National mythology as a nation-forming factor

A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past.

Such myths often serve as an important national symbol and affirm a set of
national values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic or be
incorporated into a civil religion. Nations need underlying myths in order to feel their
unity, to mark their difference from other nations, to ground their national self
identification in common past, to share certain stories, concepts, and heroes. Benedict
Anderson’s influential book on nations calls them “imagined communities”.
In the USA collective identity is polycultural. Lack of conventional ties linking people
to the state; they had to be substituted by new ideas – dream of religious, later political
liberty, paradise on earth.
American way of life takes its roots in supra-national idea – it does not owe its origin to
any separate tradition, but is based on individuals and current demands
Any national ideology is based, first and foremost, on canonized and sacralized
national culture in its temporal and local integrity (often imaginary), including its system
of values and beliefs, its traditional myths and heroes.
National mythology is instrumental in solving the problem of self-identification that
figures prominently in present-day postmodern society, and is central in late 20th – early
21st cc. literature. Nations aware of their mythology are stronger since the members of a
society are aware of their connection with other representatives of the community even
without direct contacts with them, since they share the same ideas, symbols, etc.
National myths serve many social and political purposes. National myths often exist
only for the purpose of state-sponsored propaganda. In totalitarian dictatorships, the
leader might be given, for example, a mythical supernatural life history in order to make
him or her seem god-like and supra-powerful (see also cult of personality). However,
national myths exist in every society. In liberal regimes they can serve the purpose of
inspiring civic virtue and self-sacrifice, or of consolidating the power of dominant groups
and legitimizing their rule. Especially today – in a rapidly shifting world there is a need for
stable truths not subject to historical changes. Ernest Gellner – culture is unifying factor

Principal mythologems in American culture and literature

1. Christopher Columbus and the Myth of ‘Discovery’
The mythology of the ‘new world’ begins with the discourse of discovery and with
powerful European projections that envision a new kind of paradise, a utopia
somewhere across the Atlantic that alleviates (lighten) the grievances of the ‘old
world’ and that promises boundless earthly riches. In its traditional European
version, this discourse is not so much about the ‘hosts’ whom the part Native
American novelist as it is about their ‘visitors,’ i.e. those Europeans who arrive and
‘discover.’ The story of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and his arrival in the
Americas holds a pivotal (key) place in an American foundational mythology that
stages the ‘discovery’ and the subsequent settlement and colonization of the ‘new
world’ in pro`phetic ways as an inevitable step forward in the course of human progress
that eventually would lead to the founding of the USA and to US-American
westward expansion, its ‘manifest destiny.’
2. Pocahontas and the Myth of Transatlantic Love
The figure of Pocahontas is at the core of an American foundational myth that for a long
time has been considered the first love story of the ‘new world’ and thus paradigmatic for
casting intercultural relations in the early colonial history of the Americas as harmonious
and peaceful. As a Native American female foundational figure, Pocahontas may seem
less prominent than the male European Christopher Columbus and his myth of discovery
(due to her gender and ethnicity), yet her story has had an enormous circulation. The
romanticization of Pocahontas and her encounter with the English settlers have become
one of the most enduring narratives of American culture: this story was “recast and retold
more often than any other American historical incident during the colonial and antebellum
periods”, pointing to the “evolution of an American narrative” over the course of two
centuries and to the debate and refashioning of this narrative in the centuries to follow.
3. Pilgrims and Puritans and the Myth of the Promised Land
The Pilgrims and Puritans who settled in New England in the first half of the 17th century
are the protagonists of a foundational myth that has survived across the centuries as a story
of American beginnings characterized by religiosity, idealism, sacrifice, and a utopian
vision based on theology. Many scholars have considered the New England Pilgrims and
Puritans as the ‘first Americans’ in the spirit of what would later develop into the full-
fledged notion of American exceptionalism. Often, they have been contrasted favorably to
the settlers in Virginia, who were seen as “adventurers” supposedly interested in material
gain only, whereas the Pilgrims and Puritans, it was claimed, came for spiritual reasons
and considered themselves religious refugees
4. The American Dream
Rather than just a powerful philosophy or ideology, the American Dream—“a vision of
a better, deeper, richer life for every individual, regardless of the position in society which
he or she may occupy by the accident of birth,” as James Truslow Adams defined the
phrase in his 1931 book, The Epic of America —is thoroughly woven into the fabric of
everyday life. It plays a vital, active role in who we are, what we do, and why we do it.
No other idea or mythology—even religion, I believe—has as much influence on our
individual and collective lives, with the American Dream one of the precious few things in
this country that we all share. You name it—economics, politics, law, work, business,
education—and the American Dream is there, the nation at some level a marketplace of
competing interpretations and visions of what it means and should mean.
5. The American Way of Life
Since the term was popularized in the 1930s, the American Way of Life—a belief or set
of beliefs that assign certain attitudes and/or behaviors related to our national character
—has served as another guiding mythology or ethos of the United States. Because it is
simply an idea open to interpretation and is constantly mutating, it is impossible to say
with certainty what the American Way is and what it is not. The American Way has over
the years thus represented many things to many people, making it a useful device for
anyone wishing to promote a particular agenda that serves his or her interests.
The American Way is essentially whatever each of us wants it to be, a wonderful thing
that does justice to the libertarian streak embedded in our national charter. While the term
has been attached to everything from farming to baseball to barbecue, a consumerist
lifestyle supported by a system based on free enterprise has served as its ideological
backbone.
6. American Independence and the Myth of the Founding Fathers
The myth of the Founding Fathers constitutes an American master narrative that has
enshrined a group of statesmen and politicians of the revolutionary and post-revolutionary
period as personifications of the origin of American nationhood, republicanism, and
democratic culture. More so than with the previously discussed individuals and groups, the
Founding Fathers epitomize a political myth of origin that is phrased in a language of
kinship. The term ‘Fathers’ suggests tradition, legitimacy, and paternity and creates an
allegory of family and affiliation that affirms the union and the cohesion of the new
nation. When the colonists in the revolutionary decade argued that they were no longer
subjects of the British King and that they could now govern themselves, they claimed not
only the maturity of the colonies and its ruling elite but also their capacity to produce
progenitors in their own right. The construction of ‘new world’ authority and the logic of
reproduction went hand in hand
7. The Myth of the Melting Pot
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the metaphor of a "crucible" or "melting pot" was used to
describe the fusion of different nationalities, ethnicities and cultures. It was used together
with concepts of the United States as an ideal republic and a "city upon a hill" or new
promised land. It was a metaphor for the idealized process of immigration and
colonization by which different nationalities, cultures and "races" were to blend into a
new, virtuous community, and it was connected to utopian visions of the emergence of an
American "new man".
8. The Self-Made Man
the notion that upward mobility in US society is unlimited regardless of inherited social
and financial status has been used to contrast the US to European societies with rigidly
stratified social hierarchies, and to support the claim that the American economic system
leads to a higher standard of living in general as well as to a higher degree of individual
agency and economic opportunity
The national type of the self-made man and the creed of American mobility imply “parity
in competition”, and, in fact, “an endless race open to all” despite the fact that not all start
out even or compete on an equal footing, and have been used to bolster the assumption
that there are no permanent classes in US society. The providential success of the self-
made man was identified with the success of the national project, and expressive
individualism was thus regarded not only as the basis for individual but also for collective
success.

