American Literature

American Literature

Genre

Herman Northrop Frye was a controversial literature writer who was not understood for decades as an archetypal school of literary criticism member. He wrote his magisterial work Anatomy of criticism: Four Essays proceeding on the hypothesis that criticism is a structure of beliefs and knowledge in its own right. The four brilliant essays on ethical, historical, rhetorical, and archetypical criticism employ examples of global literature from times stints to the contemporary time. When comparing different book written by different authors, for example, the book Kindred by Octavia Butler and The Spook Who Sat by the Door by Sam Greenlee it is possible to understand how different genres were used to communicate unique messages during different periods of time.

Octavia Butler’s book Kindred is a bright example of a time travel book that represents not only the whole output being the result of a personal project but also that of a spiritual quest and social missions targeted at the society. In other words, the manner in which the author presents the characters in the book is an indicator of how puzzling symbolism as a divinity student, and the supremacy of biblical imagery in the literary tenet become vibrant based on Northrop Frye’s framework. For instance, in the book, Okada is able to present perspective and opinion of a no-no boy who is an American of a Japanese descent and who has to choose which identity to denounce - American or Japanese one. Using this analysis, Kindred can be classified as a non-science fiction story which is not a genre but rather a structural element that was chosen to make the plot of the story understandable to the reader.

Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door offers a satirical analysis of the civil rights challenges experienced in the United States during the late 60’s. Moreover, the book is a serious attempt to focus on the issue of black militancy. According to the analysis of Frye, there is a need for literary criticism, which does not rest on value judgement or taste that does not borrow other extra literary concerns. Frye’s third essay is concerned with four parts of the cycle of mythoi: irony, romance, comedy and tragedy. The author uses these parts to represent seasons of the year: autumn, summer, spring and winter, thus, to show how literature symbolizes the entirety of human yearning and also its demonic capsizal. For this reason, The Spook Who Sat by the Door can be classified as fictional poetry in terms of genre.

Through the analysis of these two books, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” can be classified as winter since it tries to ironically describe and satirically denote the struggle for civil rights in the United States during that period. In so doing, it represents an absence of a hero. However, spring represents comedy that implies rebirth of the hero. On the other hand, Kindred is a time travel story that involves different cases of love-hate relationship hence representing a sci-fi fantasy genre. In this case, because of the romance that existed between Dana and Rufus, it can be argued that this work represents summer since at the end of the day Dana has an opportunity of falling in love and making the story end with some sense of a triumph.

In conclusion, different challenges arise in regard to the interpretation of textual elements as far as different works of literature are concerned since the opposing genres in literature are also compared with each other. For instance, as much as Dana is able to choose the family she wants, she is not able to change the history hence making it possible for the renaissance cycle to be observed. In other words, works of literature present themselves in different forms, and genres which makes them part and parcel of a great circle have the ability to present themselves in different forms.

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