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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

All Men Created Equal: Flannery O'Connor Responds Communism, Nina Hefner May 2017

All Men Created Equal: Flannery O'Connor Responds Communism, Nina Hefner

English Class Publications

From her mother’s farm, Andalusia in Milledgeville, Georgia, Flannery O’Connor found her writing inspiration by observing the ways of the South. Naturally, a pervasive motif in her works is racism. For instance, in “Revelation” Ruby Turpin spends a good portion of the short story thanking God that she is neither white trash nor black. In her essay “Aligning the Psychological with the Theological: Doubling and Race in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction,” Doreen Fowler points out that “[Ruby’s] insistence on setting racial boundaries has been an attempt to distinguish a white, superior identity” (81), equality with African Americans being Ruby Turpin’s ultimate …


The Accessibility Of The American Dream To Racial Minorities In America, Kimberly Wong Apr 2016

The Accessibility Of The American Dream To Racial Minorities In America, Kimberly Wong

English Class Publications

For centuries, people have had the American Dream. It has permeated the media in various forms: Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby,” and even the movie “An American Tail,” where animated Russian mice sing, “There are no cats in America and the streets are full of cheese!” The term “the American Dream” was first made popular in 1931 by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America. Adams believed the American Dream was a “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller …


The Times Are-A-Changin': Portrayal Of Atticus Finch Across Harper Lee's Novels, Kacy Alaina Earnest Apr 2016

The Times Are-A-Changin': Portrayal Of Atticus Finch Across Harper Lee's Novels, Kacy Alaina Earnest

English Class Publications

In Harper Lee’s 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is the most successful lawyer in Maycomb, AL during the 1930s. When he takes a rape case defending an African American man against a white woman, the town doubts his sanity. The townspeople speculate that Atticus has taken the case for the sake of justice, possibly even racial equality. He goes against the town’s unspoken racial stigma to defend Tom Robinson. However, Atticus’ views on race relations seem to have flipped one-hundred-eighty degrees in Lee’s 2015 novel Go Set a Watchman. Readers see a dark side of …


Huck Finn And The Tragedy Of Being Banned, Peyton Harris Apr 2016

Huck Finn And The Tragedy Of Being Banned, Peyton Harris

English Class Publications

Mark Twain once said, "I am perfectly astonished--a-s-t-o-n-i-s-h-e-d--ladies and gentlemen--astonished at the way history repeats itself." This opening line of Twain's speech at the Papyrus Club in Boston of February 24, 1881 is proof of his fascination with the patterns of humanity. As the already famous author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain's commentary on social hypocrisy and moral social maturation was well known. After writing this novel and confessing his interest in humanity, it is no surprise that Twain chose to once again delve into the world of fiction and produce what would become an instant classic …