An Imperative Duty

An Imperative Duty PDF Author: W.D. Howells
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1770481508
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
An Imperative Duty tells the story of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman on the verge of marriage who has been raised by her aunt to assume that she is white, but who is in fact the descendant of an African-American grandmother. The novel traces the struggles of Rhoda, her family, and her suitor to come to terms with the implications of Rhoda’s heritage. Howells employs this stock situation to explore the newly urgent questions of identity, morality, and social policy raised by “miscegenation” in the post-Reconstruction United States. The novel imagines interracial marriage sympathetically at a time when racist sentiment was on the rise, and does this in one of Howells’s most aesthetically economical performances in the short novel form. Appendices to this Broadview Edition include material on the “tragic mulatta” in literature, interracial marriage, the “science” of race in the nineteenth century, and Howells’s literary realism.

An Imperative Duty

An Imperative Duty PDF Author: W.D. Howells
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1770481508
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Get Book Here

Book Description
An Imperative Duty tells the story of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman on the verge of marriage who has been raised by her aunt to assume that she is white, but who is in fact the descendant of an African-American grandmother. The novel traces the struggles of Rhoda, her family, and her suitor to come to terms with the implications of Rhoda’s heritage. Howells employs this stock situation to explore the newly urgent questions of identity, morality, and social policy raised by “miscegenation” in the post-Reconstruction United States. The novel imagines interracial marriage sympathetically at a time when racist sentiment was on the rise, and does this in one of Howells’s most aesthetically economical performances in the short novel form. Appendices to this Broadview Edition include material on the “tragic mulatta” in literature, interracial marriage, the “science” of race in the nineteenth century, and Howells’s literary realism.

An Imperative Duty

An Imperative Duty PDF Author: William Dean Howells
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
ISBN: 3849657523
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
Mr. Howells' latest novel deserves and will receive wide reading. It deals with a problem which had found its way into American social life of his time: "How will a cultivated and beautiful woman feel if she discovers that she has a tinge of negro blood in her veins? How will other people, particularly her lover, feel and act?" Mr. Howells works out the problem with skill, on what seem to us sound lines of reasoning. 'An Imperative Duty' is so mature a work, and so good an example of the author's method, that it invites the closest scrutiny. It is written with his usual acuteness and cleverness, but with even more than his ordinary amount of self-consciousness. He is continually trying to say clever things, and he seems here a kind of intellectual conventionalist ; we feel that he would commit a minor crime rather than fail in the proper tone. As one reads he plants his feet as circumspectly as in threading his way in a crowded parlor where trains abound. One is exhausted in the effort to keep up to the author's intensely self-conscious key. It is too much like the brilliant persiflage of a dinner-party when everybody means more than he says and challenges his listeners to see the target at which he is really aiming. The glow and "fling" of high creative work are thus rendered impossible to the author, and the reader falls into a hyper-critical state of mind. Mr. Howells is at his best when describing distinctive American types. The cultivated Frenchman and the cultivated American are much more alike than are the Frenchman and the American on lower levels; and when a writer selects his characters from Beacon Street and the "Cours la Reine" he has less opportunity to be picturesque than when he deals with Hanover Street and the "Quartier Latin." Mr. Howells is an artist of the first order like Henry James. He works by rule, and the result is the product of high talent.

The Educational Journal of Virginia

The Educational Journal of Virginia PDF Author: Charles Henry Winston
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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The Wargrave Trust

The Wargrave Trust PDF Author: Christian Reid
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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The North American Journal of Homeopathy

The North American Journal of Homeopathy PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 960

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Atlantic Reporter

Atlantic Reporter PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1134

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Philosophy and Religion

Philosophy and Religion PDF Author: Axel Hägerström
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317851293
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
The present volumes makes some of Hägerström’s most important writings available to English readers. At the same time, because of Hägerström’s influence, it should contribute to an increased awareness of the nature of Swedish philosophical reflection in the twentieth century. This edition first published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Parliamentary Debates

Parliamentary Debates PDF Author: Australia. Parliament
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 1386

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Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia

Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia PDF Author: District of Columbia. Court of Appeals
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Lawyers' Reports Annotated

Lawyers' Reports Annotated PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1300

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