Due Wednesday, March 19, by 5:00 p.m. For Bohls, if you've completed the exam BEFORE that time, please slip it under the door of 528 PLC. For Bishop, if you've completed the exam BEFORE 3:00 pm Wednesday, please bring it to the Honors College office and put it in my mailbox OR slip it under the door to my office, 308 Chapman. Bishop will be in 308 Chapman from about 3:00 pm Wednesday for hand-delivery of exams.

Here's what we set out to do, according to the syllabus:

This second term of the Honors College literature sequence organizes our readings around the idea of travel to explore important literary themes: language, individuation and identity, culture and cultural relativism, and the definitions of fact and fiction. These issues arise out of the concerns of traveler and narrator. For instance, a traveler's sympathy and identity relates to Socratic self-knowledge and its dark side, narcissism; the language of travel complicates ideas about real and imaginary, especially as we move into the age of enlightenment. Travelers' political and economic aims reflect and create public and private spheres, with their concomitant gendering: geography "maps" the human body. Because the West's colonial impulse grows exponentially from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the ethical dimension of travel and narrative has special meaning for this term of the HC literature sequence. The ways in which literature indexes colonial expansion -- through accommodation and critique -- will be a theme throughout our readings.

Take a two-hour block of time between now and 5:00 pm Wednesday and write TWO essays, one from Part A (emphasizing Robinson Crusoe) and one from Part B (emphasizing The Female American). Use your essay to demonstrate your familiarity with the texts and issues mentioned. You may treat the scenarios in the third person or create a conversation between/among characters. Do refer to other class texts as appropriate. Maximum length: two blue books or 1000 words, typed double-space (approximately 500 words per essay). You may consult the passages along with their contexts and plan your essays ahead of time. Please keep in mind that the essays' purpose is to have you assess the interrelationships among our texts and themes. Be as specific and complete as you can.

PART A

1. Colonial encounters: How do European travelers relate to those indigenous to the places they "discover"? What factors seem to determine the outcome of each intercultural encounter, and what role is played by language, style, and other artistic features in each encounter's literary representation?
Robinson Crusoe (p. 146): I observ'd, that the two who swam, were yet more than twice as long swimming over the Creek, as the Fellow was, that fled from them: It came now very warmly upon my Thoughts, and indeed irresistibly, that now was my Time to get me a Servant, and perhaps a Companion, or Assistant, and that I was call'd on plainly by Providence to save this poor Creature's Life . . .
The Tempest (pp. 119-20): Caliban: When thou cam's first,
Thou strok'st me and made much of me; wouldst give me
Water with berries in't, and teach me how
To name the bigger light and how the less,
That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee,
And showed thee all the qualities o'th'isle,
The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile -
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king, and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o'th'island.

2. Ethics: Does travel offer an especially good situation for thinking about ethics? Do travelers have a special insight, or a special responsibility, in this area?
Robinson Crusoe (p. 26): I told him he had been so generous to me in every thing, that I could not offer to make any Price of the Boat, but left it entirely to him, upon which he told me he would give me a Note of his Hand to pay me 80 Pieces of Eight for it at Brasil, and when it came there, if any one offer'd to give more he would make it up; he offer'd me also 60 Pieces of Eight more for my Boy Xury, which I was loath to take, not that I was not willing to let the Captain have him, but I was very loath to sell the poor Boy's Liberty, who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own.
Utopia (p. 92): The Utopians . . . regard the enjoyment of life - that is, pleasure - as the natural object of all human efforts, and natural, as they define it, is synonymous with virtuous. However, Nature also wants us to help one another enjoy life, for the very good reason that no human being has a monopoly of her affections. She's equally anxious for the welfare of every member of the species. So of course she tells us to make quite sure that we don't pursue our own interests at the expense of other people's.

3. Identity and self-knowledge: What effect does each traveler's physical and spiritual journey have on his or her sense of self or identity? How do our authors represent the significant changes that these journeys have brought about?
Robinson Crusoe (p. 82): It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this Life I now led was, with all its miserable Circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable Life I led all the past Part of my Days; and now I chang'd both my Sorrows and my Joys; my very Desires alter'd, my Affections chang'd their Gusts, and my Delights were perfectly new, from what they were at my first Coming, or indeed for the two Years past.
The Book of Margery Kempe (pp. 63-64): Also the Father said to this creature, "Daughter, I will have you wedded to my Godhead, for I shall show you my secrets and my counsels, for you shall dwell with me without end."

Then the creature kept silence in her soul and answered not thereto, for she was full sore afraid of the Godhead, and she had no knowledge of the dalliance of the Godhead, for all her love and affection was set on the manhood of Christ and thereof had she good knowledge, and she would for no thing have parted therefrom. . . .

And then the Father took her by the hand in her soul . . . saying to her soul, "I take you, Margery, for my wedded wife . . . "

And then the Mother of God and all the saints that were there present in her soul prayed that they might have much joy together. And then the creature with high devotion, with great plenty of tears, thanked God for this ghostly comfort, holding herself in her own feeling right unworthy of any such grace as she felt, for she felt many comforts, both ghostly comforts and bodily comforts.

