The Trickster in American Literature and Culture

Lori Landay
Emerson College
Boston, Massachusetts

The trickster is a recurring figure in human cultures who is characterized by duality, duplicity, paradox, and the use of trickery to assert individualism within the context of his or her community. By taking an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenon of the trickster in American mythology, literature, film, television, and advertising, we will study how traditional trickster figures in Native American, African-American, Latina/Latino, Chinese-American, and European-American folklore emerge in modern mass culture as proponents of modernity, individualism, and a pragmatic moral system. We will use the trickster as a prism to refract aspects of American culture, including gender, selfhood, materialism, and ethics.

Course Objectives:

  1. To use interdisciplinary inquiry to explore the mythic, literary, and cultural figure of the trickster.
  2. To create a participatory learning environment that encourages you to think and work independently and share your insights cooperatively.
  3. To foster active and critical reading, writing, viewing, and thinking. To combine critical work with creative endeavors.
  4. To give you an opportunity to read, screen, discuss, and write about texts in a historical and multicultural framework.
  5. To help you make connections between your academic studies and the world in which you live.

Course requirements

Textbooks

Links

Class Schedule

unit 1: the trickster in folklore, literature, and culture
Week 1 1/18
 Introductions
1/20 Mythical Trickster Figures , ch. 1
Week 2 1/25 Mythical Trickster Figures , ch. 3
Handout: folktales
1/27 Coyote Blue, 15-60
Week 3 2/1 Coyote Blue, 60-164
2/3 Coyote Blue, 164-238
Week 4 2/8 Coyote Blue, 238-finish
Madcaps, Intro
unit 2: flappers, tricksters, and screwballs in interwar american culture
  2/10 Screen: It
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 3-73
Week 5 2/15 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 74-123
Madcaps, ch. 2
Screen: The Jazz Age Gaze: Looking at the Flapper Film
2/17 Chaplin
Week 6 2/22 Chaplin/Mae West
Madcaps, ch. 3
2/24 Screwball comedy
Mythical Trickster Figures , ch. 5
Week 7 2/29 screwball comedy
unit 3: visibility and invisibilty: the trickster in postwar american culture
  3/2 Handout: slave trickster tales, excertps of essays on African-American trickster
Week 8   SPRING BREAK
Week 9 3/14 Invisible Man
3/16 Invisible Man
Week 10 3/21 Invisible Man
3/23 Invisible Man
Week 11 3/28 Reading day
3/30 screen: House of Games
Week 12 4/4 Mythical Trickster Figures , ch. 8
4/6 I Love Lucy
Madcaps, ch. 4
Unit 4: presentations, projects, conclusions
Week 13 4/11 Presentations
4/13 Presentations
Mythical Trickster Figures , ch. 12
Week 14 4/18 NO CLASS-Monday schedule
4/20 Handout: "Yellow Woman," Leslie Marmon Silko
Madcaps, ch. 5
Week 15 4/25 Mythical Trickster Figures , ch. 13
4/27 Conclusions

Extra Credit

1-2 page critical responses on the following books and films will count for extra credit. You can read/view these works as you develop your individual project. All extra credit papers must be handed in before Patriots' Day.

Books:

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Struggles and Triumphs , P.T. Barnum

The Confidence Man, Melville

The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne

The Hidden Hand or, Capitola the Madcap, Southworth

The Conjure Woman, Chestnutt

An American Tragedy, Dreiser

Custom of the Country, Wharton

One Way to Heaven, Cullen

Passing, Larsen

On the Road, Kerouac

Song of Solomon, Morrison

Adventures of Augie March, Bellow

Ceremony, Silko

The Sot-Weed Factor, Barth

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey Roughing It, Twain

Fanny, Jong

Catch 22, Heller

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Robbins

Jitterbug Perfume, Robbins

A Cool Million, West

The Hamlet, Faulkner

Tar Baby, Morrison

Trickster of Liberty, Vizenor

A Cool Million, West

Huck Finn, Twain

Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich

Mumbo Jumbo, Ishmael Reed

Narrative, Douglass

Storyteller, Silko

 

Films:

9 to 5 (1980)

All About Eve (1950)

All of Me (1984)

Awful Truth, The (1937)

Ball of Fire (1941)

Batman Returns (1992)

