reside in the same house in different apartments.

The political argument of the men is taken up by the wives. Although they live in the same house, they are determined to not get along. One Christmas Eve both are preparing for their Christmas celebration the next day. Mrs. Hodgson has an 18-month old son, while Mrs. Jenkins would like a baby, but only has a beloved cat. Mrs. Hodgson is discovered by Mrs. Jenkins to be beating her beloved cat over eating some leftover mutton that he found in her open cupboard. She is not pleased.

Shortly thereafter, Baby Hodgson is discovered to not be breathing properly and to be stricken with the croup. Time is of the essence and Mrs. Hodgson has to bug Mrs. Jenkins for help (after having just beaten her cat). Will Mrs. Jenkins forgive Mrs. Hodgson? Will Baby Hodgson be okay? You will have to read the story to find out.

I love one of the last lines of the story, “If any of you have any quarrels, or misunderstandings, or coolnesses, or cold shoulders, or shynesses, or tiffs, or miffs, or huffs, with any one else, just make friends before Christmas, - you will be so much merrier if you do.” What a great thought for the holidays.

Overall, I loved this short story. It had a great theme for the holidays and it also showed Gaskell’s skills at capturing not only small town life, but the emotions of the two main characters.