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Course Description

In this course we read and discuss (minimal lecturing) six American novels published in the period between 1899  and 1997, thus covering basically the span of the twentieth century--Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899); Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905); F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925);  William Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom! (1936); Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987); and Philip Roth's American Pastoral (1997).   Interestingly, though accidentally, the gender balance between the novels is symmetrical.  The ethnic and cultural demographic is broad and inclusive.  And yet distinctively American themes surface and re-surface in these great novels as if they were somehow speaking with each other, putting forth their own point of view.  America, they all say in one way or another, by its nature and its history, encourages us to aspire to existential freedom.  What becomes of such aspirations when they are opposed or thwarted becomes the conflict that drives the narrative of these characters' lives.  In our discussions we will follow this theme, connecting dots, and the other themes that emerge from it.
 
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