I was sitting in my English class and was given a prompt to reflect on my years of learning in my English classroom, how has X high school shaped your view on English literature as a whole? It was a prompt that others may have answered by citing The Odyssey or Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Frankenstein or Of Mice and Men. I realized then that all these lenses had something in common: Odysseus, a tremendous warrior fighting for his kingdom, Huck Finn, a scoundrel who impulsively runs away on a raft, or Frankenstein, a mad scientist obsessed with unorthodox experiments— these main characters were all male.
My scope into English literature was by the perspectives of white male characters. And not only male characters, all these characters —men and women— were being narrated by white, male authors. I looked up from my paper and looked around at my then English classroom that contained only 3 male classmates. Even in a female-majority classroom, the male gaze still dominated our English curriculum.
Recently, a movement has been sweeping schools around the nation named Rethinking the Literary Canon. The premise of this movement is rethinking the curriculum of what we call sacred and genuine literature. English teachers are coming together asking themselves, “why are there only dead, old white men on our bookshelves?”
This is not to dismiss the impact of Shakesphere or Twain but to ask ourselves if this melting pot that we call America is being reflected well enough in the books that we are giving to the minds of tomorrow. Being a country almost entirely made of immigrants, why do we pay patronage to only a single demographic of writers and then consider them to be the only true American authors? This question was only answered recently, and so Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Langston Hughes were promptly added into the literary canon with works such as Beloved, Why Does the Caged Bird Sing, and A Raisin in the Sun (Poem).
The classroom was finally getting its taste of different voices and perspectives that it hadn’t gotten in— ever. And with these new narratives, there came subjects that could never have been debated about in an English setting. No longer was literature the only subject taught in my English class, but now it seemed that US history and philosophy were its co-curriculars. My first time reading Letter from Birmingham Jail was not in my history class but my English class. My first time reading about Cesar Chavez and his efforts for the National Farm Workers Association was during a timed writing. Diversifying the reading list reinvented the entire curriculum and could now appeal students to an entire humanities spectrum: philosophy, history, psychology, and current social-justice issues. Adding more aberrant voices and authors would only escalate the curriculum to a more revolutionary canon that could reflect the modern world.
Long overdue has been an equal representation of women in the casting of many literary classics. More works involving female protagonists in the curriculum would welcome young female readers to empathize with the experiences the women in their storybooks are having. By showing a more unconventional narrative, young boys and girls could learn more about themselves and each other: with new topics surfacing in the news such as the danger of power-dynamic relationships in the entertainment industry (large children-content influencers David Dobrik and James Charles) and cases such as Sarah Everard, today’s generation could learn more about the nuances of societal gender imbalance within the context of their books.
I’ve read a total of four female protagonists in my four years of English classes, three of those being written by female authors. It’s clear to say that out of 16 books read in total, and the contribution of female authors equating to less than one-fourth shows that there is gender disparity within our classroom bookshelves.
While this argument of supplementing our bookshelves with more women may seem like a fruitless act (Why don’t you just read books of female protagonists in your free time? Is it worth the effort to reinvent the whole English curriculum?), it seems like an integral task to dismantle a system that has had a patriarchal undertone for decades. It seems that the English reading list has been at a stagnant lull for a while, which is antithetical to today’s times such as the reimbursement of BLM and the Me Too Movement. In a time where information has never been more accessible and during a generation that has been more progressive, it would be ignorant to not strive for that same constant improvement and enhancement of our school curriculum.
We should be looking into whose voices are present in our classrooms. Whose voice is being the most heard, and is that voice silencing the rest?
My freshman year— one book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Scout Finch is the youngest girl protagonist I read in high school, and it seems fitting to have read her in freshman year— a year where I, myself, felt very disoriented in my current environment known as high school. Of course, Finch and I were not identical— she was only 9 years old while I’m 15— so I saw her as more of a little sister than a friend. She grew up in a strange time where she had to quickly understand her place in the world and her father’s, Atticus Finch, as well. Before, I had read stories dictated by older men like Wes Moore from The Other Wes Moore, who was a retired US Army soldier that had seen more than I will ever see in my life, or Odysseus from The Odyssey, who made choices and decisions that I couldn’t see myself making in a million years.
If Atticus Finch was the narrator, I believe that TKAM would have been a completely different story. There, would be a story centered on morality and what it means to be treated as a just human.
But Scout’s narrative was a story about the growth of a little girl’s moral lens. Scout wasn’t meant to be this virtuous protagonist who knew all the nuances between right and wrong. Scout was the antithesis of a typical hero protagonist— she was a protagonist that knew less than the reader, and we were able to put ourselves in the shoes of a young girl’s underdeveloped societal and moral repertoire.