Puritan concept of Covenant (agreement/завіт) with God

Winthrop said that the Puritans had “entered into Covenant" with God for the work,
and if God “ratified this Covenant” by bringing them safely to America, then God "will
expect a strict performance of the Articles contained in it.” Winthrop claimed that New
England would be a community of love, where everyone would “delight in each other,”
identify with one another, “rejoyce together, mourn together, labor and suffer together,”
and pray together. The sermon also reveals Winthrop's fundamental belief in the great
chain of being as a model for the hierarchic system that underlay his aristocratic social
beliefs.
In this famous essay written aboard the Arabella during his passage to New England in
1630, John Winthrop (1606-1676) proclaims that the Puritan had made a covenant with
God to establish a truly Christian community, in which the wealthy were to show charity
and avoid exploiting their neighbors while the poor were to work diligently. If they abided
by this covenant, God would make them an example with the world--a "city upon a hill."
But if they broke the covenant, the entire community would feel God's wrath.
In his stress on the importance of a stable community and reciprocal obligations
between rich and poor, Winthrop was implicitly criticizing disruptive social and economic
changes that were rapidly transforming English society. As a result of the enclosure of
traditional common lands, which were increasingly used to raise sheep, many rural
laborers were thrown off the land, producing a vast floating population. As many as half of
all village residents left their community each decade. In his call for tightly-knit
communities and families, Winthrop was striving to recreate a social ideal that was
breaking down in England itself.

Puritan vision of future America as a New Jerusalem

The Pilgrims dreamed of establishing a new “Jerusalem” in which they could live in
peace and brotherhood while waiting for the second coming of Christ. They believed their
duty was to convert Native people to Christianity and assimilate them into the English way
of life.
Puritans saw themselves as Jews who wanted to build a state with fair laws and give
other nations an example to follow.
The New Jerusalem is the fulfillment of all God’s promises and exemplifies
His goodness. The Apostle John gives his final vision in Revelation of the Holy City for
all those who believe in Jesus Christ and are covered by His blood to dwell with Him
forever.
The idea of the New Jerusalem arises from very powerful and moving descriptions in
the Book of Revelation that in the last days, literally a New Jerusalem, a new heaven and a
new earth, shall be created. The old earth shall pass away and shall be no more. These are
tremendously powerful images. And New England Puritans--at least some of their
leaders--were convinced that this moment had come; that God was preparing the way for
the creation of this New Jerusalem in New England.
The notion that America was the New Jerusalem was something that had to be asserted
with some modesty. Americans still were very much provincial and aware of the fact that
they were on the periphery of what they considered civilization. To confidently assert that
this is the New Jerusalem is something that most of them would not say baldly. But they
couldn't help thinking, you know: Here we are. Even though we're at the edge of
civilization, perhaps this is the New Jerusalem. For them, it really was this sense of a
kingdom of believers whose conduct and whose vision of salvation would come to define
a kind of holy commonwealth.
When the Puritans talked about founding the New Jerusalem in the American colony,
they're really harking to the language of the Book of Revelation. Revelation 21:10 talks
about Jerusalem descending from the heavens at the end of times. They see themselves
really as bringing the last days, the end of time, into reality by founding this new religious
experiment.
In their view, the real Jerusalem, the historical Jerusalem, is a long way away. They
don't worry about that. God can do it here. God will bring it now. It's the perfect spiritual
city that they're looking for. But in reality, they think it's going to be their own backyard,
in the Americas.

Puritan perception of American as New Adam

There was this idea that Americans are the new Adam and the new Eve. They are these
new people, and they're being made by this new environment. And that's what they're sort
of straining toward early on, some new kind of narrative, some new kind of story that
Americans can tell that is going to be a story of them in relationship to God.
The whole point of reformation was to make Christianity right, to bring it back to the
beginning, bring it back to its pure origins, bring it back to the Bible. Puritans were going
to purify the church.
Puritans made a covenant with God. Covenant theology asserts that when God created
Adam and Eve he promised them eternal life in return for perfect obedience; this promise
was termed the covenant of works. After the fall of man, human nature was corrupted by
original sin and unable to fulfill the covenant of works. Based on Biblical portrayals of
Adam and Eve, Puritans believed that marriage was rooted in procreation, love, and, most
importantly, salvation.
But for Puritans, being "saved'' could never be guaranteed. Since Adam's fall, man was
born damned, hell his destiny. The only hope of God's salvation required Puritans to
devote themselves to studying their Bible and to live a pious life. To understand God's will
was a lifetime's struggle. Puritans were supposed to wrestle with this idea. They were
never supposed to be sure that they are saved.
 кароче, как я поняла: The whole point of reformation was to make Christianity right,
to bring it back to the beginning, bring it back to its pure origins, bring it back to the Bible.
And the Church of England wasn't doing enough of that. And so that's where they got their
name from, the Puritans. They were going to purify the church. и английская церковь
ничего не делала, поэтому они направились в Америку, чтобы там заключить этот
ковенант с богом и типа американец станет новым адамом. Этот адам будет
совершенно послушным, а бог за это подарит пуританцам вечную жизнь
(and the English church didn't do anything, so they went to America to make this
covenant there with God and like the American would become the new Adam. This
Adam will be completely obedient, and God will give the Puritans eternal life for this.)

