19th century

The Spiritual vs. the Corporeal in the American Renaissance

In Nature, Emerson defines Nature as everything but the human mind/spirit: “Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE.” Emerson includes even his own body as part of Nature. Emerson does not entirely denigrate all things physical, as he sees the natural world as corresponding to the spiritual. Nevertheless, his thought is, broadly speaking, Platonic in privileging the spiritual over the physical.

Similarly, in “Resistance to Civil Government,” Thoreau describes the night he spent in jail for refusing to pay taxes that would, however indirectly, support the Mexican War. Thoreau follows Emerson in defining his body as incidental to his identity: “As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body.”

Melville seems to share Emerson and Thoreau’s feelings toward embodiment in Moby-Dick. Despite dramatic differences between Ahab and Ishmael, both privilege the spiritual over the corporeal. Early in the novel, Ishmael says, “Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.” On the second day of the Pequod’s doomed encounter with Moby Dick, Ahab laments that his body’s strength does not match his iron will: “Accursed fate! that the unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!” Starbuck thinks Ahab is disparaging him, but he clarifies that the “craven mate” is his body. Ahab depicts his soul as a fearless captain and his body as a cowardly first mate who cannot execute his captains orders.

Against Civilization

A major theme of much 19th century American literature is the rejection of “civilization,” usually construed as the norms adopted by the wider community. This stance is epitomized by Huck Finn’s decision to “light out for the territories,” as well as his dislike of sleeping indoors, wearing uncomfortable clothes, and attending Sunday school. Similarly, Thoreau’s rejection of conformity throughout Walden reflects a desire to redefine civilization in radical different terms from those understood by his Concord neighbors. Thoreau has no patience for commercial success. He has an ascetic tendency that rejects the desire for fine food, excess clothing, and elaborate shelter. He lives at the edge of town, at Walden Pond, much as Huck seeks the frontier. According to Stephen Railton, we might also include James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty Bumppo, Melville’s Bartleby, Kate Chopin’s Edna, and Faulkner’s Ike McCaslin in this category of protagonists.

Albion Tourgee vs. Booker T. Washington

Tourgee and Washington both emphasize the importance of education in elevating Southern black people during Reconstruction. Much of Tourgee’s Bricks Without Straw revolves around the creation of a school for the black children of Red Wing. Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery, chronicles his own education at Hampton and his founding of Tuskegee. Tourgee and Washington, however, disagree on the importance of politics. While Washington eschewed a career in politics for one in education, Tourgee emphasizes how white Southerners forced black men out of politics and contested their voting rights. Whereas Tourgee portrays Southern whites as being hostile to black voters and politicians, as well as their white allies, Washington focuses on harmony between the races. For Washington, commercial interdependence, such as when white Southerners buy bricks from Tuskegee, is more essential than political participation.

Sympathy vs Conscience

There is an interesting transition from a mid-nineteenth century emphasis on sympathy to a late-nineteenth century focus on conscience. Sentimental novels, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and slave narratives, such as Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, seek to arouse the reader’s sympathy. By portraying the suffering of the enslaved, authors like Stowe and Jacobs moved readers to feel compassion for the victims and righteous anger for the villains. Realist novels a couple of decades later, however, focus more on the individual’s conscience. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and William Dean Howells’s The Rise of Silas Lapham both feature protagonists wrestling with their consciences. Twain emphasizes the fallibility of conscience, as Huck’s makes him feel wrong for helping Jim escape slavery. Howells’s novel portrays the conflict between sympathy and conscience, as Rodgers evokes Silas’s sympathy for his wife in trying to persuade him to a shady business deal. Charles Chestnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition wants to evoke sympathy for the plight of African Americans during the “redemption” of the South by white supremacists, but it is more interested in exploring the process by which Southerners appeased their own consciences while defrauding, disenfranchising, and lynching their black neighbors.

On Christian Slave Owners: Stowe vs. Douglass

Harriet Beecher Stowe portrays Christianity as a positive influence on slave owners. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for instance, Emily Shelby educates her slaves and comes to doubt the validity of the institution itself because she is a Christian. Little Eva’s abundant kindness to Tom and the rest of her father’s slaves also stems from her Christianity. Conversely, Stowe characterizes non-believers, like Simon Legree, as cruel and debauched. Frederick Douglass, however, presents the situation as being exactly opposite. Douglass argues that Christians make the worst slave owners because their brand of religion only reinforces their sense of their absolute mastery over their slaves.

On Merchants: Parker vs Brownson

Theodore Parker and Orestes Brownson both address the growing power of the rising commercial class in the mid-nineteenth century U.S. Defining merchants as those who profit, not form their own labor, but from the labor of others, both Parker and Brownson see this class as central to reforming the nation. While in “A Sermon of Merchants” Parker exhorts merchants to use their influence righteously, Brownson in “The Laboring Classes” wants to dismantle their power by abolishing the inheritance of property.

Dimmesdale vs. Hooper

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Arthur Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter and Father Hooper from “The Minister’s Black Veil” have a kind of inverse relationship. Dimmesdale is tormented with guilt for a sin which he is unable to confess. He is beloved by his parishioners and believed to be a paragon of piety. Father Hooper, who refuses to explain why he wears a black veil over his face, terrifies and alienates his parishioners by the veil’s symbolic suggestion of hidden sin.