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| "Nativist" is the term used for someone who is born on American soil, of many generations of Americans born this way. Always meant white folks. |
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| Reconstruction was the period after the Civil War that literally involved reconstructing the South. There was a strong military presence in the South and a redistribution of lands and wealth to freed slaves. |
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| "Carpet-bagger" was the term used to refer to people from the Northern states who came down South to take advantage of cheap land and other business ventures. This was usually considered a derisive term. |
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| Effects of Reconstruction |
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Definition
- Lynching increased
- The KKK was formed
- A development of a new racism based on skin color itself (Jim Crow laws, etc.)
- Nostalgia for the South and Plantation culture |
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| Reconciliation Romances involved people from the North and the South reconciling with each other. Usually a Southern woman would get married to a Northern man. |
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| The Reconstruction also brought the idea of Imperialism to America, who started to pit herself against other world powers. |
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| Local color writing is considered to be a subgenre of Realism. Writers would find pockets of unique culture and write about it, in it's dialect, etc. Huckleberry Finn is a great example of this. |
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| 1898 was the Plessy vs. Ferguson case which held "separate but equal" to be lawful and constitutional. The Jim Crow laws were born out of this and it was the beginning of segregation. |
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| The Gilded Age is typically from the 1880s-1900s. It is characterized by many white people having ridiculous amounts of money because of oil, steel works, railroads and other raw materials. Many people had giant houses, like Flagler's Whitehall in Palm Beach. |
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| Share-cropping is a term that refers to whites giving freed slaves a small piece of land that they will work and give most of the profits to the owner. |
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| The term "great migration" refers to a mass movement of freed slaves to the North from the South. A lot of former slaves would be going into the Northern industry and move into Harlem. |
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| Samuel Clemens is the given name of Mark Twain. He was from Hannibal, Missouri and he worked on the Mississippi River for a significant portion of his life. He also fought for the Confederacy for a couple weeks. He visited Europe, wrote for a Cinncinati newspaper and married a rich girl. |
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| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
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Definition
| This books is a coming of age story by Mark Twain about Huckleberry Finn and his adventures down the Mississippi river with the runaway slave, Jim. |
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| Huck Finn is the main character in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is somewhat wild and avoids all the adults' attempts at "sivilizing" him. He creates his own rules as he explores the Mississippi river and has to determine right and wrong for himself in some sticky situations. |
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| Jim is a character in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is a slave who ran away from his mistress, Miss Watson. He is very superstitious and becomes a friend and surrogate father to Huck through the story. |
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| Pap is Huck Finn's father in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is a violent drunk who comes back to Hannibal when he realizes his son may have become rich. |
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| Tom Sawyer is Huck Finn's friend in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He has an extensive imagination, enjoys getting into trouble and ends up getting shot in the leg at the end of the story. |
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| Widow Douglas and Miss Watson |
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Definition
| These two characters are from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They are sisters and they take Huck Finn in to "sivilize" him. They attempt to teach him manners, hygiene and religion, but their attempts mainly fail. |
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| The Duke and the Dauphin are two con men in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They swindle several towns by putting on "plays." Eventually they go too far and are caught in their lies. |
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Racism and Slavery in
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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| When Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, slavery was abolished but the race issue was still strained. Since Huck Finn was in the time before, we might read the issue of racism and slavery as an allegorical representation of post-emancipation. Moral confusion has a large part in this aspect of the story. |
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| A bildungsroman is a coming-of-age story, something that deals with personal development. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a bildungsroman. |
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| An iconoclast is a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions. |
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| The term "noveau riche" means "newly rich." It is used to refer to the distinction between people with old family money and people with new wealth. |
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| Howells was born in Martin's Ferry, Ohio. He knew many languages and actually held a political office in Italy. He is most known for his editorial work and wrote a lot of literary criticism. |
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| The Atlantic Monthly is a journal that William Dean Howells was once the editor of. It features stories, poetry, news, etc. |
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| Swedenborgians were a pseudo-Christian group and their leader Swedenborg was a medium and a spiritist. William Dean Howells came from a family of Swedenborgians. |
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| The Rise of Silas Lapham is a novel by William Dean Howells. It chronicles the struggles between old money and the noveau riche in the families of the Coreys and the Laphams. |
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| Silas Lapham is a character in Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. He made his fortune in paint and is considered to be noveau riche. He likes to brag about his successes and pretends to know how the other half lives. |
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| Persis Lapham is the wife of Silas Lapham in Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. She is a strong female character that balances out Silas' bragging with reason and calm advice.She calls him out on his past treatment of Rogers. |
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Irene Lapham is Silas Lapham's youngest daughter in Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. She is known for her extraordinary beauty, but is said to not be extremely intelligent or sensible. She falls in love with Tom Corey.