Secular transformation of Puritan idea of America’s special mission in the

period of Enlightenment
Puritanism gave Americans a sense of history as a progressive drama under the
direction of God, in which they played a role akin to, if not prophetically aligned with, that
of the Old Testament Jews as a new chosen people.
Perhaps most important was the strength of Puritanism as a way of coping with the
contradictory requirements of Christian ethics in a world on the verge of modernity. It
supplied an ethics that somehow balanced charity and self-discipline.
By the beginning of the 18th century, Puritanism had both declined and shown its
tenacity. Though “the New England Way” evolved into a relatively minor system of
organizing religious experience within the broader American scene, its central themes
recur in the related religious communities of Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists
and a whole range of evangelical Protestants.
Puritanism, however, had a more significant persistence in American life than as the
religion of black-frocked caricatures. It survived, perhaps most conspicuously, in the
secular form of self-reliance, moral rigor, and political localism that became, by the Age
of Enlightenment, virtually the definition of Americanism.
pilgrims were supplemented by the slogans of the founding fathers ”. Now America's
special mission is seen not so much in returning to biblical norms as in building a just and
democratic society here on earth that provides each individual with the freedom to realize
himself.

Mythologization of Founding Fathers in American culture

The Founding Fathers of the United States, or simply the Founding Fathers or
Founders, were a group of American leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, led the war
for independence from Great Britain, and built a frame of government for the new United
States of America upon liberal and republican principles during the latter decades of the
18th century. In general, they include the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and
those who worked on drafting the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights eleven years
later.
 The Founders are depicted as heroic icons or despicable villains, demigods or
devils, the creators of all that is right or all that is wrong with American society. The
mythologization of the Founding Fathers forms an important aspect to American
exceptionalism. In reality, it shouldn't need to be said that the Founders were all very
flawed human beings who disagreed with each other on any number of issues.
In recent years the Founder whose reputation has been tossed most dramatically is
Thomas Jefferson Most respect him as the creator and narrator of the American democratic
system.Still, people disrespect him for his the most explicit assertion of the supposed
biological inferiority of African Americans.
The Founding Fathers played key roles in the founding of the country, but some
played particularly critical parts. As with any group, their strength was often gained from
their differences.

American Dream as a socio-political ideal

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals
(democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality) in which freedom includes the
opportunity for prosperity and success, as well as an upward social mobility for the
family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers. In the
definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better
and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or
achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.[1]
The American Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims
that "all men are created equal" with the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."[2] Also, the U.S. Constitution promotes similar freedom, in the Preamble: to
"secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".
In the age of revolution, when the American consciousness under the influence of
turbulent socio-political events is undergoing a radical break, formed largely on the basis
of enlightenment ideas, arising not from divine law and tradition, but from legal and civil
norms, and the American dream. Like the secularized American consciousness, it sheds its
theological garb. The American dream, which originally contained the seeds of political
and social idealism, became the embodiment of the enlightenment ideal of a free
individual and a democratic society based on the equality of all people, for whose self-
realization, unlike the Old World, there are no obstacles. But even in its transformed form,
the American dream retains many of its original features: a focus on the new world and the
new man, free from the evils of Europe caused by centuries of oppression, injustice,
poverty and lawlessness, omnipotence, arbitrariness, luxury and idleness. . Equally
important in the American dream is the realization of one's uniqueness, one's choice — a
god or a history that has prepared America for a lofty mission — to serve as a model and
guiding star for the rest of humanity.

Stereotypical treatment of American Indian in national culture

Indianness is a national heritage; it is a source for commercial enterprise; it is a
costume one can put on for a party, a youth activity, or a sporting event. This sense of
entitlement, this expression of white privilege, has a long history, manifesting itself in
national narratives, popular entertainments, marketing schemes, sporting worlds, and self-
improvement regimes.
From the earliest period of European colonization, images of Indians found expression
in early drawings, engravings, portraiture, political prints, maps and cartouches,
tobacconist figures, weather vanes, coins and medals, and books and prints. Initially,
depictions of Native males and females were used to symbolize the North American
continent in the international iconography of the day, representations that proliferated. The
Indian Queen, symbolized the Western Hemisphere. Her successor, the Indian Princess,
became representative of the American colonies. During the Revolutionary period,
America was portrayed as a feathered Indian defying British tyranny in printed materials
of the day.
Institutionalized throughout the nation and exported to other countries, these images
and others include dual portrayals of the good Indian (those who help Europeans) and
the bad Indian (those who resist Europeans), nostalgic vanishing, brave warriors,
romantic princesses, and countless ignoble images of brutality and degradation. Such
representations obliterate or mask the realities of tribal nations struggling to maintain
their populations, lands, resources, and sovereignty.
American Indians are richly diverse, yet all too often their public portrayals—in books,
advertisements, shop signs, terminology, and even children’s toys and games—are
greatly at odds with actual Native peoples and cultures.
Stereotypical Violence
Almost any portrait that we see of an Indian, he is represented with tomahawk and
scalping knife in hand, as if they possessed no other but a barbarous nature. Christian
nations might with equal justice be always represented with cannon and ball, swords and
pistols.
Language Representations
In contrast to the inane stereotype of the Indian as soundless, we know from the vast
storehouse of our oral traditions that Aboriginal peoples were peoples of words. Many
words. Amazing words. Cultivated words. They were neither wordless nor illiterate in the
context of their linguistic and cultural roots.
Commercialization of Indians
Stereotypes sell. To this day, consumers recognize the stylized Indian chief on cans of
Calumet baking powder and the kneeling Indian maiden on packages of Land O’Lakes
butter
Playing Indian
While minstrel shows have long been criticized as racist, American children are still
socialized into playing Indian. Columbus Day celebrations, Halloween costumes and
Thanksgiving reenactments stereotype Indigenous Peoples as one big distorted culture. We
are relegated to racist stereotypes and cultural caricatures
 Indian Mascots /ˈmæskət/ талысман are used to proliferate stereotypical attitudes to
indigenouns people. They are insulted because these stereotypes may be exaggerated and
made up for commercial purposes.
Native American mascots have very little to do with Native Americans. They do not,
nay, cannot, represent indigenous men and women. Much like blackface, such inventions
and imaginings, meant to represent a racial other, tell us much more about Euro-
Americans….They reflect and reinforce the fundamental features of racial and gendered
privilege in a settler society, particularly a sense of entitlement to take and remake without
consent and to do so without the burden of history, the challenges of knowing, or the risk
of penalty.

