The portrayal of the schoolteacher in American literature based upon colonial types: 1794-1987

American schoolteachers are constrained by literary portrayals which have been perpetuated over 200 years of American literature. Images of secondary or minor character teachers are negative or forgettably benign and reflect a particular stereotypical attitude about American teachers. These depictions are rooted in the colonial period and are marked by Puritanism. The manner in which early teachers were initiated into the profession, the attitude of selectmen and citizens towards them, their transcience, the duties with which they were associated, as well as the already existing deleterious associations inherited from their English past served to brand teachers as incompetent or authoritarian or worse. Nine colonial teacher types (eight male and one female) were culled from records, edicts, diaries, letters, and published works from and about the colonial period. These types were applied to 55 characters in 30 American works of fiction from 1794 to 1987. Ninety-five percent of these portrayals matched with the nine colonial teacher types. In addition, six works were chosen for content analyses.; Literary analyses revealed that secondary characters found within the 30 works of fiction ranged from ministerial, moralistic images to fools and buffoons to renegade ne're-do-wells to uninspired spinsters biding their time while waiting for marriage. Works were chosen from American novelists commonly accepted by the literary canon such as Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Henry James, William Faulkner, J. D. Salinger, and Toni Morrison. All characters analyzed were from elementary or secondary school settings.; That literary analysis is an appropriate gauge of a culture's tendencies and beliefs is based upon the premise that writers, consciously or unconsciously, inevitably transmit the "social facts" contained within the society in which they live. This is especially true of minor or secondary characters with whom a writer spends less time artfully creating and who are flatter and similar to literary "types" of old. Such characters are more likely to be stereotypical repositories of how American society perceives its teachers.; Common themes, imagery associated with teachers, comic portrayals, romantic interests, sexual transgressions, pedagogical practices, and attitudes about teaching were among the ideas explored in each literary work.