What is American Literature? - Exemplified by Some of Its Greatest Writers

American literature has covered all kinds of subjects and genres. The one thing that remains the same is that it has always been a struggle to forge a truly "American" identity given the fact that our nation is one of immigrants. On the beginning of the syllabus, "Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldúa tells us that the border is "una herida abierta

Langston Hughes is one writer that takes on this voyage of discovery. Before the Harlem Renaissance, American literature was only open to white men. Langston Hughes takes an earlier poem by Walt Whitman about singing America. But Langston Hughes writes "I, Too" to see that he is also the voice of America, even as a black man. He, too, sings America, and there will be a day when America recognizes this as stated in the line "I, too, am America. He is clear in his own identity and feels sure that America will someday recognize his value. Langston Hughes and others from the Harlem Renaissance truly opened the door for other minority authors to discuss their own ideas about what it meant to be American.

In Alice Walker's short story called "Everyday Use, " Dee represents the struggle for identity. Mama and Maggie are very clear about who they are and what their capabilities are. However, Dee struggles with the word heritage. She wants a dasher and some quilts from her mother because they are "cool" now and worth money. She will hang them in her house to show her "heritage," but she knows nothing about them nor cares to know. She has even changed her name to Wangero because she does not want to be named for the "people who oppressed her" even though her mother tells her that her name came from her own Aunt Dicie (Dee) and that name came from Grandma Dee. Wangero tells her mother that she is simple and doesn't understand her heritage, even though Mama and Maggie seem to know their heritage and live it everyday. Dee makes a statement about the quilts. She says, "But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that! She can always make some more," I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt" (Walker). And that is precisely the point. As far as Maggie and Mama are concerned, the quilts should be put to everyday use and appreciated for the workmanship of their ancestors rather than simply valued because they are old or worth money. Dee struggles the same struggle of many African Americans during the "back to Africa" movement. Does one change her name to take power away from an oppressor or be content with a family name? Where are your true roots-in Africa with your ancestors or here in America with your more recent ancestors?

In Joy Harjo's call it fear the poem is about remembering and moving forward forging and identity the only way Native Americans can. She talks about "walking backwards" and "talking backwards" in order to steer the idea of remembering the past, remembering the struggles of your ancestors as you move forward. The past and her struggles are different than in the past, but they are the same too. The voices are "not into the Rio Grande, but into the music barely coming through Sunday church singing from the radio. Battery-worn down but the voices talking backwards" (Harjo). She is struggling to find herself in the modern world while not losing her sense of the past.

Zora Neale Hurston is another author who has much to say about the idea of being American. She says that she first discovers she is colored when she leaves Eatonville, her hometown. She describes herself as not "tragically colored" and says later, "I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within the boundaries. My country, right or wrong" (Hurston). She is a part of the great mixing of races in this country, and she feels that she could not be a citizen of anywhere else. She is the idea of blended America. She knows that blacks have been discriminated against, including herself, but this is her home nonetheless.

Even in the poem of a white woman like Sylvia Plath, the idea of reinventing and remaking oneself is apparent. Her poem "Lady Lazarus" in some ways answers the question of what it is like to be a woman in the 1950's in America. Plath was a wife and mother who struggled with depression, and she strives to tell others that not all American women are meant to be housewives. She attempts suicide and is in a way remaking herself by not attaining her ends. "It's the theatrical comeback in broad daylight to the same place, the same face, the same brute. Amused shout "A miracle." That knocks me out" (Plath). It is almost funny that anybody cares. In the ending, Plath says, "Out of the ash, I rise with my red hair. And I eat men like air" (Plath). This is her way to strike back against the men who have oppressed her and her chance to remake herself. This is Plath's way of struggling for her own idea of the American identity.

Claude McKay has something to say about American identity as well. He writes "If We Must Die" as a response to race riots in 1919 where whites made assaults in black neighborhoods. He writes to rally black people, to let them know that they do indeed have an identity here in America, and that identity is as important as any white person's. "What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back" (McKay). Blacks must not ever give up on their fight for rights and an identity of their own in America. They must fight back in order to fight for their rights and their just dues. McKay makes this very clear in the poem.

Since America has always been a "melting pot" or more aptly renamed a "salad bowl" of cultures, races and backgrounds, it seems only fitting that American literature itself should be about that quest for a truly American identity. From the earliest point of fiction on, people like Washington Irving and James Fennimore Cooper were writing about what it is like to be an American. With slavery and other inequities perpetrated on minorities and women, these people struggled even more to find that American identity. Most of the authors discussed had unique viewpoints about what it meant to be American whether that be a woman in America, or a black man or black woman in America. How do we balance what we are with the concept of being American?

Works Cited

American Passages: A Literary Survey. Accessed at Web Site: http://learner.org/amerpass/unit16/index.html

The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 7^th Edition. Langston Hughes, I, Too, 2266.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 7^th Edition. Claude McKay, If We Must Die. 2147.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7^th Edition. Zora Neale Hurston. How It Feels to be Colored Me. 2158-2161.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7^th Edition. Sylvia Plath. Lady Lazarus. 2654-2656.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7^th Edition. Joy Harjo. Call It Fear. 2805-2808.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7^th Edition. Alice Walker. Everyday Use. 2772-2778.