Hess, J / English 11

THE CRUCIBLE - This four-act play was written in 1953 as an allegory for McCarthyist anti-communism, but, like The Scarlet Letter, is also set in Puritanical New England. Salem, Massachusetts, is ostentatiously pious, but filled with lust, greed, rancor, bigotry, and mistrust. When accusations of witchcraft begin to tear the community apart, religion and government are used as tools for personal revenge and political gain. John Proctor, a respected farmer with his own personal struggles, confronts a system that twists right and wrong, and sentences to death those who will not compromise their principles or betray their friends.

THE SCARLET LETTER - Written in 1850, but set in 1600's Boston, the novel begins with the public punishment and humiliation of Hester Prynne, condemned to forever wear a red letter "A" for having committed adultery and mothered a child by a secret lover. Hester protects the identity of her lover (even as he struggles with the guilt of his cowardice), raising their daughter as a single mother in a society that has judged and ostracized her. Her husband, meanwhile, hiding his identity from the community, relentless seeks the man that Hester loves. Hester remains one of the strongest and most engaging protagonists in American literature, a champion of women's rights, of individual resolve, and ethical clarity.

MOBY-DICK - A young sailor, Ishmael, recounts the doomed voyage of the Pequod, a nineteenth-century whaling vessel controlled by the charismatic and megalomaniacal Captain Ahab, who seeks revenge against Moby-Dick, the white whale that had bitten off his leg and left him crippled. The novel expertly weaves symbolism, metaphor, irregular diction, poetic and theatrical devices, and exposition to create a complex and compelling narrative that explores the nature and motives of the universe, the identity and role of man, the limits of human understanding and power, and the multiple and inconclusive paradigms of existence.

ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN - Humorous and irreverent, this sequel to the young adult novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is narrated in the vernacular by an illiterate but wily child. Eager to escape the dreariness of church and school, Huck escapes his small Missouri town on a raft with Jim, a runaway slave trying to reunite with his family. The novel scathingly satirizes American society, and especially southern society, for its hypocrisies, especially concerning race. The novel may be viewed as a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, in which Huck learns the value of humanity, or as a picaresque novel, in which Huck remains static and ignorant.

THE GREAT GATSBY - The quintessential examination of American hope, greed, excess, capitalism, and entrenched privilege, F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece is told from the perspective of young Nick Carroway, an ambitious midwesterner who has come to New York City to make his fortune as a bonds trader. Renting a small guesthouse in the "new money" suburb of West Egg, Nick becomes the important link between his beautiful cousin Daisy, her old-money husband Tom Callahan, and Nick's mysterious and rich neighbor, Jay Gatsby. While the characters of the novel gorge themselves on the excesses of the Gilded Age, Gatsby tries to recreate an idealized personal past, and Nick comes to see the decadence and corruption of his society and class as unbearable.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH - If in The Great Gatsby, America has everything and is empty in its interpersonal relationships, in The Grapes of Wrath we have nothing but each other. The protagonists of Steinbeck's masterpiece, the Joad family, lose their Oklahoma farm to the dust bowl during the Great Depression. Seeking a better life, the family packs into an old car and makes the dangerous trek west, along with thousands of others, to find work and a future in California. As hardships increase, as institutional indifference and economic oppression choke their hopes, the Joads and the other Okies are forced to rely more and more on each other. The novel celebrates the morality in taking care of one another, the pricelessness of human life and the human experience, and invites America to reexamine the ways in which he prioritize our economic, political, and social power.

THE COLOR PURPLE - An epistolary powerhouse, The Color Purple forces us from the incorrect paradigm that straight, white men have the singular, or even the "correct," American experience. Young Celie, victim of intense domestic abuse, inhabits a world of extreme misogyny. From her abusive father's house to an abusive and neglectful husband's, Celie draws strength from, and learns about herself and her own power from, the women in her life. The Color Purple celebrates voices that are often disempowered, and specifically champions women of color, and their relationships with each other, as more powerful than the forces of oppression in American society.

Last Modified on August 17, 2020