Nick Lyons Unit 46 Secondary- English

Unit 46.
1.
The Historical Development of The United States of America
from the War of Independence to the Civil War.

Characteristic Novels: “The Scarlett Letter” and “The Red Badge

of Courage”.

Introduction

2. Historical Background

2.1 Discontent In The Colonies & The American Revolution

2.2. The American War of Independence

2.3. The Foundation & The Growth of the USA.

2.4 The Civil War

3. Literary Background

3.1 The Romantic Period: 1820-1860

3.2 Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlett Letter

3.3 The Rise of Realism 1860-1914

3.4 Stephen Crane: The Red Badge Of Courage.

4. Conclusion

5. Bibliography

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 Nick Lyons Unit 46 Secondary- English

Unit 46. The Historical Development Of The United States Of America

From The War Of Independence To The Civil War. Characteristic Novels:
“The Scarlett Letter” And “The Red Badge Of Courage”.

1. Introduction

Stripped to its essentials, the task of historian is to deal with change. And nowhere do historians
find change more manifest than when they study the United States. Almost in the twinkling of an eye
a vast, scarcely populated continent was transformed into a major industrial power. In this unit we
shall look at an important age in American history, that from the time of the War of Independence,
which led to the birth of the USA, to the Civil War, which marks the reconstruction of this very
continent.

We will also analyse the most important Literary Movements of the same period, concentrating on
the work of two outstanding figures of American Literature as suggested on the title of the unit: The
Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a story of sin and sinners valued for the allegory and
symbolism of its prose; and The Red Badge of Courage, a war novel by American author Stephen
Crane, considered one of the most influential works in American literature.

2. Historical Background

2.1 Discontent in the Colonies & The American Revolution.

Before the War of Independence English people in North America lived under the rule of the
British Empire. As the North American colonies grew tension with Britain was inevitable. The British
felt that the colonies existed for the benefit of the mother country and this attitude was bound to
cause resentment.

Indeed, relations between the colonists and the mother country turned sour after 1763. The
British had just finished fighting the Seven Years War against France. They had won Canada but the
war was very expensive and the British were keen to prevent any wars with the Native Americans. In
1763 a royal proclamation known as the Great Proclamation sought to ban any further westward
expansion. It forbade people to settle in 'any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers
which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West or Northwest'. This proclamation was ignored by the

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colonists but it also caused great resentment. The colonists objected to being told by the British
government that they could not expand westwards. It was not until 1763 that the British tried to
enforce them more rigorously, causing great resentment among the colonists.

Furthermore, in 1763 Americans paid few taxes, certainly less than the British. Thus, the British
tried to increase tax revenue through the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act of 1765 which required the
use of specially marked paper or the affixing of stamps on all wills, contracts, other legal documents,
newspapers, and even playing cards. In 1767 duties were imposed on lead, glass, paint, oil and tea. In
addition, the Declaratory Act said that parliament was sovereign over all American colonies, with
further annoyed the colonialists. The Americans despised this, demanding ‘no taxation without
representation',

After rioting in Boston from 1768 onwards, the Boston massacre in 1770 when troops fired on a
crowd of rock-throwing demonstrators, killing five tensions were further strained. In September 1774
a Continental Congress met to decide policy, denouncing British interference in American affairs and
asserting the right of colonial assemblies to pass laws and raise taxes as they saw fit.

Nevertheless, the British refused to compromise with the Americans. On 5 February 1775 they
declared that Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion. British troops were given a free hand to deal
with it. However the American colonies had militias made up of civilians and they resisted the British.

2.2 The War of Independence

The Continental Congress met again in May 1775 and agreed to raise an army. George Washington
was made its commander in chief. Congress hoped they could force the British to negotiate but
George III refused to compromise. Instead in August 1775 he declared that all the American colonies
were in a state of rebellion.France, not surprisingly, eventually became a critical ally for the
Americans. Subsequently the colonies drew up state constitutions to replace their charters.

In June 1776, a committee appointed by the Continental Congress took up the task of drafting a
declaration of independence. Its members included Thomas Jefferson (the principal author), John
Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. The Congress first voted for independence on July 2 and then
discussed the document Jefferson had prepared, making a significant change during the debates.
Jefferson's attack on slavery and the slave trade was stricken from the draft at the insistence of South
Carolina, Georgia, and some of the representatives from the northern states. The notion that "all

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men are created equal" clearly did not apply to blacks. The Declaration of Independence was signed
on 4 July 1776.