4. Fact and fiction: How is the act or process of writing represented as part of each traveler's story? What effect does the visibility of the writing process have on our assessment of each text as fact or fiction - "realistic," believable, or not?
Robinson Crusoe (pp. 35, 51, 52): I was now landed, and safe on Shore, and began to look up and thank God that my Life was sav'd in a Case wherein there was some Minutes before scarce any room to hope. I believe it is impossible to express to the Life what the Extasies and Transports of the Soul are, when it is so sav'd, as I may say, out of the very Grave; and I do not wonder now at that Custom, viz. That when a Malefactor who has the Halter about his Neck, is tyed up, and just going to be turn'd off, and has a Reprieve brought to him; I say, I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let him Blood that very moment they tell him of it, that the Surprise may not drive the Animal Spirits from the heart, and overwhelm him:
For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first. . . .

And now it was when I began to keep a Journal of every Day's Employment, for indeed at first I was in too much Hurry, and not only Hurry as to Labor, but in too much Discomposure of Mind, and my Journal would ha' been full of many dull things: For Example, I must have said thus. Sept. the 30th. After I got to Shore and had escap'd drowning, instead of being thankful to God for my Deliverance, having first vomited with the great Quantity of salt Water which has gotten into my Stomach, and recovering my self a little, I ran about the Shore, wringing my Hands and beating my Head and Face, exclaiming at my Misery, and crying out, I was undone, till tyr'd and faint I was forc'd to lye down on the Ground to repose, but durst not sleep for fear of being devour'd. . . .

September 30, 1659. I poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwreck'd, during a dreadful Storm, in the offing, came on Shore on this dismal unfortunate Island, which I call'd the Island of Despair, all the rest of the Ship's Company being drown'd, and my self almost dead.
The Book of Margery Kempe (p. 5): This book is not written in order, everything after the other as it was done, but as the matter came to the creature in mind when it was written, for it was so long before it was written that she had forgotten the time and the order when things befell. And therefore she had nothing written but that she knew right well for truth.

PART B
5. Identity and culture: How does clothing represent or project identity in relation to the different cultures between which the traveler moves? How is gender represented and/or questioned?
The Female American (pp. 49, 113): My tawny complexion, and the oddity of my dress, attracted everyone's attention, for my mother used to dress me in a kind of mixed habit, neither perfectly in the Indian, nor yet in the European taste, either of fine white linen, or a rich silk. I never wore a cap; but my lank black hair was adorned with diamonds and flowers. . . . I frequently diverted myself with wearing the bow and arrow the queen my aunt left me, and was so dexterous a shooter, that, when very young, I could shoot a bird on the wing. . . .

When the expected morning came, I awoke by day-break, drest myself in white, and, over all, put on the high-priest's vestments, that I had found upon my first searching of the subterraneous apartments. These were a kind of cassock, or vest, formed of gold wire, or rather of small narrow plated gold, curiously folded, or twisted together, like net-work, which buttoned close with diamonds. Over this I put on, formed of the same materials, and in the same manner, a gown, sprinkled all over with precious stones, and here and there a large diamond. On my head I placed a crown of most exquisite make, richly beset with precious stones of various sizes and colors . . .
Turkish Embassy Letters (p. 69): I will try to awaken your gratitude by giving you a full and true relation of the novelties of this place, none of which would surprise you more than a sight of my person, as I am now in my Turkish habit, though I believe you would be of my opinion that 'tis admirably becoming. I intend to send you my picture. In the meantime accept of it here.
The first piece of my dress is a pair of drawers, very full, that reach to my shoes, and conceal the legs more modestly than your petticoats. They are of a thin rose color damask, brocaded with silver flowers . . .

6. Cultural relativism How can we compare the treatment of cultural difference by different authors in different historical periods? How does the context of each narrative inform the author's choices in this regard?
The Female American (pp. 50-51): Tawny as I was, I yet had my admirers, or such they pretended to be; though perhaps my fortune tempted them more than my parson, at least I thought so, and accordingly diverted myself at their expence; for none touched my heart. . . .
During our voyage, my cousin neglected no opportunity to renew his address to me, which he had before begun in England. I gravely told him I would never marry any man who could not use a bow and arrow as well as I could; but as he still continued his suit, I always laughed at him, and answered in the Indian language, of which he was entirely ignorant; and so by degrees wearied him to silence on that head.
The Man of Law's Tale (lines 358-364):
O Sowdanesse, roote of iniquitee!
Virago, thou Semyrame the secounde!
O serpent under femynynytee,
Lik to the serpent depe in helle ybounde!
O feyned woman, al that may confounde
Vertu and innocence, thurgh thy malice,
Is bred in thee, as nest of every vice.

7. Ethics and cultural relativism: What part does religion play in each author's description of an encounter with a culture different from his or her own? Comment on the ethical dimension of each passage.
The Female American p. 83): I had no sooner made my fixed determination to retire to this place, but a very strange thought arose in my mind. It was nothing less than this, to ascend into the hollow idol, speak to the Indians from thence, and endeavor to convert them from their idolatry. A bold attempt! Not rashly to be undertaken.
Utopia (pp. 118-19):Of course, many Utopians refuse to accept Christianity, but even they make no attempt to discourage other people from adopting it, or to attack those who do - though there was one member of our congregation who got into trouble while I was there. Immediately after his baptism, in spite of all our advice to the contrary, this man started giving public lectures on the Christian faith, in which he showed rather more zeal than discretion. Eventually he got so worked up that, not content with asserting the superiority of our religion, he went so far as to condemn all others. He kept shouting at the top of his voice that they were all vile superstitions, and that all who believed in them were monsters of impiety, destined to be punished in hell-fire for ever. When he'd been going on like this for some time, he was arrested and charged, not with blasphemy, but with disturbance of the peace. He was duly convicted and sentenced to exile - for one of the most ancient principles of their constitution is religious toleration.