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The Bestselling Novel: Currents in American History and CultureMain MenuIntroductionIntersectionality and Power Relations in BestsellerismAn intersectional analysis of the concepts of gender, race and power relationships, highlighting how the overlap between these concepts fueled the novels’ rise as bestsellers.Slavery Beyond ChainsThe Variation of the Forms of Slavery Inflicted on Charlotte in Susanna Rowson's _Charlotte Temple_ and Dana in Octavia Butler's _Kindred_.Perception of Women in SocietyInspecting the ways in which the woman’s default “doomed” status can be blamed on the society's narrow perception of women in Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple and Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.Gendered Violence and Racism: The Short End of the StickThe Struggle of the Black Woman Across the CenturiesBrief summaries of course textsStudents in ENG 410: American Novel, an upper-level undergraduate seminar8105943177cf94521fefbbebb901e86333202954
Man is the Center of the Universe
12018-05-01T10:31:48-07:00Aisha Al-Ali12c48ad02761638fdbc4d58875ce0e368091e608297616Consequences of Emotional Enslavementplain2018-05-21T17:19:10-07:00Students in ENG 410: American Novel, an upper-level undergraduate seminar8105943177cf94521fefbbebb901e86333202954Both Dana and Charlotte are similarly subjected to emotional slavery. One major similarity between them is that both Charlotte and Dana are manipulated and enslaved to men they care about. This male-centeredness echoes aspects of humanism, in terms of Man, as a gender, being the focus of these women’s universe – their emotional enslavement is centered around these men.
However, there seems to be a defining difference between the two female protagonists. Charlotte remains passive and unaware, even on her deathbed, while Dana tries to fight this form of enslavement and partially succeeds to free herself from this emotional enslavement by killing Rufus in self-defense at the end of Kindred. Charlotte dies innocent at the end, naïve even to her own physical state. When asked how she feels, she replies, “Why better, much better” (Rowson 86), whilst only having a few hours to live. She dies in a state of weariness. In Dana’s case, she overcomes the attachment between her and Rufus when she realises: “I realized how easy it would be for me to continue to be still and forgive him even this” (Butler 259). She does, to an extent, break free from her emotional enslavement, and thus, her physical confinement in the past.
Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Beacon Press, 2009. Rowson. Susanna. Charlotte Temple. 1794. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
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1media/enslavement.png2018-04-18T09:40:38-07:00Students in ENG 410: American Novel, an upper-level undergraduate seminar8105943177cf94521fefbbebb901e86333202954Slavery Beyond ChainsStudents in ENG 410: American Novel, an upper-level undergraduate seminar13The Variation of the Forms of Slavery Inflicted on Charlotte in Susanna Rowson's _Charlotte Temple_ and Dana in Octavia Butler's _Kindred_.splash7181092018-10-31T17:30:57-07:00Students in ENG 410: American Novel, an upper-level undergraduate seminar8105943177cf94521fefbbebb901e86333202954
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