The decision to formally declare independence had not made until more than a year after the
fighting had begun. At first glance, Great Britain appeared to have enormous advantages over the
colonies. The British troops were well armed, supplied, and trained. Britain could draw on vast
economic resources and had the largest navy in the world.

But the Americans realized that the war for independence would be lost without the support of
other nations. Indeed, they had looked to France as a potential ally in the struggle with Great Britain
as early as 1774. In late 1776, with both France and Spain already secretly providing munitions and
money for the war, a delegation led by Benjamin Franklin went to Paris hoping to negotiate a formal
alliance. The Americans were fighting on their soil for their own liberties and, in short order, their
independence, all advantages to their side.

In June 1782, an American delegation led by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay opened
peace talks with British and French diplomats in Paris. Through the Peace of Paris, Great Britain
recognized the independence of the United States with the Mississippi River as its western boundary.
Americans were granted fishing rights off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and British troops and
ships were to depart from American territory "with all convenient speed."

2.3 The Foundation & the Growth of the USA.

The first national government was created through the Articles of Confederation, a document
adopted by the Second Continental Congress in November 1777. It went into effect when ratified by
all the states in March 1781.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government consisted of a unicameral (one-
house) legislature, often called the Confederation Congress. There was no national executive or
judiciary. The first Congress met in 1789 and George Washington became the first President. In 1791
ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights were ratified.

In the late 18th century and the early 19th century the population of the USA grew rapidly.
Immigrants from Europe poured into the country including many from Germany. Meanwhile the USA
expanded westward. In 1791 Vermont was admitted to the union as the 14th state. Kentucky became
the 15th state in 1792 and Tennessee the 16th in 1796. In 1803 Ohio became the 17th state.

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By 1810 the population of the USA was over 7.2 million and it continued to grow rapidly. By 1820
it was over 9.6 million and by 1840 over 17 million. More and more states were added to union.

The American economy also grew rapidly. In the south cotton expanded rapidly after Eli Whitney
invented the cotton gin in 1793. It also grew because Britain was industrializing. There was a huge
cotton industry in Britain in the early 19th century, which devoured cotton from America. In the
North trade and commerce grew rapidly. By 1860 more than 60% of the world's cotton was grown in
the USA.

In the decades after the war of 1812 the Northern States began to industrialize. Coal mining and
manufacturing industries boomed. The USA continued to grow rapidly and by 1860 its population was
31 million. New states were added. Iowa was added to the union in 1846. Wisconsin followed in 1848
and Kansas was admitted in 1861.

However the rapidly growing nation was torn apart by the issue of slavery. When the constitution
was written in 1787 many people hoped that slavery would die out of its own accord. However Eli
Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793 gave slavery a new importance in the southern states.
In the northern states slavery was gradually abolished and the USA became divided into 'free states'
and 'slave states'.

North and south were also divided over tariffs. The northern states began to industrialize in the
early 19th century. By the middle of the century the north was becoming an industrial, urban society.
Northerners wanted tariffs to protect their industries. However the south remained an agricultural
society. Its economy was based on plantations worked by slaves. North and south were quite
different economically and culturally. All such differences paved the way for the Civil War.

2.4 The Civil War

The civil war was finally provoked by the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Lincoln did not
believe he had the power to abolish slavery in states where it already existed. However, he firmly
opposed the expansion of slavery into territories of the USA, which were likely to become states in
future. His policy meant that in future free states would outnumber slave ones. However, as a result
of his election South Carolina ceded from the union on 20 December 1860. Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas followed it early in 1861. Together they formed the
Confederate States of America on 4 February 1861. Jefferson Davis(1808-1889) became the
President.

