"Solidarity... is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers. Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people... This is a task not for theory but for genres such as ethnography, the journalist's report, the comic book, the docudrama, and, especially, the novel. Fiction... gives us us details about what sorts of cruelty we ourselves are capapble of, and thereby lets us redescribe ourselves. That is why the novel, the movie, and the TV program have, gradually but steadily, replaced the sermon and the treatise as the principal vehicles of moral change and progress."

Narratives, and not theory, are what speak to people. Narratives change people, change countries, make us recognize "the other" as one of us. In that sense, narratives provide cultures and nations with a sense of belonging, with an inner "cohesion", with a sense of solidarity.

Or so Richard Rorty says. Richard Rorty is not primarily a literary critic but a political philosopher. But applying his idea is worthwhile: to see literature as a tool of humanization. The first thesis (that will be at the core of this page) is the application of Rorty's idea to American literature. It says that throughout its tradition, American literature has sought to sensitize Americans to one another:

• Great works of American Literature, such as the novels contemplated in our class American Literary Traditions here at Georgetown, have given Americans the opportunity to see other Americans as their fellow Americans, and have thus contributed to a sense of the humanity all people share.

The Theme of Common Humanity in five great works of American Literature
The five books are: Moby Dick (Herman Melville), Puddn'head Wilson (Mark Twain), Ceremony (Leslie Silko), Beloved (Toni Morrison), and Maus (Art Spiegelman).
 
 

Moby Dick: "We are all in this together, damned!"  Moby Dick, of the above five works, is the quintessential American meta-narrative novel, though not so much in the sense that it celebrates and reaffirms the exitent American self-understanding but provides a greater reflection on it. It disseminates many issues that have shaped the American character - the Puritans, religion; race; commercialism - and serves as a stage on which certain tendencies are played out. In the case of Ahab, it was - among others - his Nietzschean self-creation. In the case of Ishmael, it is the search for meaning that we all have.  Overall, I have argued before, it is a book about searching for Truth under conditions of uncertainty. It is a book about the anxiety one may have when reflecting upon the "American project", the project of living up to a promise, the promise of a land as well as the promise of the unboundedness of liberty and justice for all. At the stake in Moby Dick is America as a whole, and a reader may realize that, regardless of color, religion or race, we are all in this together as poor souls, searching for our Truth.  In that sense, Moby Dick, written by a white dead male, is clearly an American meta-narrative.    to the right: Herman Melville, white, dead, male

 
 

Puddn'head Wilson: "Who is it - you or me?"  Puddn'head Wilson is a comic and tragic story about the crossing of differences, stepping over dividing lines. The exchange of the roles that a white-skinned 'black' woman plays on a white and a black boy, highlights the irrationality and injustice that is at play in race-relations in America. Whomever I perceive as 'white' may as well be 'black', and whoever I think is 'black' may really be white - so what difference does the difference make?  As the example of both boys show, it's about education, and being perceived by your environment as a full person that makes the positive difference. Twain's message is clear: Overcome your fear about the other! Recognize your common humanity!  The question about race is a quintessential American question, as Tocqueville had already observed. Puddn'head Wilson, written by a white male Southerner, is a meta-narrative that aims to speak to the dominant culture.  to the left: Mark Twain, white, dead, male

 
 