My sophomore year— no books.
My junior year— two books, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.
The first time I’ve heard of The Scarlet Letter was from Emma Stone in the movie Easy A. Even with two completely different time periods, settings, and protagonists, both of the works’ core message struck a chord with me: two women being cast away for the same crimes a man has done. Hester Prynne and Olive were both victims of the cruel standards society had set for women. Discussing the novel within the class, the theme was quickly picked up and clear with everyone. The term slut-shaming was thrown around during the seminar, a modern take on a century-old book with a still very relevant message.
Even with those that haven’t watched Easy A, there are plenty of stories and articles to read about the misogyny that comes with expressed sexuality in society. In collaboration with self-research on the topic of misogyny, I hope to see an effortful approach to further exploring this theme in more schools in the future.
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry has to be my favorite short play of all time, with a majority-black female-centered cast and a black female playwright behind it all. The play and playwright were revolutionary for their time because during this time, black characters were only portrayed in the theatre for minstrel shows. The conglomerate character list, Lena, Ruth, and Beneatha, all represent traits that were so deprived out of the previous female characters I’ve read about: rectitude, puissance, and an academic.
Starting with Lena, she is considered the matriarch of the house: the grandmother and oldest out of all of them. Never have I seen a female character so respected for their years without being mocked by the younger folk for being senile or unsteady. She was deeply religious; religion being established in a positive light was new to me when reading the books in school (the only text containing religious themes being Scarlet Letter).
Ruth exhibits the straight man in the play— the voice of reason. But her voice of reason doesn’t come without consequences, her family is usually on the opposing side as we read of Ruth struggling to attain a solid medium of agreeance between the two halves. Ruth was also made out to be the determined hard worker of the family, in the means of providing comfort and stability for her family. A mother was not typically given enough depth in a book besides being a shallow comfort character for the protagonist; I appreciated how the play humanized her for her faults and strengths, her kind yet stern demeanor.
Beneatha turned from the most insignificant character to the most misunderstood character while I was reading. From a comic-relief character that always fought with her older brother to a character that had the most interesting identity character arc, Beneatha was a precedent to what my understanding of the black, female narrative was.
* Beneatha is what I’d call a “not-fully fleshed out Ifemelu” from Americanah, which is a book I read in my senior year
Motifs such as Beneatha’s inconsistency with her hair and her two boyfriends intensify her difficulty with grappling onto independence from those around her. While she seems to be the one that has the most going for her (the first to pursue a college degree), we can see that she is the most adolescent and confused character out of all of them. Beneatha almost reminded me of Scout, allowing the reader to churn sympathy for a character that is just learning about the world.
My senior year— one book, Americanah by Chimamanda Agochi-Adiche.
The phrase Save the Best for Last applies here. Ifemelu from Americanah is the most flawed character within this stack, and it’s the flaws that make her the most rounded character. She lies, cheats, and misunderstands people, but this is how a character like her can empathize with anyone reading her. Ifemelu has taught me that no one’s moral code is perfect because humans come with their own issues or prejudices and preconceptions that can alter the way that they view the world drastically.
The problem is not ignorance but the condemnation of misunderstood ignorance. In a world where we can be quick to judge one’s character, such as a short Twitter video from Zimmerman’s controversial take on the Nathan Phillips and Nick Sandmann video, it is difficult to stray from the pack. And because it’s difficult, people often choose to hide their own “unpopular takes” or their “controversial opinions” in order to not be made a vulnerable spectacle.
Especially with an already marginalized voice (reading from Ifemelu’s voice of being a Nigerian, female foreigner captured this perspective very well), it can be difficult to share your true thoughts on argumentative topics— a lesson that could not have been captured by reading a male protagonist’s point of view.
After summarizing the stories and fictional women that have shaped my English curriculum (which is a very minimal statistic), it’s clear that some of these themes and takes would not have been as effective if they were in the narrative of a man.
While I can take away lessons of the bravery of Odysseus or the morality lost within George’s mistake, the sexism inside Hester’s Puritan village or the black narrative of Beneatha and Ifemelu are lessons exclusive to the female protagonist. It’s clear that the inclusion of more voices within the curriculum won’t hinder but strengthen and liberate those voices that were previously silenced in the literary community.
A link to a local petition to Diversify the FCPS English Classroom
More resources on Rethinking the English Curriculum:
Lifting Black Voices in Children’s Books Carlotta Penn TEDxKingLincolnBronzeville
The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf Grace Lin TEDxNatick
Can a Children’s Book Change the World? Linda Sue Park TEDxBeaconStreet