Mythologizing Native American spirituality

Native American religions are the spiritual practices of the indigenous peoples of North
America. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and
beliefs of individual tribes, clans, and bands. Early European explorers describe
individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious
practices.
Instead of calling their beliefs and practices a set religion, most refer to it as a system of
spirituality that permeates every aspect of their lives. Religion is a set doctrine of
supernatural beliefs, the ceremonies, and activities associated with it, and includes things
like concepts of deities, spirits or ghosts, what happens to a person after death, and certain
special occasions throughout a person's life.
Native American spirituality includes similar ideas, but integrates them more into
everyday living rather than reserving them for special occasions. Of course, there are
ceremonies for births, deaths, marriages, harvests, and other special times, but daily life
was just as filled with beliefs as “holidays” would be.
Some Common Threads Throughout:
Beliefs About Death. They believe in a spirit that lives on after physical death stopped the
body. It will journey on to another realm or spirit world where it would live another type
of life much as it did when it was within a human body here on Earth.
Planting or Harvesting. For tribes who engaged in agriculture, especially those in the
South and Eastern portion of the United States, celebrations like the Green Corn Festivals
mattered a lot. These particular ceremonies had to do with picking corn at the end of the
growing season and waiting until it was ready to be used as food. These ceremonies
included ritual cleansings, dancing, feasts, various types of ceremonies, and practices both
serene and a lot of fun. Everything from council meetings to baby naming ceremonies to
ball games and sports occurred at these times.
The Concept of a Great Spirit or God. Some people believe in many different deities
controlling things like weather, the underworld, or even something as specific as a
particular mountain.
The Sun Dance. Many Native religions view the sun as a great power in their spiritual
world. The Sun Dance practiced by many cultures is a way to honor the sun.
The Ghost Dance. The dance would return ancestor's spirits from the dead, bring back the
massive tribes of buffalo, and stop the white settlers from destroying the people or taking
up the rest of the land.
Sweat Lodges. are about renewing yourself and forming a limitless bond with the spiritual
world.
Pipe Ceremony. is part of peace negotiations but also naming ceremonies and personal
prayers.
Smudging. Smudging is the act of burning certain herbs or incense so they produce a lot of
smoke, and using that smoke to cleanse a person, object, or place. It is done in many pagan
religions to release negativity or bad spirits from a location.
Vision Quests. Many native cultures include the concept of vision quests in their religious
or spiritual beliefs and practices. These quests exist to form or encourage a type of
connection to a spirit or guide that can bestow truths or understanding on a particular
person.

Native American as a metaphor of American past

Native American, also called American Indian, Amerindian, Amerind, Indian,
aboriginal American, or First Nation person, member of any of the aboriginal peoples of
the Western Hemisphere, although the term often connotes only those groups whose
original territories were in present-day Canada and the United States.
The thoughts and perspectives of indigenous individuals, especially those who lived
during the 15th through 19th centuries, have survived in written form less often than is
optimal for the historian. Because such documents are extremely rare, those interested in
the Native American past also draw information from traditional arts, folk literature,
folklore, archaeology, and other sources.
Indian cultural characteristics – a view from within
1. Non-verbal communication through body language, sign language, facial expressions,
use of personal space, and silence.
2. Time is now and ever flowing, there is no need to hurry.
3. Respect for elders and other adults (teachers), is not to look away into their eyes, rather,
glance away.
4. A unique relationship with nature as part of the circle of life, and entwined with the
creator, mother earth, self and family (as a people). The Indian way is to respect nature,
given to them to use-not abuse, by the great spirit.
5. Lack of belief in ownership, so things such as the mother earth, nature and its natural
resources, possessions, or individual skills are to be shared among each other, not owned
or fenced in, or kept from those in need, because all was given by the creator.
As a result of extensive mythologization, a dual metaphor of the new world was
born in the bowels of the colonial period: the image of a garden of Eden, where unseen,
wonderful gifts of nature, the natives are peaceful and hospitable, nature is soft and
affectionate, and life is a blessing of God. Almost no less often there is the opposite series
of images: a thicket, a “desert” without banks, full of danger, wild animals and people,
treacherous and threatening – a real corner of hell on Earth. Such ideas, of course, were
based on the pan-European religious and literary tradition; however, it was in the new
world that they participated in the formation of cultural complexes of the future nation.
For example, the famous episode from " history Virginia” by John Smith, which tells
about the rescue of the author by the chief's daughter Povhatana, Pocahontas, has a
mythological and folklore character... In fact, most likely, there was a ritual ceremony of
admission to the tribe.