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Fighting between the Northern Unionists and the Southern Confederates began on 12 April 1861.
However the south was easily outmatched by the north, both in terms of population and therefore
soldiers, and of industrialization. The North had clear advantages over the South at the start of the
war, but despite these strengths, the North did face problems, and the South was not as weak as it
initially appeared. So, although everyone expected a short war, this was not to be the case. The
formal surrender of the South did not take place until 9 April 1865 when Lee surrendered to Grant at
Appotomax Court House. That was effectively the end of the civil war. The rest of the Confederate
forces surrendered soon afterwards. Johnston surrendered to Sherman on 18 April and the last
Confederate army surrendered on 26 May 1865. However Lincoln did not live to see the end of the
war. John Wilkes Booth assassinated him on 15 April 1865. Lincoln was watching a play in Ford's
Theater when Booth shot him in the head, Andrew Johnson taking his place his place.

At the beginning of the Civil War, the goal of the North was simply to restore the Union. In his first
inaugural address (March 4, 1861), President Abraham Lincoln made it very clear that he had no
intention of interfering with slavery where it already existed. As the conflict dragged on, however,
the president realized that the slavery issue could not be avoided-for political, military, and moral
reasons. By 1863, the purpose of the war had broadened into a crusade against slavery. Although the
overwhelming majority of southerners did not own slaves, support for slavery was widespread, and
southerners were deeply concerned about what would happen if it was abolished. At first Lincoln had
been reluctant to abolish slavery in the south. However he eventually changed his mind. On 23
September 1862 he made the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaves would be made free in any states
still in rebellion on 1 January 1863. However this only applied to areas occupied by the unionist army
after that date it did not apply to areas already under unionist control. The 13th amendment, which
was ratified by December 1865, did ban slavery.
Between 1861 and 1865, nearly three million men served in the Union and Confederate armies;
more than 600,000 were killed, and an additional 275,000 were seriously wounded. Although the
fighting ended in the spring of 1865, the sectional divisions that led to the conflict continued to fester
for generations.

3. Literary Background.

3.1 Romantic Period: 1820-1860

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During the 1820s, writers and critics called for nationalistic literature to reflect the new sense of
cultural independence from Britain. Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar
Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, and the Transcendentalists represent the first great literary generation
produced in the United States. In the case of the novelists, the Romantic vision tended to express
itself in the form Hawthorne called the “romance,” a heightened, emotional, and symbolic form of
the novel. Romances were not love stories, but serious novels that used special techniques to
communicate complex and subtle meanings.

Instead of carefully defining realistic characters through a wealth of detail, as most English or
continental novelists did, Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe shaped heroic figures larger than life, burning
with mythic significance. The typical protagonists of the American Romance are haunted, alienated
individuals. Hawthorne’s Arthur Dimmesdale or Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, Melville’s Ahab in
Moby-Dick, and the many isolated and obsessed characters of Poe’s tales are lonely protagonists
pitted against unknowable, dark fates that, in some mysterious way, grow out of their deepest
unconscious selves. The symbolic plots reveal hidden actions of the anguished spirit.

It is within such a literary tradition that we find Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece, The Scarlet
Letter, which appeared in 1850 and became an international sensation, with critics in Great Britain
and the United States proclaiming him the finest American romance writer.

3.2 Nathaniel Hawthorne: “The Scarlett Letter”.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, a fifth generation American of English descent, was born in Salem,
Massachusetts, a wealthy seaport north of Boston that specialized in East India trade. One of his
ancestors had been a judge in an earlier century, during trials in Salem of women accused of being
witches.

Hawthorne's early endeavours were mostly short stories, but even though he published many of
these tales in magazines and literary annuals, they always appeared anonymously and did little to
advance his literary career. Only when he published these stories in collections, as in Twice-Told
Tales (1837) and Mosses from an Old Manse (1846), did Hawthorne become a recognized literary
force. In 1842 he married Sophia Peabody of Salem, and Hawthorne's primary focus turned to family.
Other novels by Hawthorne include The House of Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance
(1852), and The Marble Faun (1860).

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Many of Hawthorne’s stories are set in Puritan New England, and his greatest novel, The Scarlet
Letter (1850), has become the classic portrayal of Puritan America. It tells of the passionate,
forbidden love affair linking a sensitive, religious young man, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and
the sensuous, beautiful towns-person, Hester Prynne. The young woman has been led from the town
prison with her infant daughter in her arms and on the breast of her gown "a rag of scarlet cloth" that
"assumed the shape of a letter." It was the upper-case letter "A". The Scarlet Letter "A" represents
the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin—a badge of shame—for
all to see. Hester's husband tries to get revenge by destroying Dimmesdale's mind and soul.
Dimmesdale, the father of Hester's child, tries to hide his guilt. In the end, he confesses and dies
immediately afterwards, praising God.

