A Brief Analysis of Journal Entries

for Studies in American Lit: Heroism and Humility

by Kari Sommers

The journal entries for Studies in American Literature: Heroism and Humility seem to play off of each other quite nicely; the students in the class often make the same observations about their assigned readings for each class, and they also seem to enjoy (and complain about) many of the same things. The journal assignment was created as a sounding-board for the students to make both the professor and each other aware of what they were getting out of the readings. Students were encouraged to explore what it was that made something from the reading noteworthy or troublesome. As the course progressed and the nature of both the literature and the students’ reactions to it changed, several patterns emerged.

The first book on the syllabus was The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. As many of the students noted in their journal entries, this novel is commonly read for high school English classes. This seemed to result in two phenomena: (1) many of the students had forgotten most of the plot and were somewhat interested to explore it again, and (2) many of the students also seemed to have a negative attitude toward the book before they had read much of it because they remembered disliking it in high school. Most of the parts of The Scarlet Letter that were discussed in the journals seemed to relate to either one or the other of these observations. 

The negative observations made about the novel appeared to be reminiscent of the negative observations that would likely be made by a high school student reading it; thus, it seems plausible that those students who had previously read the book for school only remembered the parts they disliked and immediately applied them to the book when they were forced to read it again. These complaints focused mainly on the narration of the novel. Seven entries expressed extreme frustration with Hawthorne’s writing style; most of these seven noted the excessive amount of detail the author employs as the most annoying aspect of the book.

Many of the students were extremely critical of the characters Dimmesdale and Chillingsworth; the consensus seemed to be that they were weak men who didn’t have enough backbone to do anything noble. Additionally, several students also mentioned their dislike of all of the Puritans, mainly because they were so unwilling to consider the rest of Hester’s story and who Pearl’s father was (and whether he might be right under their noses). 

For some of the students, reading the book again, coupled with a few more years of education, seemed to make them more aware of elements below the surface of the plot that could be analyzed. One of these elements was Hester’s nature; could she be held up as a heroine (or hero)? Why did she go to such lengths to protect Pearl’s father? The most intriguing discussion, however, involved the origin and meaning of Pearl’s name, and of the child herself. This is definitely a case of one student bringing it up first and the other students catching on and adding their two cents. In some such instances, this results in several similar-sounding journals; in this case, however, the students who later discussed Pearl added new speculation to the forum and made it a much richer discussion.

The second novel on the syllabus, Moby Dick, fell into a trend similar to that of The Scarlet Letter. At first, the students seemed so glad to be done with The Scarlet Letter that they immediately praised the comparably fast pacing of Moby Dick, and journal entries for the first few days of Moby Dick were rather upbeat, especially in comparison to those at the end of The Scarlet Letter. Students examined Ishmael, Queequeg, and, in particular, Captain Ahab. Their analyses classified him as everything from an intriguing hero to a psychotic and tortured soul. In discussing the characters, several of them commented on the wide cultural diversity found within the crew of the Pequod. However, after a few days of reading Moby Dick, the excitement died down and many students reiterated the same problems they found with Hawthorne’s book: there was too much detail and it moved too slow. In addition, many also commented that the whaling scenes were too graphic, although a few felt that they made the reader experience what it was really like on a whaling ship.

While the discussion seemed to be going in many different directions on the same few topics at first, the diversity of the discussion seemed to slow down about halfway through, and several of the students reiterated many of the same things that their classmates had written in their journals without adding much to it. Some of the more common themes discussed included the Biblical and religious references that came up in the text, the overall dramatic style of the novel, the ways Melville portrayed the whale killing, Moby Dick as a symbol (and what he might represent), the significance of the coffin (both Ahab making it and waiting to die and the fact that it saved Ishmael’s life), and the way the exciting and relatively quick ending helped to redeem the book.

The length of the journal entries for The Scarlet Letter started out relatively long but diminished in size as the class became somewhat bored with the book. Moby Dick’s entries did not pick up in size until the end, when the class seemed to share mutual excitement about (1) the exciting grand finale of the book and (2) the fact that the book was over with.

If the popularity of a book in the class can be judged on the length of the journal entries written about it, then The Awakening was enjoyed by students far more than The Scarlet Letter or Moby Dick. Even though this seems like a somewhat hasty assumption to make, reading the journal entries for The Awakening supports the hypothesis that students enjoyed it more than the other two books. However, even though they seemed to agree almost unanimously that it was a fairly decent book, several students were overly critical of the characters in the novel, particularly Edna. Females in particular were far more judgmental of her; some even commented that, although they were strongly in favor of women’s rights, they had issues with Edna. That she was too whiney about her situation, that she used her husband as an excuse for her oppression instead of trying to find a way out of it, and that she made her life revolve around Robert, her lover, instead of herself were some of the major criticisms of Edna. As the novel progressed, however, women in the class seemed to come to understand Edna better and were far less harsh in discussing her character.

In addition to the length of the journal entries, the popularity of the book can also be seen in the wide range of topics that were talked about in the journals. In the cases of The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick, most of the journal entries revolved around a dozen or so subjects that were brought up by one student and then written on by several other students. In some cases, particularly in The Scarlet Letter, each student brought his or her own contribution into the discussion of a certain aspect of the book. In others, however, the students seemed to repeat what their peers were saying for lack of a better topic to broach. This was certainly not the case with The Awakening, however, as nearly everyone talked about something different in every journal. The only exceptions were the issue of feminism and how it related to the novel, the fact that it was a better novel than the previous two, what Edna’s “awakening” really was and whether it was more than just sexual in nature, and the confusing nature of her relationship with Robert. Some of the more interesting aspects of the novel that were discussed by only one or two people were the possibility of symbolism in the midnight swim, whether or not it was written to empower women, coming to identify with Edna by the end of the book, and speculating on what the implications of her suicide could be and what it could be saying about the norms of society, as well as what happens when someone breaks them.

The existence of an online discussion group for a literature class allows for a different kind of outlet for students; it allows students who do not get to contribute to the discussion in class (or who do not want to contribute to the discussion in class) to still be able to share their thoughts with their classmates. In addition, with novels such as The Awakening that raise far too many discussion topics to cover in class, the online discussion group allows for everyone’s ideas to be shared so that the entire class may benefit from them.

For Jeff Gundy’s commentary on the use of online journals in this course, click here.