The Issue of Identity in 19th Century American Literature

The American continent is viewed by some as an invention rather than as a discovery. Others, like the first settlers of the English colonies, see it as a second chance for humankind. We shall be as a city upon a hill John Winthrop said, after the disembarking from the Mayflower, continuing: The eyes of all the people are upon us. Opinions changed with time, and later started to be called a melting pot, because of its multitude of different cultures that populated the territory. Later, with the coming of the 20th century, a more costumised epithet appeared: the salad bowl; possibly because of the tendency of the newly founded nation citizens to hang on to their distinctive features. They were not satisfied with being only American citizens but wanted to emphasize on their roots (Irish-, Chinese-, African-Americans). All these frequent changes in Americans consciousness about their condition and the lack of culture, tradition, myths and distinctive features, due to the fact that there was too much diversity in order for a consensus to be reached, confusion was inevitable. This confusion led to questioning their identity as a nation, an issue that is mirrored so vividly in all forms of art, but best depicted in literature. Towards the end of the 19th century, theories of the American ethos/psyche were made and the one who better formulated them was Frederick Jackson Turner in his The Significance of the Frontier in the American History (1893). The Turner Thesis that left a hallmark on all aspects of American life (culture, economy, literature, etc), states that the Frontier is something dynamic, flexible, in constant movement. Also, that at the frontier, the limit between West and East, is where the clash between two opposing forces collide, wilderness-civilization, chaos-order, rural-urban, etc. Thus, the goal of this constant forwarding of the limit towards West was democracy (the rise of the common man). Moreover, he asserts that: Americas democracy did not come in America on the Mayflower, but came strong and full of life out of the American forest and has gained strength each time is touched a new frontier and twenty years later completes it with: Democracy is born on free land suggesting that American democracy is intrinsic. Turners theory about the Frontier creates a series of dichotomies that gave birth to some of the most valuable literary works; thus, American literature splits in two opposite directions. Stories populated, on the one hand, by the larger than life hero guided by moral values, helping the needy and on the other hand, the unadjusted hero, that wants to escape, run away from society and all its norms and conventions. The first who best illustrated the latter is James Fennimore Cooper in his trilogy The Leather-Stocking Tales. The dilemmatic situation the protagonist (Netty Bumpo) is in, makes him a victim of the Frontier as he cannot decide where he belongs to: away or 1

within a community and thus begins his quest for identity. Is he a social animal or an isolation/ed person? Coopers stories are written in an elegiac tone, also concerning the theme of losing contact with nature. He disapproves the rapid rhythm of the urban development and the disappearance of wilderness. Moreover, the author believes wilderness is a basic requisite for the self-consciousness he thought people need in order to still be in contact with the metaphysical aspects of life. Against the popular tendency of the time that could not decide if supported nature or civilization, Cooper tried to prevent this lack of self-consciousness with his trilogy. A good example of his pronature attitude is the critique he brings to scientific progress through a character in his last book of the trilogy, doctor Bat, who sees nature as a scientist, that is, a soulless entity and the object of his work: to classify and order its components. The literary context of the time is dominated by this preoccupation with finding ones identity. Some of the most influential authors of the time such as, Herman Melville, Stephen Crane and later in the 20th century Steinbeck, Hemingway chose to write about the unadjusted, anti-social, romantic-like, apparently misanthropic hero. For instance, Melville, in Bartleby, the Scrivener, he creates a protagonist, Bartleby, that, although is more than capable to function in society he cannot go away from it. After becoming a machine-like copyist in a world surrounded by walls he takes a drastic decision: he decides to hunger himself to death. The distance from society would be an option but he is not able to decide. His impotence, human alienation in modern capitalist society incapacity to communicate and loss of identity make him a victim of society impossible to be saved. The consequence of his inability to decide, whether to conform or to give up on society is death or exclusion from it. Another illustration of the protagonist that cannot decide who he is, we can find in Stephen Cranes The Blue Hotel. The Swede, as his name suggests, is a European immigrant looking for a new life in America. After ten years working on the east coast he seeks a new beginning beyond the Frontier. All the information he has regarding the life of the West is acquired from dime novels. His opinion is formed and he doesnt know how to act when he finds himself in an environment different from the one he imagined. After a series of unexpected events he loses all inhibition he previously had, acts disregarding all social rules when he enters a bar and, gets murdered. The literary tendency is continued by Sarah Orne Jewetts The White Heron in which, the friction is between nature, culture and civilization. The storys protagonist is a young girl that lives in the forest who must decide whether or not to tell the handsome young scientist where the rare bird he is looking for is. The hunter-scientist is initially considered an intruder in the girls world that wants to destroy it and the author suggests this very idea. The atmosphere is one of a natural apocalypse and this is anticipated by the shadows by which the forest is filled with. All these elements allude to the end of a cycle, the end of the life as the girl knew it. At first, Sylvia is the representation of nature, however, at a certain moment she finds herself between nature and civilization and here is where the conflict emerges together with the girls confusion: Does she belong to the world she has lived in until that moment or to the new one, represented by 2

