2. SOCIO-CULTURAL BACKGROUND IN THE
USA (19TH CENTURY)
Period known as the age of National Literature due to its great literary giants:
Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman and Melville.
Jacksonian democracy: not exactly what we understand by democracy nowadays
(black codes, quota laws) did not guarantee the equality of opportunities.
Industrial development worked out the conflict between North and South: the
North was a new industrial area with labour union, while the south used
afroamerican workers as a part of the production.
3. Changes through literature
1.- Abolitionism: the search of liberty, equality and
fraternity. Opposed to the fugitive slave law.
2.- Intellectuals with a passion for reform
3.- Philosophical quest of the human being (dealing
with the mysteries of life)
4. Melville: MOBY DICK
The extraordinary
creativity in his novels
Fresh story as an autobiography: he was a
merchant boy who used to work on an ocean ship
5. MOBY DICK: Melville´s masterpiece
THEMES: STRUGGLE BETWEEN TWO POWERS:
GOOD vs EVIL FREEDOM vs
FATE BELIEF vs NON BELIEF
SAFETY vs DANGER
6. Moby Dick
Main character: Ishmael, who narrates the story in the
first person.
Plot: Tragic drama of pride and pursuit followed by
revenge. It is considered to be a national epic about the
obsessive hatred of Moby Dick felt by the whale ship´´
captain Ahab. It talks about the tension of the three-
day-chase of the White Whale and the eventual,
inevitable disaster when the whale kills Ahab and then
smashes the Pequod.
7. Edgar Allan Poe: Tales / short stories
Biography:
1.- Orphaned at the age of 2, he was never legally adopted, so he could not have a normal life.
His uncle and aunt spoiled him. He entered university but never finished because of gambling
and drinking, but he started writing fiction.
2.- He married his cousin, against his family opposition. She was much younger. She died of
tuberculosis, so he started drinking heavily and died an alcoholic, being found on the streets.
3.- Due to his wife/cousin's death and the way he lived his literary style is gothic: He talks about
decomposition, mourning, premature burial, diseases, death,
8. The black cat
His stories have the gothic-romantic element, like
Mary Shelley´s. He wrote horror stories like The
black cat, Berenice, etc.
He explores the world of dream and nightmare,
terror comes in a fantastic way, with a psychological
effect: talking about madness, decay and death. His
heroines usually afflicted with mysterious diseases.
9. Walt Whitman: Poetry
1.- He was an abolitionist.
2.- Whitman talks about the concepts of freedom and democracy, his
reflections on human worries.
3.-He also wrote some poems on the civil war because he travels to
the front to find his brother and is impressed and affected by the
sight of wounded soldiers, like OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN!
