Teaching Fiction in the Culture of Optimism

Abstract

THE IDEAS OF PROGRESS AND OPTIMISM, which have been at the core of American value systems in various and complex ways for well over two-hundred years, seem to have leaped at me as never before in my literature classes these last few years. One of the most immediate ways that I encounter these ideas (or values, really) is in discussions of fictional plots. Especially in Introduction to Modern Fiction (a general education course taken mostly by non-liberal-arts majors), I often notice a reluctance among students to approve of stories that do not have endings. Of course, it is nothing new that some readers want happy stories with superficial, pat endings and stereotyped characters; indeed, it has always been part of the task of the teacher of literature to educate some readers out of' such expectations. But what I have been encountering, I now believe, is something different from the isolated anti-intellectualism of individuals; it is a very pervasive and typical attitude, peculiar in many ways to Americans, which must be dealt with as a social and cultural phenomenon if it is truly to be grappled with in the classroom. The myths (in a literary sense) of Progress and Optimism work in a very odd way in our contemporary culture, for Progress seems to be thought of as something that depends on Optimism. If we can only feel good about things (especially ourselves), good things will happen to us. Surely this is a peculiar twist to have given the more rational Enlightenment belief that Optimism is valid (in one sense) because of a prior recognition that Progress is possible.' That Optimism precedes and even somehow produces Progress has indeed become a widespread myth (a way of looking at reality and shaping one's actions thereby) and even a kind of magical talisman for many who feel utterly frustrated. For example, as painful as it is to hear coming from the man who shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in San Francisco about two years ago, I vividly recall this quotation attributed to Dan White in the Los Angeles Times (December 10, 1978): Basically, I'm still a believer in the American dream