Bedtime for Bonzo (1951)

Brother From Another Planet, The (1984)

Crimes of the Heart (1986)

Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

Double Indemnity (1944)

Fish Called Wanda, A (1988)

Gay Divorcee, The (1934)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

The Grifters (1990)

Holiday (1938)

Housesitter (1992)

Hudsucker Proxy, The (1994)

Klondike Annie (1936)

Lady Eve, The (1941)

Last Seduction, The (1994)

Letter, The (1940)

Linguini Incident, The (1992)

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Monkey Business (1931)

Nothing Sacred (1937)

Object of Beauty, The (1991)

Outrageous Fortune (1987)

Palm Beach Story, The (1942)

Pin Up Girl (1944)

Rage in Harlem, A (1991)

Red-Headed Woman (1932)

Romancing the Stone (1984)

She Done Him Wrong (1933)

Sister Act (1992)

Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

Something Wild (1986)

The Spanish Prisoner (1997)

Sting, The (1973)

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Thin Man, The (1934)

To Sleep With Anger (1990)

Topper (1937)

Trading Places (1983)

Victor/Victoria (1982)

War of the Roses, The (1989)

What’s Up, Doc? (1972)

Working Girl (1988)

Yentl (1983)

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SECONDARY WORKS ON THE TRICKSTER IN AMERICAN CULTURE

Ammons, Elizabeth, and Annette White-Parks, eds. Tricksterism in Turn-of-the-Century American Literature: A Multicultural Perspective. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1994.

Babcock-Abrahams, Barbara. "'A Tolerated Margin of Mess:' The Trickster and His Tales Reconsidered." Journal of the Folklore Institute 9 (1975): 147-86.

Ballinger, Franchot. “Living Sideways: Social Themes and Social Relationships in Native American Trickster Tales.” American Indian Quarterly 13 (Winter 1989): 15-30.

Bartky, Sandra Lee. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New `York: Routledge, 1990.

Basso, Ellen B. In Favor of Deceit: A Study of Tricksters in an Amazonian Society. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987.

Bell, Linda A. Rethinking Ethics in the Midst of Violence: A Feminist Approach to Freedom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1993.

Bok, Sissela. Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. New York: Pantheon, 1978.

Bright, William. A Coyote Reader. Berkeley: University California Press, 1993.

Brodhead, Richard H. “Veiled Ladies: Toward a History of Antebellum Entertainment” in American Literary History (Summer 1989), 273-294.

Davis, Murray A. What’s So Funny? The Comic Conception of Culture and Society. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

De Grave, Kathleen. Swindler, Spy, Rebel: The Confidence Woman in Nineteenth-Century America. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1995.

Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. 1966. New York: Routledge, 1984.

Exum, J. Cheryl and Johanna W.H. Bos, eds. Reasoning with the Foxes: Female Wit in a World of Male Power. Semeia: An Experimental Journal for Biblical Criticism 42 (1988).

Frye, Northrop. The Anatomy of Criticism. 1957. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.

Galligan, Edward L. The Comic Vision in Literature. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Ginsberg, Elaine K. “Introduction: The Politics of Passing.” In Passing and Fictions of Identity. Ginsberg, ed. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996, 1-18.

Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.

---. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1959.

Haltunnen, Karen. Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

Hillman, Richard. Shakespeaream Subversions: The Trickster and the Play-text. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.

Horn, Jason Gary. Mark Twain and William James: Crafting a Free Self. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1996.

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Boston: Beacon, 1949.

Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.

Hynes, William J. and William G. Doty, eds. Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993.

James, William. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. 1907. Ed. Bruce Kuklick. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981.

---. The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. 1897. New York: Dover, 1956.

---. William James: Writings 1902-1910. Ed. Bruce Kuklick. New York: Library of America, 1987.

Klipple, May Augusta. African Folktales with Foreign Analogues. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992.

Kuhlmann, Susan. Knave, Fool, and Genius: The Confidence Man as He Appears in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction. Chapel Hill: University North Carolina Press, 1973.

Landay, Lori. “‘Betwixt and Between’: The Trickster and Multiculturalism.” Review of Elizabeth Ammons and Annette White-Parks, eds. Tricksterism in Turn-of-the-Century American Literature: A Multicultural Perspective. American Quarterly 48 (September 1996): 542-549.

—. Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture. Feminist Cultural Studies, the Media, and Political Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

—. “Millions Love Lucy: Commodification and the Lucy Phenomenon.” National Women’s Studies Association Journal 11.2 (Summer 1999): 25-47.

Lenz, William E. Fast Talk and Flush Times: The Confidence Man as a Literary Convention. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985.

Levin, Harry. Playboys and Killjoys: An Essay on the Theory and Practice of Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Levine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Lindberg, Gary. The Confidence Man in American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Louis, Adrian C. Wild Indians and Other Creatures. Reno: University Nevada Press, 1996.

Lynch, Aaron. Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads through Society. New York: Basic Books, 1996.

Malotki, Ekkehart and Michael Lomatuway’ma. Hopi Coyote Tales. Lincoln: University Nebraska Press, 1984.

Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press,1985.

Marriott, Alice and Carol K. Rachlin. American Indian Mythology. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968.

Murphy, John P. Pragmatism: From Peirce to Davidson. Boulder: Westview Press, 1990.

Palmer, Jerry. The Logic of the Absurd: On Film and Television Comedy. London: BFI, 1987.

Pelton, Robert D. The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Peirce, Charles Sanders. Philosophical Writing of Peirce. Justus Buchler, ed. New York: Dover, 1955.

Radin, Paul. The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.

Reed, T.V. Fifteen Jugglers, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American Social Movements. Berkeley: University California Press, 1992.

Roberts, John W. From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.

Rorty, Richard. Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982.

Rowe, Kathleen. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

Spinks, C.W. Jr. Semiosis, Marginal Signs and Trickster: A Dagger of the Mind. London: MacMillan, 1991.

Stacey, Jackie. Star Gazing: Hollywood and Female Spectatorship. London: Routledge, 1994.

Storey, John. Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Theories and Methods. Athens: University Georgia Press, 1996.

Turner, Victor. The Anthropology of Performance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

Vizenor, Gerald. “Trickster Discourse.” American Indian Quarterly 14 (Summer 1990): 277-287.

Wadlington, Warwick. The Confidence Game in American Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.

COURSE POLICIES

ATTENDANCE: Because this course is based on your active participation, attendance is mandatory. If you are late, leave early, or are disruptive in class, it will affect your grade. There are no “excused” or “unexcused” absences. If you miss more than two classes, your grade will be affected no matter what reason you have for missing class. According to College policy, more than 5 absences will result in a failing grade for the course. There will be occasional unannounced quizzes that cannot be made up. It is your responsibility to contact another student, find out what we did in class, and make sure you understand the assignment for the next class. If you have a serious problem that prevents you from coming to class or completing an assignment, such as an illness or personal emergency, talk to me before the assignment is due and we will work out a way for you to make up the work.

Note: Your final exams have been scheduled. Do not make (or have parents make) travel plans without taking your exam times and other deadlines into consideration. No exceptions!

ASSIGNMENTS: Assignments are due at the beginning of class, or by the deadline indicated on the assignment. If you hand something in late, your grade will be lowered. If you do not hand in all the assignments, you will not pass the course. Over the semester, there will be opportunities for extra credit.

INFORMATIVE PRESENTATIONS: Presentations will be 5-10 minutes long, and on specific topics. A sign-up sheet will be available during the second week of class.

GRADES: All grades are final and non-negotiable. Changes will be made only in the case of computation errors.

Note: Your final presentation has been scheduled for the final exam session. Do not make (or have parents make) travel plans without taking your exam times and other deadlines into consideration. No exceptions!

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: All work in this class is to be done on an individual basis. It is your responsibility to be aware of and abide by the rules governing plagiarism, cheating, and academic dishonesty. Any instance of plagiarism, cheating, or academic dishonesty will be turned over to the administration and dealt with in the strictest manner. Additionally, willful damage to books, videos, or any other library or departmental material used in the preparation of assignments will result in an F for the assignment and other disciplinary action.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: If you need accommodations due to a disability (including a learning disability), please talk to me.

FILMS AND OTHER OUT OF CLASS ACTIVITIES: There may be films and other activities that will take place outside of class. If you cannot make it to a film screening, it is your responsibility to see the film either at the media services center on the 3rd floor of 180 Tremont or to rent the video on your own.