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| Penelope Lapham is Silas Lapham's eldest daughter in Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. She is sarcastic and witty and has fallen in love with Tom Corey despite her sister's feelings. She tries to remove herself from the situation because of her loyalty to her sister. |
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| Tom Corey is a rich young man in Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. He says he believes in Silas' paint andbecomes his employee. After many visits to the Lapham house, he falls in love with Penelope. |
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| Bromfield Corey is Tom Corey's father in Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. He comes from old money and belongs to a completely different society than Lapham. |
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Definition
| Rogers is Silas' former business partner in Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. He invested a lot of money into Silas' paint business, but Silas pushed him out of the company because of his lack of loyalty to the paint idea and his bad business practices. Silas later leads Rogers money for another business venture. |
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| Eye dialect is a form of writing that, through dialogue, tries to alienate the reader and force the reader to pay attention to the strangeness of the language. |
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| Herman Melville was a realist writer. His first novel was Typee, about Polynesians, which was very well received. As he got older, his work became more experimental and focused less on the adventure novel and more on universal concepts. |
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| Allegory is the intention of the writer to write on two levels simultaneously, the figurative and the literal. (E.G. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) |
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| Billy Budd is a short story by Herman Melville. It focuses on a sailor, Billy Budd, who is an inherently good person who does his job well. He gets on the bad side of the ship's master-at-arms and ends up killing him after a false accusation. Because of the Naval justice system, Billy Budd ends up hanging for his crime. |
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Definition
| Billy Budd is the main character of Melville's short story of the same name. He is described as the epitome of a human man, but he has a disibility of a stutter. Because he can't defend himself against accusations against him with his words, he strikes out with his strength and accidentally kills a man. |
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| John Claggart is the master-at-arms of the Bellipotent in Melville's Billy Budd. He dislikes Billy Budd because of his beauty and his goodness and takes a false accusation against him to the Captain. He dies as a result of that confrontation and is later portrayed as the beloved innocent party in the newspaper. |
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| Captain Edward Fairfax Vere |
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Definition
| Captain Vere is the captain of the Bellipotent in Melville's Billy Budd. He respects Billy Budd but has to listen to Claggart's accusations and respect the laws to which they are bound. His condemnation of Billy Budd haunts him to his grave and his last words are "Billy Budd . . . Billy Budd." |
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| The Dansker is an old man who is Billy's friend in Melville's Billy Budd. He warns Billy that Claggart is after him. |
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Term
The Individual vs. Society in
Billy Budd |
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Definition
- The small Rights-of-Man boat vs. the warship Bellipotent
- Billy's life vs. Naval law |
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| Henry James is a writer was who known as a "Man of Letters," which means he was an accomplished writer of many genres. He was high born and spent lots of time in Europe. He also wrote early literary criticism. |
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| Daisy Miller is short story by Henry James. It's about Winterbourne and his curiosity about the young Daisy Miller, who defies all propriety of European society. |
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| Daisy is an American traveling Europe with her mother and younger brother in Henry James' Daisy Miller. She doesn't care for the propriety of European upper classes and goes around spending time with men that she befriends in varoius countries. She is rebellious, a flirt and ultimately dies of Roman Fever. |
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| Winterbourne is the main character of Henry James' Daisy Miller. He is drawn to Daisy and is curious about her intentions with the men she spends time with. He has a woman back in Geneva. He is also somewhat hypocritical in that he wants to take Daisy out without a chaperone, but scolds her for walking down the street with Giovanelli. |
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| Mrs. Costello is Winterbourne's aunt in Henry James' Daisy Miller. She wholeheartedly disapproves of Daisy, her family and Winterbourne's association with her. |
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| Eugenio is the courier for the Miller family in Henry James' Daisy Miller. He is stiff, proper and regards Winterbourne with distaste.He also attempts to reign in Daisy's adventurous nature. |
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| Giovanelli is Daisy's main male friend throughout Henry James' Daisy Miller. He is a low born Italian man that everyone in the story, except Daisy, disapproves of. In the end of the novel, he attests to Daisy's innocence. |
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| Mrs. Walker is a prominent society figure in Rome in Henry James' Daisy Miller. She tries several times to reign in Daisy and keep her from embarassing the community and herself. She warns Winterbourne against Daisy as well. |
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The term "novel of manners" is a book written about high class society.
