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The American Literary Canon: A Series of Arguments for (1493: A Land Fit…

- - - - In a fictional account of the conflicts between the Native Americans and whites, James Fennimore Cooper's 1826 tale, The Last of the Mohicans chronicles a friendship between representatives of the two groups, alongside the violent battles that persisted. He asserts in the lines of prose that the Native Americans must assimilate in order to survive the changing landscape of the lands that are called the United States of America.
- - - - "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" In 1852, on America's birthday, Frederick Douglass uses the argument of Jefferson, and responds with a rational and cogent speech in which he asserts the qualities of black men (including himself) that mirror "manhood," and explains the many ways in which he and his peoples are not treated as such by the government and civilians of the country.
        
        In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," he argues through an emotionally driven narrative that the experience of the black man in America is still stifled and corrupted by racism nearly a century after slavery has been technically abolished.
        
        "Souls of Black Folk" by W.E.B. Dubois denies the legitimization of freedom of black people despite the supposed end of slavery
        
        Langston Hughes's "I, Too" argues for an inclusive(ish) America
- - - - Mary Rowlandson's tale of captivity shows the psychological toll of war through the eyes of a woman, but also argues that humanity is present within instances otherwise considered savage
        
        Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl argues to an audience of white women that morality is a luxury and that slavery and similar circumstances thus corrupt morality. She also highlights the ways in which the life of a female slave is different than that of males slaves
        
        Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper argues against the suppression of women and explains that such a practice is what contributes to the decay of the mind, rather than it happening on its own
        
        Carmen Maria Machado's "Inventory" argues that sexuality (and particularly, female sexuality) is a unavoidable aspect of the human condition, even in the crux of the apocalypse
        
        Beyonce's Sorry argues through the medium of song and music video that women are powerful and capable of independence
      - “Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are;”
- - - - Henry David Thoreau goes into the woods to "live deliberately" to discover oneness between man and nature amidst a corrupted society and increasing automation. (1855)
        
        Walt Whitman writes and emphatic celebration of the self while encouraging all others (without prejudice) to do the same in his poem "Song of Myself." (1855)
  - - - William Carlos Williams's celebration of the highly-significant wheelbarrow in "The Red Wheelbarrow" demonstrates the evolution and flexibility of poetry. (1923)
        
        Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" uses two lines to say something and nothing at the same time