Scientific and mythical justifications of slavery in American public opinion

 Infantalization, they are as children who need white people`s guardian . They are part of the
family, but submissive, immature, unfit for independence and freedom
 Dehumanization and bestialization (0they are dangerous animals or domesticated animals)
 Uneducated- unhuman. Literacy was a justified for that time tool to enslave other races.
 Lack of legacy was a sign of inferiority.
 the relationship between skin color and intelligence
Jefferson's conclusion about the mental abilities of Negroes is based not so much on
examples of their “unreasonable” or “reckless” behavior in everyday life (which would
obviously occur with about the same frequency as representatives of other races), and on
their inability, in his opinion, to abstract thinking, to the “process of sober reasoning”
(reasoning) and especially to “poetry”, that is, literary creativity. He pays a lot of attention
to this issue, making his negative judgment about the works of the poets Phyllis Wheatley
and Ignatius Sancho as a simple “parrot” imitation of white poetry, devoid of originality.
Thus, an equal sign is placed between the lack of a worthy written tradition among blacks
(signs of a high degree of civilization in the European coordinate system) and their low
level of development.
This trend dates back to the late Renaissance. One of the three Jefferson idols
(which also included I. Newton and J. Locke), Francis Bacon, as early as 1623 identified
“illiteracy” with “savagery” – a certain people described in the New Atlantis “being
ignorant and savages. .. I couldn't leave writing, art, or civilization to my descendants...”.
In the following centuries, granting privileged status to writing served as a tool in
European colonial (and American slave-owning) practice to establish and maintain power
over other peoples. Not only the degree of development of non-Europeans, but also their
belonging to the human race were directly deduced from the ability to create written
monuments. It was perfectly logical from the raciocentric position of the Enlightenment –
after all, without written sources it was impossible to witness the activity of reason;
without such evidence, there was no history, and without it there could be no question of
“humanity” in the Western sense. So, D. Hume accompanies the essay "on national
characters" (publ. 1748 p.) with a note, where he makes his assumption about the natural
lowness of blacks and other races in relation to whites. He motivates this idea by the
inability to name among non-whites at least “the only person who would be known for his
actions and thoughts (highlighted by me. - N. V.)", as well as their lack of “complex
works, Arts and Sciences”. Obviously, the mention of” reflections " should be understood
as a statement of their absence in the written form available to the European, since it
would hardly have occurred to him to seek a wise word of mouth in Africa.
Based on these observations of Hume, Kant, in turn, in 1764 notes that “the
difference between these two races of people is so fundamental that it seems as significant
in the field of mental abilities as in the field of color, " and then finally naturalizes the
assumption about the relationship between skin color and intelligence in his rude and
categorical commentary
to the opinion expressed by blacks: "this man was completely black, from head to toe – a
clear proof that what he said was nonsense." Finally, G. V. F. Hegel, summing up the
views that had become dominant at that time, declares Africa from the perspective of his
philosophy of history “a child's country located outside of self-conscious history and
shrouded in the dark darkness of night.” Usually this narrowness of vision on the part of
the greatest thinkers of the old and New World occurred not only from the lack of positive
information about the racial "other", but also from the inability/unwillingness to assume
the existence of multiple systems of accumulation, storage and transfer of knowledge in
different cultures, as well as to imagine, that knowledge itself can have a different nature.

Stereotyping African Americans in the US culture

In parallel with the introduction of the stereotype of a black clown in melodrama, the same
stereotype, but on a much larger scale, was fixed through the most popular genre of
popular art in the United States of the XIX century – minstrel performances, which with
great success exploited the musical, song and dance culture of blacks.
More than three centuries ago, Africans who did not voluntarily fall to the new world, they
brought with them a kind of syncopated rhythm of their worldview. Even during the
horrific ocean crossing, a live “cargo” was supposed to entertain the crew by “jumping and
dancing for several hours every day” on the deck of a slave ship. So “" with splashing,
tapping, drumming (which, of course, corresponded to the rhythms of the heartbeat), the
introduction began in America, the” basic rhythm”that Africa exported to our shores in the
XV century." This rhythm was destined to become one of the fundamental components of
American Music.
On the cotton plantations of the South the whole way of life was directed in order to
eliminate all references to the former Homeland, beliefs and art of the ancestors from the
memory of the slaves as quickly as possible. This was facilitated by the tribal disparity of
yesterday's Africans, and the huge number of their languages. It is quite natural that the
English language became the means of communication between slaves and their self-
expression, to which the Christian religion was soon added. However, in their labor,
humorous, sad songs, the slaves retained their native rhythmic and intonation structures;
from parents to children, a special plasticity, excellent hearing, sensitivity to rhythm and
Melody also passed. At the end of a hard working day or weekend, the sound of music was
heard near the Houses of Negroes – it was performed on homemade instruments made
according to African models from improvised materials – stones, wood, bones. In white
historiography, it was traditionally believed that these "Vespers" were intended to please
the Masters; Modern African-American researchers hold a different point of view,
believing that the slaves had no desire to entertain the planter and his family, but, on the
contrary, found solace /ˈsɒlɪs in singing, dancing and mocking whites, which, however,
was well hidden. Yes, at least that, and many whites liked the “concerts”.
 Naturally, this original layer of entertainment culture with its powerful commercial
potential attracted the attention of enterprising businessmen, who "paid tribute to the
richness of black culture by imitating and exploiting it" (J. R. R. Tolkien). Hatch). Since
the beginning of the XIX century, white actors disguised as blacks have performed Negro
songs and dances. The greatest success in this genre fell to the lot of Thomas “Daddy”
Rice, who in 1828 found a successful stage mask – an old lame Negro Jim Crow (later
this name became a nickname for discriminatory laws in the southern United States). But
the truly great era of “Negro entertainment” began in 1843. when composer and musician
Daniel Emett (author of the unofficial Southern national anthem – “Dixie”) formed the
group “Virgin minstrels”with his friends. Smeared on their faces with burnt cork and
dressed in colorful clothes, they imitated the Negro manner of playing, singing, behavior,
bringing their characteristic features to the grotesque. Successful performances of the
troupe in New York led to the emergence of many similar groups. Before the Civil War,
blacks were not allowed to participate in such shows; however, when from the 1860s pp.
the first Negro and mixed corpses began to appear ("minstrels from the plantation” by Lew
Johnson," Minstrels from Georgia " by J. R. R. Tolkien Hicks, et al.), their participants
also had to use burnt cork – that is, continue to caricature Blacks.
Gradually, minstrel performances acquired a fairly clear stage form. The list of
participants significantly expanded and established itself, which necessarily included the
host (interlocutor) and comedians (end-men), with whom he exchanged jokes and Jokes.
In addition to them, the troupe included singers, dancers, musicians, actors who acted out
scenes “from black life” and parodies of famous plays. Minstrel performances became the
first democratic form of theatrical art of the Supreme Soviet and held the palm among all
segments of the White and black population in popularity for the next half century. After
1870, the peak of their glory passes, but in one form or another they are retained on stage
(and later on screen)up to the 40s. our century.
The main source of comedy in this genre was a reduced and distorted image of the Negro.
According to J. R. R. Tolkien,W. Johnson, they were “a caricature of black life and
perpetuated the stage tradition of portraying blacks only."like irresponsible and carefree
creatures who smile broadly, laugh loudly, play the banjo, sing and dance." So it's not
surprising that since the 1920s pp. when the national consciousness of the black
intelligentsia reached a qualitatively new degree, the figures of Negro culture hastened to
renounce this shameful, in their opinion, page in the theatrical history of their fellow
tribesmen. For the only positive result of the dominance of minstrel shows, later drama
historians agreed that they provided blacks with some professional training and experience
that was impossible to obtain at the time somewhere else. However, in the 1960s and
1970s, when a significant time distance somewhat calmed the passions around minstrel
performances, they attracted attention as the only form of early stage activity of blacks,
from which material evidence remained (texts of sketches, musical scores, drawings,
photographs, descriptions, etc.). The latest intelligence has shown that it is not entirely
correct to interpret this genre is exclusively like a malicious mockery of blacks. Both in
origin, structure, and content, it was quite ambiguous and, no doubt, contained it contains
elements of different traditions. Thus, today Theorists view the minstrel theater as one of
the sources of shaping African-American drama, and practicing playwrights are willing to
use his formal techniques in his own works (O. Davis, D. T. Ward, N. Shange, etc.).