Ceremony: "Let me see them through my own eyes"  Ceremony is not a meta-narrativel for Americans. I am in no position to judge whether it is a meta-narrative for Native Americans, but it seems to be argued that it is. Contentwise, it is a story about Tayo, a young man who has left the reservation to see the world in war - and what a white world it is, in which (Tayo as) the soldier counts more than (Tayo) the man. Tayo also recognizes the humanity he shares with Japanese soldiers, and he tries to come to terms with the shattering experience the war has meant to him.  The Second World War, whose victor were the United States, symbolizes the craze of the world dominated by whites. Tayo finds solace in old narratives of his own people. They restore his sense for unity again, and provide him with a context in which he finds more peace. At the same time, they also explain - or redescribe - the white people to a white reader. When reading Ceremony, we slip into Tayo's mind, into his anxieties and fears and hopes. He has them as all Americans have them who want to go out into the world and 'make it', and feel alienated 'out there'.  By choosing events that mainstream America can relate to, such as the Second World War, Silko, a Native American woman who is still alive, is 'docking' that particular ethnic narrative into the American meta-narrative. For all readers, Ceremony becomes a part of the American narrative - one  more perspective, and one that is legitimized because the reader can relate to Tayo and identify with him. Tayo, returning from out there as Ishmael in Moby Dick did, is one of us.  to the right: a Cherokee woman's work

 
 

Beloved: "Let me overcome my history"  Beloved, again, is a narrative that is particular to an ethnic group. It's author is a black woman, still alive. It's theme is to deal with a haunting past, and a past that is shared with main-stream America: slavery. Like Puddn'head Wilson, but more subtle, it speaks to mainstream America about race. And to those sensitive to the burden of family history, it also speaks of the impact of past personal experiences. But most of all, Beloved is a book that is concerned with overcoming de-humanization.  In that sense, it is quintessential literature. It is, like Francois Mauriac has said about Elie Wiesel's 'Night', "the only literature that counts" - literature that faces de-humanization, and tries to overcome it. As the taming of the West, and the pushing of the frontier westward, has meant to the American public self-consciousness to promote culture and liberal democracy, literature that restores humanity is in the best tradition of the American Enlightenment narrative.  While it is a book about a particular ethnic experience, it is also a perspective and redescription of a common American past. It does what Richard Rorty asks of literature:  "...increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people."  to the right: pictures from the movie Amistad

 
 

Maus: "Still Surviving Hell"  Maus was drawn and written by a white male named Art Spiegelman - yet, he's alive, and, for the matter of the book, Jewish, too. If slavery was a particular American experience, the Holocaust of 11 million slaughtered people, was a European experience that concerned more than Europe. The Holocaust shattered the very foundations of Western culture - the belief in moral progress, the project of the Enlightenment, the ideals of great European revolutions. Thus, the Holocaust can never be understood as just one more Jewish experience, it is a lesson for mankind.  But the Holocaust is also family reality, and, as an ongoing experience, more precise here than anywhere else. It is an average American family reality that is at the center of the book: daddy tells son stories. But they are no good night-stories in this case, but stories of the night and death. The de-humanization that was the result of the Holocaust is made appearent in the depiction of human beings as animals. It is ever more striking in the face of Vladek, the father, who is a human being with almost all character flaws that a human being can have. He is deeply human. That is a message to all those who expect the Jewish people to have gone through hell to emerge as angels.  The form of a comic, the structure of father-son dialogue, and the issue ultimately at stake - dehumanization, make this book a book that has wide appeal to mainstream America, has the capacity to speak to a large audience about the unspeakable. It shows it's reader in great detail the grandeur, and the pettishness, of human beings in the face of humanization. In that it shows the flaws of human beings - the racism of Vladek, for example, it is also postmodern book that denies itself to the clear division between good and evil of the Enlightenment. It is, I will argue, a book that pleas to engage and recognize the 'other' in dialogue.  to the right: Anne Frank; and the scream by Edvard Munch

 
 As I have shown, all five novels help sensitize a larger audience to see that what average Americans take for granted - the account of their history - can be viewed differently but different people, and that these views are legitimate. In other words, the 'other' - the Indian, the Black, the Jew, the madman - are really like us have. We understand them better, we see the worries of their days beyond their appearance. And by giving us "details about what sorts of cruelty we ourselves are capapble of", it may help us, and thereby lets us, hopefully, "redescribe ourselves." In other words: we are able to extend our sense of solidarity when seeing the other as one of us after reading these novels. Literature has served as a tool of humanization.
 
 Why I choose Beloved and Maus for further discussion