Thus, set in Boston around 1650 during early Puritan colonization, the novel highlights the
Calvinistic obsession with morality, sexual repression, guilt and confession, and spiritual salvation. For
its time, The Scarlet Letter was a daring and even subversive book. It treated issues that were usually
suppressed in 19th century America, such as the impact of the new, liberating democratic experience
on individual behaviour, especially on sexual and religious freedom. The book is superbly organized
and beautifully written. Appropriately, it uses allegory, a technique the early Puritan colonists
themselves practised.

One of the major themes of the novel is sin. The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the
story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it also results
in knowledge—specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be human.

Regarding symbols, firstly the rosebush, its beauty a striking contrast to all that surrounds it (as
later the beautifully embroidered scarlet A will be) is held out in part as an invitation to find "some
sweet moral blossom" in the ensuing, tragic tale and in part as an image that "the deep heart of
nature" (perhaps God) may look more kindly on the errant Hester and her child than her Puritan
neighbours do. Throughout the work, the nature images contrast with the stark darkness of the
Puritans and their systems.

Secondly Chillingworth's misshapen body reflects (or symbolizes) the anger in his soul, which
builds as the novel progresses, similar to the way Dimmesdale's illness reveals his inner turmoil. The
outward man reflects the condition of the heart.

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Also, although Pearl is a complex character, her primary function within the novel is as a symbol.
Pearl herself is the embodiment of the scarlet letter, and Hester rightly clothes her in a beautiful
dress of scarlet, embroidered with gold thread, just like the scarlet letter upon Hester's bosom.

Hawthorne himself had ambivalent feelings about the role of his ancestors in his life. In his
autobiographical sketch, Hawthorne described his ancestors as "dim and dusky", "grave, bearded,
sable-cloaked, and steel crowned", "bitter persecutors" whose "better deeds" would be diminished
by their bad ones. There can be little doubt of Hawthorne's disdain for the stern morality and rigidity
of the Puritans, and he imagined his predecessors' disdainful view of him: unsuccessful in their eyes,
worthless and disgraceful. "A writer of story books!"

3.3 The Rise of Realism 1860-1914

Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Upton Sinclair belonged to a
group of naturalists who used realism to relate the individual to society. Often they exposed social
problems and were influenced by Darwinian thought and the philosophical doctrine of determinism,
which views individuals as the helpless pawns of economic and social forces beyond their control.
Naturalists imagined society as a blind machine, godless and out of control. It daringly opened up the
seamy underside of society and such topics as divorce, sex, adultery, poverty, and crime. Naturalism
flourished as Americans became urbanized and aware of the importance of large economic and social
forces, those that were clearly coming to the fore in the period after the Civil War.

Stephen Crane's novel The Red Badge of Courage, another of the most significant and renowned
books in American literature shows traits of both such movement, belonging unequivocally to the
naturalist genre, with realism being used to great effect. The conflict of these styles mirrors the
bloody clash of the Civil War and the eternal struggle between good and evil in human nature.

3.4 Stephen Crane: “The Red Badge Of Courage”.

Stephen Crane was born November, 1, 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, the fourteenth and last child
of Reverend John Townley Crane, a Methodist Minister, and Mary Helen Peck, the daughter of a
prominent Methodist minister. After starting to write at university, his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of
the Streets he started to write Civil War memoirs, which were to become The Red Badge of Courage.
Although recognized primarily this novel, which has become an American classic, Crane is also known
for his poetry, journalism, and short stories such as "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", "The Bride
Comes to Yellow Sky", and The Monster.

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The manuscript for The Red Badge was accepted for publication as a novel in December 1894.
It quickly became a best seller, establishing Crane´s reputation as an author. It is a fictional
psychological portrait of a young soldier named Henry Fleming, tracing the thread of his emotions
and reactions to events that transpire during an unnamed battle of the Civil War. Henry is an average
farm boy from upstate New York, who seeking the glory of battle that he has read about in school,
has enlisted in the 304th New York regiment, which fights for the Northern (Unionist) forces.