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| Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis, but lives in New Orleans for a significant portion of her life. The Awakening is her most known work and she was an early flash fiction writer. She often wrote about women's issues such as equality and gender roles. |
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| Kate Chopin's short story Desiree's Baby is about race and mixed race. Desiree has a baby and because the baby is obviously of mixed race, her husband reacts very negatively towards her making her feel it is her fault. She eventually drowns herself and the baby. |
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| Desiree is the main character in Kate Chopin's Desiree's Baby. Desiree falls in love with Armand Aubigny and they have a child. She is adopted and the child turns out to be of mixed race, so Armand makes her feel it is her fault and that he is disowning his child by her. She drowns herself and her child. |
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Term
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Definition
| Armand is a central character in Kate Chopin's Desiree's Baby. He is a prideful character and blames the baby's race on Desiree even though he knows he is of mixed race. His actions and words ultimately cause Desiree to kill herself and the baby. |
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| Madame Valmonde is Desiree's mother figure in Kate Chopin's Desiree's Baby. She sees the race of the baby at first glance, but allows Desiree to find out for herself at the end of the story. |
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| Emily Dickinson was from Massachussetts and was a recluse for most of her life. Her poems were initially published anonymously and only after her death did her sister discover her notebooks. Her poems were short and untitled. The puncutation is what she is most known for. |
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| Because I Could Not Stop for Death |
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Definition
| Because I Could Not Stop for Death is a poem by Emily Dickinson. It tells of a chariot taking the speaker and someone else towards eternity and immortality in death. |
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| I Heard a Fly Buzz is a poem by Emily Dickinson. It is about the exact moment of death and it is written after the death has already occurred. It depicts death as something very calm and natural vs. something terrifying. |
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Term
| Wild Nights - Wild Nights! |
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Definition
| Wild Nights - Wild Nights! is a poem by Emily Dickinson. It is a love poem and could be viewed as very raunchy and sexual. It has a very free form. |
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| Louisiana in the 19th Century |
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Definition
| Louisiana was a very complicated state in relation to race issues. There were names to color-code people according to how much white or black they had in them and there was a separate class of people under the "Creole" designation. |
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| In Louisiana in the 19th century, "Creole" meant that someone had pure French blood and that they were born on American soil. |
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| Louise Mallard is the main character in Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour. She is thrilled when she learns of her husband's death because she realizes the freedom that will come out of it. When she sees him reentering the house at the end of the story, she dies. |
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| Brently Mallard is a character in Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour. He is the husband of Louise Mallard who supposedly dies in a train accident. |
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Definition
| Story of an Hour is one of Kate Chopin's flash fiction pieces. It tells of a woman who, upon learning about her husband's death, feels happy at the prospect of true freedom. When he walks back in the door, however, she dies. Of joy? Of sadness? |
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