Part 1.

1. An allegory is a narrative or a story that contains a second meaning. It is similar to a metaphor, but the comparison lasts throughout the whole text rather than a line or two. One example of an allegory that we have read would be Anne Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book”. This is a poem in which Bradstreet discusses the creation and publication of her first book of poetry. She discusses the book as her child, calling it a “rambling brat” (l. 8). She delves into this allegory by talking about how she tried to make her child more fit for the public eye, but still, “In this array, ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam” (l. 19). This is about her child, how she failed as a mother and thus cast it from her house, but it is also about her poetry book in that she feels like her poetry is not fit for the public eye. She knows that she is a woman being published, hence why she writes so mockingly of herself while also using heroic couplets. She knows as a woman her place is in the home, not the public, so she uses this metaphor of her book being her child to show the public that she did everything she could. The allegory is meant to protect her from the accusations of the public, that she neglected her house and her duties while writing, but with the use of her book being a child, she is able to deflect that and show herself still in the role of a mother.
2. The American Renaissance was the flourishing of American literature post-revolution. Because the American people no longer wanted to associate their culture with the British, there came a flood of literature written to be American heritage. The hallmarks of American Renaissance writing typically include common American settings, like rolling hills and mountains, or wheat fields. Anything that stood out to the public as an American landmark was included in literature. The point was to be distinctly un-British, and thus the inclusion of Native American characters was common throughout stories. The use of Natives as characters was an interesting dichotomy as the Natives in fictional stories were often helpful, kind, a sort of tamed savage character, while in nonfiction and in many of the previous accounts (such as Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative), they are seen as wild, vicious, and as beastly creatures that were subhuman. The invention of the friendly Native character is something seen in Lydia Sigourney’s The Indian’s Welcome to the Pilgrim Fathers, written in 1835. In her poem, she talks about a “red-brow’d chieftain” appearing from the forest to welcome the pilgrims, and how this welcome sealed their fate (l. 18). She goes on further to say, “Thou gav’st the riches of thy streams, / The lordship o’er thy waves, / The region of thine infant dreams, / And of thy fathers’ graves,” which completely removes any agency or self-control held by the natives and places all the blame onto the pilgrims (ll. 33-36). By removing their control and their ability to make decisions, Sigourney buys into the tamed Indian stereotype perpetuated by the American Renaissance. She also, in the first stanza, marks the American landscape by discussing what the pilgrims first saw, “The rock-bound coast rose frowning nigh, / Beyond, -the wrathful main;” (ll. 4-5). This is the coastline of New England, where the first pilgrims landed in America. Sigourney’s writing is clearly indicative of the American Renaissance tradition, and is fascinating to read.

Part 2.

1. The first passage comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, also written in 1835. In the passage, the main character, Goodman Brown, is well into his adventure, having left his house against the wishes of his wife to meet with a stranger in the woods, who is seemingly the Devil. Without realizing it, Brown takes on those characteristics of the Devil, even at one point using his maple walking stick to help himself along. After doing so, he continues his walk through the woods, though the Devil is no longer by his side. He comes across the minister of the town, as well as a deacon. Hearing them in the woods adds to his suspicions that his town is caught up in devil-worship and he looks skyward as he yells in frustration. Here, he sees a black mass clouding across the sky, and hears voices drifting from it. It is meant to be a coven of townspeople flying on broomsticks, adding to the anguish of Brown. He then is so unsure of everything he becomes “maddened with despair” and “the chief horror of the scene” (pg. 1169). The horrors around him, which were numerous in the beginning, are no longer worrisome when compared to the raging Goodman Brown, flying through the woods with the Devil’s walking stick in his hand. He is even referred to as “demoniac” is his pursuit of the walking path to find the end (pg. 1169). In the noted passage, Hawthorne describes Brown’s descent. Before this passage, he was scared, he was nervous about his walk, and he thought of his town and parish as good people. By the end, he has become a horror of the forest himself, and does not care about the path before him. The path he walks on becomes a metaphor for his own descent to madness, when Hawthorne says, “The road grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced, and vanished at length” (pg. 1169). This clearly imitates Brown’s frenzied drop into being the thing he feared the most. He is devilish, wild, he is a part of the forest that terrified him at the start. He is no longer scared of the forest, and he is no longer worried about being in the wilderness with no guide. He “shrank not from [Nature’s] other horrors” because he had become its wildest. Goodman Brown had become what he initially despised. He started the story as a pious man, who looked heavenward and went to church. He ends the story maddened, frightful, and angry. His walk in the woods is very clearly a metaphor for the devolving nature of his mind. When he reaches the end of his path and finds his town practicing witchcraft and worshipping the Devil, this is the end of his hope and trust in his community. The story is left unsolved- was it merely a dream, or did Brown truly witness this event? The passage however, shows a man keen on hunting down what bothers him with no regard for his own safety. The passage also uses personification, saying “the whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds,” which matches Brown’s becoming part of the dreadful forest (pg. 1169). This forest is alive, it is nature laughing at him for his frenzy, which only makes him madder and further insane. He becomes part of the forest himself- wild and frightening, horrific and mad. His dismissal of the personified forest shows just how truly gone he is during his frenzied run.