Letters v. Emails: The Showdown

Dear McKenna and Brenna,

I’m curious about what you two think about the implications of the evolution of letters and the advent of email. I know you guys explored some reading about that, from Liz Stanley and Simeon Yates. I’m not sure what to make of it from my own limited knowledge. Does email change how we view letters? Does it change our analysis of letters specifically?

Cheerio,

Mary _____________________________________________________________________________

Hey-a Mary (and also McKenna),

Yeah! Liz Stanley has a pretty interesting argument about the death of the letter. She argues that while newer technology like email and texting really shift the landscape we’re using for written communication, they haven’t actually killed the letter. I think one of the most important things she brings up is that “absence is usually positioned as fundamentally definitional of the letter as a genre,” which leads people to oversimplifying how emails or texts are almost primarily used to maintain relationships between people who see each other regularly (Stanley 243). However, letters have never really been that cut and dry either. So, I guess the main thing I want to say is that emails really aren’t as different from paper letters as we might think. Letters have always been used to mediate both long-distance and immediate relationships--digital means of communication are too.

XOXO

B 🐝

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Hello Brenna and Mary,

I can’t help but agree with you, Brenna, but I do think that there are some key differences between letters and email (Computer-Mediated Communication) that we must take a moment to recognize. My friend Simeon J. Yates at the University of Liverpool researches how the varying speeds of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and “snail mail” in addition to their sender-to-reader ratio impact their authenticity. Although physical mail is relatively slow in comparison to an email, Yates claims that “it also implies that material versions of the text are more authentic/original” (234). Because the postal process involves several laborious steps, I think that mail possesses more symbolic weight than an email. If I receive a letter, it tends to feel more “special” or significant than merely getting a Microsoft Outlook notification. Do you feel the same way?

Furthermore, while a sender typically intends their letter to reach a singular individual (unless the letter is a family Christmas card sent to another family!), a mass email can have hundreds of recipients. In my eyes, this makes an email somewhat impersonal.

What do you all think about this?

Your pal,

McKenna

Sent from my iPhone.

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Hey you two,

That’s an interesting distinction—that emails can get you information much faster than “snail mail.” I can see how it might lead to questions about authenticity. From my perspective, though, the end goal of both letters and emails remains the same. As Liz Stanley and Margaretta Jolly discuss, letter-writers promise “only to communicate with their reader” (92) instead of relaying autobiographical “truth.” As two forms of written communication meant to connect the writer and addressee, I think letters and emails share this trait. Nothing binds letters to be inherently truthful or authentic. I agree that receiving a letter feels more important or memorable than receiving an email. However, does that really change the authenticity/analytical value of either medium? They both involve the same parties—a writer and a reader—and they could both equally be serious, mysterious, friendly, funny, or stupid. Although letters may be less common for casual, silly communication, we still feel the same anxiety sending a letter or an email to an unknown person and the same fun familiarity with a friend we send correspondence to. I don’t know if we’ll ever come to a conclusion about this topic, but it’s interesting to think about! I’m also thinking, do emails leave more room for mistakes than letters? Does this make any difference? Thanks for talking to me, this is such a fun conversation!

Toodles,

Mary

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Mary and Brenna—

I love how you’ve mentioned how emails can leave room for mistakes. However, I think that letters can also fail to reach their intended destinations. In The House Behind the Cedars, for instance, a chance gust of air blows Molly’s letter right out of her window and into the hands of an unintended reader: “The wind, blowing across the room through the open windows, picked up the envelope and bore it into the street. An hour or two later another gust of wind lifted the bit of paper from the ground and carried it into the open door of the cooper shop. Frank picked it up, and observing that it was clean and unused, read the superscription” (Chesnutt 87). This mistake surrenders the privacy assumed when writing a letter to a specific person. It’s also indicative of the infelicitous nature of written communication—there’s a prolonged chance for exposure since writing lasts longer than oral communication.

Despite the potential for letters to get “lost in transit,” I agree that making mistakes while writing an email (as in accidentally hitting “reply all” or sending an email to the wrong Brenna), happens more frequently. An email, if sent to the wrong group, can also reach several unintended recipients simultaneously. Delphine Roux makes this grievous error. After writing a wanted ad for her perfect fellow, she “neglects to observe that earlier, at the outset, instead of addressing the ad to the New York Review of Books, she had automatically addressed it to the recipients of her previou [sic] communication, the recipients of most of her communications—to the ten staff members of the Athena Department of Languages and Literature” (Roth 277). This adds an interesting complication to the public/private binary. Does this precariousness also impact the emotional weight of a letter or an email?

Questioning in Quebec,

McKenna

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Hi again, y’all!

Yeah, I think you both raise really good points about how the content, emotional connection, and the possibility for error are really different between emails and written letters. However, I think one big thing we haven’t brought up yet that's pretty central to our project is the materiality of these mediums. McKenna, your buddy Yates actually suggests that “CMC in some manner has ‘replaced’ materially based writing as well as expanded the range of written communication” (Yates 234). While there’s obviously a HUGE gap between the “materiality” of a physical and a digital letter, certain physical aspects of letters are still present in their own way in emails. Like, think about your email inbox. You still have a stack of mail that lets you know who sent you the mail and might give you an idea of the “vibe” of what they sent you. While a subject line discloses a lot more of the content, letters still give you some hint of what they contain. Like, imagine the difference between getting a card-sized/shaped letter in the mail around your birthday and getting a thick, long envelope. Either way, both letters and emails have ways of hinting at what they contain before you open them. In addition, emails and letters are both able to move across boundaries in a way that people often can’t. So, basically, while there are some pretty core and important differences between the two mediums, in a lot of the ways that count, letters and emails have a lot in common.

Hope you’re doing well in this trying time,

B