Actualization of Biblical imagery in African American culture

The history of the influence, uses, and functions of the Bible among African
Americans is dramatic and complex, and reflects the different, sometimes conflicting,
sociopolitical and religious self-understandings, orientations, and aspirations of a
dominant segment, if not the great majority, of African Americans.
The earliest large-scale cultural encounter with the Bible can be traced to the late
eighteenth century, as evidenced by the formation of independent AfricanAmerican
congregations in the North and South, both visible and "invisible," and in different cultural
interpretive expressions, such as slave songs, poetry, sermons, and journals. Finding
themselves enslaved by those who seemed to find in the Bible a source of power and
knowledge, Africans in the New World embraced the Bible for themselves as a source of
psychic-spiritual emotional power and hope, as inspiration for learning, and as a
language of veiled criticism.
The dramatic narratives of the Hebrew Bible, especially the Exodus story and the
moral and sociopolitical excoriations of the prophets, the display of the thaumaturgical
powers of Jesus, and his pathos and ultimate vindication in the New Testament, captured
the collective popular imagination of enslaved Africans from the beginning of their
encounter with the Bible.
Thus, in the initial hearings and adoption of the stories of the Bible, African
Americans essentially transformed the Bible from the Book of Slaveholders and of
Slaveholding Religion into the Book of the World and Religion of Slaves. It was thereby
engaged as a window onto another world, a language world full of personalities and drama
with which the slaves could identify, notwithstanding the historical and spatial gulf which
the hearing and the reading made obvious. It was precisely the hearing and reading of
dramatic biblical stories about times and exploits long ago in faraway lands that seemed
most arresting: Such engagement provided not only occasional psychic respite from the
harshness of slavery, but also a powerful rhetorical and conceptual repertoire for
resistance, and positive constructions of the African-American religious self.
The Bible continued to serve multiple functions among African Americans through
the end of the period of slavery and the decades of Reconstruction and Jim Crowism and
into the civil rights movements of the 1950s and '60s. But a dominant pattern of reading
can be discerned during the period. From the founding of the independent black churches
and denominations in the late eighteenth century to the clamor against segregation in the
mid-twentieth century, a great number of African Americans saw in the Bible the language
and concepts of social and prophetic critique, the blueprint for racial uplift, social
integration, political peace, and economic equality. A few leaders (Alexander Waters,
Martin R. DELANY, Edward W. BLYDEN, among others) advanced more radical pan-
Africanist views, citing biblical injunctions for black separatism, including a back-to-
Africa program (see PAN-AFRICANISM). But for the majority, including nineteenth-
century mainline learned and not-so-learned clergy and their communities and twentieth-
century educators and politicians, the Bible was the primary blueprint for a type of social
reform. The biblical principle ofthe universal kinship of all humanity under the
sovereignty of God was embraced by the majority of African Americans as a mandate for
social integration and political equality, and as a critique of the America that claimed to be
God-fearing. New Testament passages illustrative of the principle (Gal. 3:26-128; Acts 2,
10:34-36) were often quoted, paraphrased, or alluded to in orations, sermons, and tracts.
In this dominant African-American reading, the Bible continues to be primary in terms of
the construction ofthe religious self. And it also continues to provide a language of
critique. But the critique is not radical. This reading, of both the Bible and American
culture, is canonical. It more or less respects both the dominant traditional white Protestant
parameters of principles of interpretation, as well as the range of texts considered worthy
of consideration. Biblical images and teachings provided the impetus and ideological
foundations for the founding of separate African-American churches and educational and
other institutions. But these separate institutions do not represent comprehensive
alternative pedagogies, philosophies, or politics. They represent both accommodationist
and integrationist interests and limited, racialist social critique. And both responses are
supported by biblical example and injunction.
The growth and dominance ofthe religion-inspired separate but accommodationist
African-American institutions and ideologies of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries notwithstanding, they could not and did not embrace, or reflect the sensibilities
of, every individual or community. A very different reading ofthe Bible among African
Africans is in evidence by the early decades ofthe twentieth century in major urban areas
in the United States. This reading is critical of both the dominant white American culture
and its secular and religious aspects and the dominant African-American religious and
cultural orientations.
No single unified group can be identified here; there are a number of groups-the Garvey
Movement (see Marcus GARVEY; UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT
ASSOCIATION), the NATION OF ISLAM, FATHER DIVINE and the Peace Mission
Movement, Black Jews (see JUDAISM), the SPIRITUAL CHURCH MOVEMENT, and
other so-called sects and cultswithout formal ties, but with shared sensibilities and
rhythms, and a shared critique of the dominant world and the African-American mainline
churches.
The critique is registered in different ways by different groups. One of the most dramatic
is in the reading ofthe Bible that is accepted as Holy Scripture by most whites and African
Americans, but through hermeneutics (principles of interpretation) not legitimized by
these communities (such as spiritual churches). It is also registered through rejection of the
canon respected by mainline communities and the embracing of esoteric sacred texts (such
as those embraced by Black Jews).
In addition, the readings of women are in evidence throughout the history of African-
American engagement with the Bible-from Phillis WHEATLEY to Maria STEWART and
Jarena LEE and their countless unnamed counterparts to late twentieth-century critical
