For Americans, pursuing happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a God-given right and self-evident truth. Is it any surprise then that people spend so much time searching—for the right person, the right job, the perfect meme? American writer Gore Vidal once said, “Americans are future-minded to the point of obsession. We are impatient at living in the present. Tomorrow is bound to be better... next year, next century, always what might be rather than what is.” Texts for this course feature characters on the move and seeking, not always by choice. They might be looking for something simple, like a lock that fits a mysterious key, or something more complex, like a new sense of self, a place to feel at home, or a way to make peace with their past. By tracing these journeys, students enter new worlds and see how each character’s quest feeds the soul or fuels dissatisfaction. Reading with curiosity, students search, too—for an escape, a little fun, or some meaning that is not obvious at first glance. Works may include Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay, Don DeLillo’s White Noise, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties, Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez, Justin Torres’s We the Animals, and Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.
Corequisite: Concurrent enrollment in Honors English III: Imagining America or an Honors English IV course.