The Hard Work Behind the Cultural Work of American Fiction

Ana Gutierrez

Writing 102

Olsen

1 February 2016

THE HARD WORK BEHIND THE CULTURAL WORK OF AMERICAN FICTION.

In her book The Cultural Work of American Fiction, Jane Tompkins focuses more on the less valued or even ignored literary works rather than the classic critically approved texts, and how she is trying to move the study of American literature to these texts. She believes literary works can redefine and influence social order, since they represent social culture and even provide solutions for issues. Tompkins explains how these less critically acclaimed texts all share some defects, like the lack of unique characters and the lack plausibility in the story line. She states that one of the purposes of her book, is to find out why these works seem to be deficient to some people, when they didn’t seem to be deficient to their original aimed audience.

        Jane Tompkins supports her main idea by using works by Brown, Copper and Stowe relating to them in the religious, social, economic and political fields. She attempts to explain to a modern audience how the political viewpoint of these writers’ works make sense, how their objective was to redefine social culture instead of just being a superficial work of art. On the other hand trying to prove the real value of these texts, she analyzes popular fiction, claiming how powerful these literary works can be, as they can relate to a mass audience and also have the ability to influence their beliefs and attitudes.

        Tompkins aim was also to demonstrate how these texts had something in common with the canon texts, rather than finding how was it that they differed. She mentions how stereotypes are essential to narratives, since they carry a personality that represent culture self-definition. This book shows that Tompkins views these texts not as work of arts but as works that attempt to reestablish social order. Even though these texts were based on what critics would call “defects” like the stereotyped characters and their sweet language, it is because of these defects that writers like Brown and Copper had a powerful language to move their audience.

        Tompkins argument is a convincing reading of non-canonical texts in early American fiction, since her use of persuasive language and analysis motivates readers of such texts to change the way they interpret the canon, therefore by analyzing cultural circumstances and historical context. She offers a different and what she believes to be the right way to read and analyze texts in order to expand this limited canon of what modernist consider valuable texts.

         She proposes to look for the cultural purpose texts were designed to accomplish whether they made it to the canon or not. In other words she wants her audience to read books by paying attention to the cultural reality details like religion, social practices, economic and political circumstances that motivated the author, instead of analyzing like modern critics usually do by focusing on knowledge, language of the work or even its structure. Following her suggestion Tompkins claims that her approach “yields more fruitful results than some more narrowly literary critical modes” (xiii). In making this comment, in such a direct and modest way, Tompkins urges her readers to believe that her method is guaranteed to be more effective.

        I agree with Tompkins’ proposal, since I believe many works of literature have been underestimated by modern critics. For instance, modern critical standards are useless when applied to older literature, because contemporary and classic literature differ in so many factors and therefore cannot be analyzed the same way. These modern standards would fail to fully understand the cultural work and goal of these texts. Yet some readers like young adults or pre teenagers may challenge this altering way of viewing literature, since most of them are interested in what the modernist are interested too: the language, the self, knowledge, and personal relation with the work. When competing with contemporary literature, American literature and all of its context still struggles to be relevant for the young modern audience.