womanist interpreters. Although women's readings of the Bible are a constitutive part of
each cultural reading outlined above, women's readings bring special nuances or intensity,
especially regarding the articulation of exclusion and suffering or their opposites, inclusion
and joy.
Development of self-made man myth in American consciousness
The idea of the self-made man is inextricably tied up with that of the American dream.
The American dream is a sort of national idea which embodies democratic ideals of
freedom and equality of opportunity. The gist of the American dream is to give to the
citizens of every rank independent of their social status a feeling that they can achieve a
higher level of living. This dream appears to offer individuals the exceptional hope of
accomplishing success despite of one’s race, religion, or family history. The idea of the
American Dream is rooted in the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence
which states that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The set phrase “from rags to riches” expresses the magic formula of success, which could
be achieved by an individual who possesses the willpower to work hard and get ahead.
The image of America as of a country of unlimited opportunities radically changed the
situation which prevailed throughout the European world before the industrial revolution,
where social status was based explicit on heredity and not on personal accomplishment.
Now the merit of an individual’s achievement could potentially allow strivers to transcend
the station to which they were born.
The self-made man is the one who comes from unpromising circumstances, who is
not born into privilege and wealth, and yet by his own efforts, by pulling himself up by the
bootstraps manages to become a great success in life. Furthermore one can define a self-
made man as anyone who attains far greater success than his original circumstances would
have ever allowed to. As we can see with the help of numerous examples throughout
history, the self-made man often has to overcome great obstacles to achieve his goals.
Such people attain their success through education, hard work and sheer willpower. As a
rule there is no external help or special relationships that make the crucial difference in
the self-made man’s rise, he achieves his goals independent using his talents and skills.
Actually the story of the self-made man embodies the goal of every man: to become the
captain of his own destiny.
We can see that the phenomenon of self-made man relies on the ideas of
individualism in its basic principles and brightest features. The individually created life
styles, appreciation of personal achievement, a habit to make the best of given
opportunities could be seen as results of living out the idea of individualism in America
today.
Depending on economic and cultural shifts in the structure of American society self-
made men as well as the individualistic views were honoured and promoted or abandoned
and discriminated.
(Benjamin Franklin is often called the first self-made man of USA. His life gives the
biographical pattern from which all other self-made men stories have been cut. The hard
work, ambition, self-discipline and thrift were the bricks of a philosophy he preached and
the rhetoric of his life. His everyday life from the adolescence was organised in a way to
maximize productivity and to approximate success step by step.)

Personal enrichment as American “secular Gospel”

1. Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. There is scarcely
anything that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish position to get in, yet we find
many a young man hardly out of his “teens” running in debt...Money is in some respects
like fire – it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master. When you have it mastering
you, when interest is constantly piling up against you, it will keep you down in the worst
kind of slavery. But let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the
world...There is nothing animate or inanimate that will work so faithfully as money when
placed at interest, well secured. It works night and day, and in wet or dry weather.
2. Persevere. /ˌpɜːsəˈvɪə/ наполегливо When a man is in the right path, he must
persevere. I speak of this because there are some persons who are “born tired”; naturally
lazy and possessing no self-reliance and no perseverance...Perseverance is sometimes
another word for self-reliance. Many persons naturally look on the dark side of life and
borrow trouble. They are born so...Until you get so that you can rely upon yourself, you
need not expect to succeed, I have known men personally who have met with pecuniary
reverses, and absolutely committed suicide, because they thought they could never
overcome their misfortune. But I have known others who have met more serious financial
difficulties, and have bridged them over by simple perseverance, aided by a firm belief
that they were doing justly, and that Providence would “overcome evil with good”.
3.Whatever You Do, Do It with All Your Might.
4. Depend upon Your Own Personal Exertions [ɪg'zɜ:ʃ(ə)n] усилие.
5. Don’t Get Above Your Business. There is no greater mistake than when a young man
believes he will succeed with borrowed money. Why? Because every man’s experience
coincides with that of Mr. Astor, who said that it was more difficult for him to accumulate
his first thousand dollars, than all the succeeding millions that made up his colossal
fortune, money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by experience.
6. Don’t Indorse подписываться (под документом) Without Security. I hold that no
man ought ever to indorse a note or become security for any man, be it his father or
brother, to a greater extent than he can afford to lose and care nothing about, without
taking good security.
7. Advertise Your Business. When you get an article which you know is going to please
your customers, and that when they have tried it, they will feel they have got their money’s
worth, then let the fact be known that you have got it. Be careful to advertise it in some
shape or other, because it is evident that if a man has ever so good an article for sale, and
nobody knows it, it will bring him no return. In a country like this, where nearly
everybody reads, and where newspapers are issued and circulated in editions of 5 thousand
to 200 thousand, it would be very unwise if this channel was not taken advantage of to
reach the public in advertising.
(A Nineteenth-Century American Reader, Washington, D.C., USIA, 1989, p. 478–486)