the scientist? Actually, the answer of this interrogation lies in the telling or not telling the secret of the rare birds nest. If she tells it, she will betray her world, hence, stop being a part of the nature but if she doesnt, it wouldnt matter anyway because she cant stop the rapidly approaching inherent changes coming from the East, thus, making this option futile. But she chooses a third option: to keep silence as a choice of life over knowledge (culture, civilization). As Bartleby, she does not act and by doing so, she doesnt take part on neither of the two dialectical directions; she stays outside history. The end of the story is most illustrative for her recently lost identity. She is now a lonely county girl she belongs to neither of the worlds. Similarly, in The Leader of the People, John Steinbeck tells us the story of a child, Jody, going through the same existential issues as the previously mentioned protagonists. This is a story of adolescent initiation into the world of death, birth and disappointment; it is filled with antithetic elements and the battlefield of these forces is Jody. He is at an age when he has to decide who he wants to become and his two grat models are his father and Grandfather. The first is pragmatic, down-to-earth, rigid, and predictable while the latter is flexible, reckless and restless. Until now, he wasnt able to see the irreconcilable nature of the two characters and finds himself in the dilemmatic situation of the quester; the quester of identity. The recent disappointment may be viewed as a cathartic process of initiation. The happy innocent years of childhood are lost and now, he has to face manhood with all its compromises and disappointments. Furthermore, Jodys situation is not the worst from the story. Grandfather came to realize his futile efforts to keep the past alive in his old age. Until now he was caught in the past, longing for the days of westering. Grandfather let the ocean take the purpose out of him. Theres a line of old men along the shore...hating the ocean because it stopped them tells Jody his grandfather. He used to be someone when he was westering; he only had a purpose westering and without it he cannot find a direction in life for without a purpose man is nothing. Another epitome-character illustrating the struggle to find oneself is found in Washington Irvings Rip van Winkle. The protagonist, Rip, has difficulty finding himself throughout the story. Everything is falling apart around him and he receives constant nagging from his wife, but deserving it. He is lazy idle and emotionally ambivalent. Unable to appreciate what he had when the time was right, he lost everything. Realizing, however, too late, that life is too short to not appreciate everything in it before it has gone Rip Van Winkle is not incapable to find his place neither his pre-sleep world neither in the new one. In the end, he becomes a story-teller in order to construct his identity through story-telling. Consequently, the ambiguous, if existent, identity of the American people is understandable. They are the consequence of an unprecedented process of occupation, expansion in population and reinvention of the self and the national. The process began with the first settlers in the New World, who were not Americans at all, but Europeans that saw the land as a spiritual and physical void which needs to be conquered and 3

civilized in the name of Christianity. The land gave them the supplies for building from zero a society and natures purpose was to be used for the accomplishment of this endeavor. The goal, to be explicit, was to destroy nature in order to build another civilization, similar to the one they came from. The wilderness not only stood in their way but they feared it. This led to the appearance of the Frontier, a Hegelian-like phenomenon, where the dialectical elements collide. Following Hegels theory, the collision always brings progress, and that it did. It brought financial, industrial, scientific progress but on its way to the peaks of progress, it has mutilated souls; it brought confusion, restlessness, alienation, grief and despair.

References: 1 - Baird, Shuman, R., 2002 - Great American Writers: Twentieth Century, New York, Marshall Cavendish 2 - www.xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/nature/cap2.html 3 www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmRedPony19.asp

Stratan Sebastian Spaniola-Engleza (an III) 4