<p>Caught Jay Leno's Jay Walking segment last night. </p>
<p>A woman who recently graduated with an English degree from Harvard couldn't answer basic literature questions and had never even heard of the character Tom Sawyer (or the book bearing his name in the title). </p>
<p>I'm not trying to bash here; just genuinely curious if anyone knows how this could be possible. Is the program structured away from traditional / American literature or something?</p>
<p>I’m not trying to bash Harvard, either, but…perhaps that woman wasn’t being truthful. I don’t understand how any American student in high school (let alone college) could not have heard of Tom Sawyer. However, IF Harvard allows English majors to finish a degree on a program that disregards hallmark American literature then yes, it needs to re-evaluate its program. My husband and I were totally abashed and couldn’t believe what we were hearing. At least the woman understood that she was embarrassing herself on national TV !</p>
<p>Saw the show last night. Today I’m telling a coworker about it and decided to find something online about it. Googled and found this thread. Ouch!</p>
<p>Perhaps she wasn’t truthful, or perhaps it is just a sad day for the Harvard English Department.</p>
<p>Either way, next place you’ll probably hear about this… CollegeHumor.com</p>
<p>The trend in my D’s prep/high school English curriculum was a variety of literature from many (American) cultures. Perhaps the the schools vere away from Twain because of all the blatant racism? Too many n-words?</p>
<p>I didn’t see it, but maybe she was paid or forgot? Who knows, but I’m sure she would know a ton of other American literature characters. It’s not like one person is ever a good portrayal of the ENTIRE Harvard Uni.</p>
<p>Maybe the woman was lying about having graduated from Harvard or maybe she was a Harvard grad who was pulling Leno’s leg.</p>
<p>Schools mostly have you read Huckleberry Finn where Tom Sawyer gets mentioned in passing, but neither of my kids has ever read Tom Sawyer, they’d probably flunk this question too. I always wonder when this sort of thing appears on TV how many people they filmed who knew the answer to get the ones that didn’t.</p>
<p>You don’t have to have read it to have heard of it.</p>
<p>If you’ve heard of Mark Twain, which is almost impossible for an English major to not know, you should probably have known of his famous characters in several books.
You can also just know him via allusions/references from other books and even TV shows. The first time I actually looked up Tom Sawyer was when I was watching an episode of Lost, where one of the character’s name was awfully familiar.</p>
<p>Twain uses the n-word as complete satire, he was 100% not racist and believed that racism was bogging down the American nature. In fact, if you had read Huckleberry Finn, you’d learn that one of the stories major motifs is Huck’s inner conflict with himself over his upbringing, learning that blacks were dumb and evil, vs. his own personal experience with (Jim?), who he was learning was trustworthy, intelligent (not smart, no school), and a good person.</p>
<p>And no, there is no way it is real. Is it possible? I guess anything is. If she was an ‘english major’ with a 2.0 average and never read a book. Trust me, if you had read Huck Finn, you remember Tom Sawyer. Everyone has heard of him, whether the song by Rush, from seeing one of the 400 movies, or from reading the books. I go here, have never read a book outside of school (not davinci code, not angels and demons, no harry potter or LOTR), and I’ve heard of Tom Sawyer since I was 6 years old, probably from general conversation overheard.</p>
<p>And it seems highly improbable that Jay Leno is walking on the streets, finds a person, this person happens to be a Harvard graduate, this Harvard graduate happens to be an English major, and happens to ask an easy question that this English major from Harvard doesn’t know?</p>
<p>I hope that the woman was being facetious. Who knows?</p>
<p>And in my high school, we read Huckleberry Finn and not Tom Sawyer, but the name Tom Sawyer should still be common knowledge!</p>