Ironically, for a writer so committed to the direct portrayal of his own experience, Crane’s greatest
work is almost entirely a product of his imagination. When he wrote The Red Badge of Courage,
Crane had neither fought in war nor witnessed battle, and was forced to rely on his powers of
invention to create the extraordinarily realistic combat sequences of the novel. His work proved so
accurate that, at the time of the book’s publication, most critics assumed that Crane was an
experienced soldier.

Given the novel’s title, it is no surprise that courage—defining it, desiring it, and, ultimately,
achieving it—is the most salient element of the narrative. As the novel opens, Henry’s understanding
of courage is traditional and romantic. Henry’s understanding of courage has more to do with the
praise of his peers than any internal measure of his bravery. At the end of the novel, as the mature
Henry marches victoriously from battle, a more subtle and complex understanding of courage
emerges: it is not simply a function of other people’s opinions, but it does incorporate egocentric
concerns such as a soldier’s regard for his reputation.

The second major theme is that of manhood. He laments that education and religion have tamed
men of their natural savagery and made them so pale and domestic that there remain few ways for a
man to distinguish himself other than on the battlefield. Having this opportunity makes Henry feel
grateful to be participating in the war; he will be a hero, a real man. These early conceptions of
manhood are simplistic, romantic, adolescent fantasies. However, by the novel’s end, Henry learns
that the measure of one’s manhood lies more in the complex ways in which one negotiates one’s
mistakes and responsibilities than in one’s conduct on the battlefield.

Another theme is that of self-preservation. An anxious desire for self-preservation influences

Henry throughout the novel. When a pinecone that he throws after fleeing the battle makes a
squirrel scurry, he believes that he has stumbled upon a universal truth: each being will do whatever
it takes, including running from danger, in order to preserve itself. Henry uses this discovery to justify

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his impulse to retreat from the battlefield. He not only runs from battle, but also abandons a tattered
soldier, though he knows that the soldier is almost certain to die if he does not receive assistance.
Soon after his encounter with the squirrel, Henry discovers the corpse of a soldier. This sets in motion
Henry’s realization that the world is largely indifferent to his life and the questions that preoccupy
him, which is the last of the main themes of the novel. When he encounters the corpse, he finds that
death is nothing more than an integral and unremarkable part of nature. Together, Henry’s
encounters with the squirrel and the corpse form one of the most important passages in the novel,
for it is here that Crane establishes the formidable opposing forces in Henry’s mind: the vain belief
that human life deserves such distinctions as courage and honour, and the stark realization that,
regardless of such distinctions, all human life meets the same end.

4. Conclusion.

In this unit we have seen two wars that shaped American life for the future and two literary works
produced during this these times that have taken pride of place in the American literary canon. The
War of Independence reflects the long and tangled history of the 'special relationship' between
Britain and America, as well as the notion of the unbreakable connections between both. The Scarlett
Letter, which takes as its principal subject colonial seventeenth-century New England, was written
and published in the middle of the nineteenth century. As we have seen, in The Scarlet Letter,
Hawthorne uses the repressive, authoritarian Puritan society as an analogue for humankind in
general. The Puritan setting also enables him to portray the human soul under extreme pressures.
Hawthorne speaks specifically to American issues, but his universality and his dramatic flair have
ensured his place in the literary canon.

Between 1861 and 1865, nearly three million men served in the American Civil War between the
Union and Confederate armies; more than 600,000 were killed, and an additional 275,000 were
seriously wounded. Although the fighting ended in the spring of 1865, the sectional divisions that led
to the conflict continued to fester for generations. Of course, the Civil War had spurred much fiction,
but this fiction had been heavily idealistic, portraying the conflict as a great clash of opposed ideals.
The Red Badge of Courage shattered American preconceptions about what a war novel could be.
Crane focused on the individual psychology of a single soldier, Private Henry Fleming, during his first
experiences of battle. He does not depict a world of moral absolutes, but rather a universe utterly

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indifferent to human existence. With its combination of detailed imagery, moral ambiguity, and
psychological focus, The Red Badge of Courage exerted an enormous influence on twentieth-century
American fiction, particularly, on the writings of the modernists. These qualities continue to make the
work absorbing and important more than a century after it was written

5. Bibliography

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume one, 5th edition, Norton, 1986.

The Short Oxford History of English Literature, ed. Andrew Sanders, Oxford University Press, 1996.

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