Impact of Darwin’s, Spencer’s and Nietzche’s ideas on shaping American

identity
An influential movement in American public thought during this period tried to
interpret Darwinian struggles for existence and natural selection as confirmation of the
familiar puritanical notion that “only a select few souls are destined to be saved, and the
rest deserve their fate.” Darwinism, therefore, easily turned into "Calvinism with a
scientific face", almost a religious reflection of the era, which, unfortunately, increasingly
operated with utilitarian values. This element of social evolutionism and the American
thinkers of the last third of the nineteenth century adopted it in order to build a new
doctrine of national consciousness on its basis.
 A significant influence on the American Philosophical and historical prose of this
period was exerted by the school of evolutionary thought associated with the name of
Herbert Spencer, who extended Darwinian doctrine of evolution to society, and first of all,
because it resonated with certain elements in national traditions.... Herbal Spencer coined
the phrase “survival of the fittest” that originated from Charles Darwin`s contribution
about evolutionary theory. The phrase was vulgarized.Spencer, like the Americans who
still saw themselves as God's Chosen People, noted a hidden desire to unite and reconcile
science and religion...
Spencer, in fact, proposed a new natural religion, an alternative to Orthodox
Christianity...Spencer's principles of” freedom and diversity " became the scientific basis
of laissez-faire individualism and economics, interpreted as progressive gains, which soon
attracted the lion's share of American entrepreneurs, economists and sociologists to the
side of evolutionism. Spencer, who, in fact, owns the extremely popular phrase “survival
of the fittest”, which quickly turned into “survival of the fittest”, argued that natural
selection works only in primitive societies and in the early stages of Social Development.
This stage will soon be overcome in America, to which he predicted the great future of the
crown of civilization, considering its democratic rule the highest form of government.
Moreover, Spencer portrayed the struggle as a struggle between man and man, but rather
as a clash of individuals with the conditions of the “environment”, the sacrifices of which
were justified by the future flourishing of civilization.

Various facets of American Dream

In the era of the revolution, when the American consciousness, under the influence
of turbulent socio-political events, is experiencing a radical scrapping, forming largely on
the basis of educational ideas that do not follow from the divine law and traditions, and
from legal and civil norms, the American dream is also transformed. Like the secularized
American consciousness, it sheds its theological robes. The American Dream, which
originally contained the seeds of political and social idealism, becomes the embodiment of
the educational ideal of a free individual and a democratic society based on the equality of
all people, for whose self-realization, unlike in the Old World, there are no obstacles. But
even in its transformed form, the American dream retains many of its original features: a
focus on a new world and a new person, free from the vices of Europe generated by
centuries of oppression, injustice, poverty and disenfranchisement of some, omnipotence,
arbitrariness, luxury and idleness of others. No less significant in the American dream is
the realization of their exclusivity, their selectivity – God or history, which has prepared
America for a high mission – to serve as a model and guiding star for the rest of humanity.
It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too
many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor
cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each
woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and
be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of
birth or position... The American dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our
shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has
doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being
able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which
had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had
developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and
every class.

Wild West as an American myth

One of the most important factors in the formation of the American nation, its
culture and psychology was the promotion of the first settlers to the depths of the country
towards the Great Ocean. The essence of the frontier was conquest and the development
of new, not yet inhabited lands. A frontiersman, or pioneer, a person who constantly
lived on the edge of civilization and savagery, turned into a new, enterprising creature.
"Fighting savagery taught the colonists... she tore off their clothes, gave them moccasins
and a hunting shirt. Little by little, they changed their environment,” wrote the romantic
frontier historian Frederick Jackson Turner, whose research on the role of the frontier
showed the nation's desire to idealize and mythologize its past.
But if we don't talk about myths, then the American history between the revolution
and the Civil War was the history of the movement to the West. Ahead of them were lone
pioneers, pathfinders, and trappers. They made their way without stopping anywhere.
They were followed by farmers who were taking root in Novaya Zemlya. And then came
the third wave, which brought with it urban culture. Settlers usually moved in groups, and
also settled in groups. It was dangerous to travel, at least until those who followed them
laid the railway.
At the end of the XVIII century, the American frontier was already inhabited by about 900
thousand people, but their number grew every year. The movement included Virginians,
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Yorkers, and Carolinians. They were joined by new aliens
who hoped to find their destiny in still uninhabited lands. Call “To The West!"it was heard
in all the colonies. Moving away from the Atlantic coast, the pioneers, in fact, for the first
time broke away from European civilization towards the Unknown, or, as they said then,
“into the arms of savagery.” This, in turn, meant that the pioneers became dependent on
the nature around them and had to accumulate a completely new experience of adapting to
the new environment, mastering and taming it. Food, clothing, housing – everything was
made from what was at hand. Even where more stable settlements emerged on the basis of
forts and stations, basic necessities were almost a luxury. Weaving, turning and
shoemaking developed. Simplicity of morals flourished. Diseases but epidemics have
claimed countless lives. The absence of doctors made itself felt. Life was very difficult,
especially for women.
However, the people were hospitable. The frontiersmen were happy to let travelers
into their already crowded huts to learn news about other lands and areas. The curiosity of
the settlers was boundless, but the tendency to brag was endless. They boasted of their
strength, accuracy, horse and dog, wife, and even the brightness of the moon and sun in
these places. Moreover, this bragging was harmless, and even had a positive side: it added
courage, which was extremely necessary for survival in those conditions. The frontiersman
had an American version of English adapted to his lifestyle, and religious rites adapted to
the conditions of the frontier.
American researchers rightly note the presence of four aspects in the mythology of
the frontier, which were reflected both in early folklore and in classical literature,
represented by the work of writers such as Fenimore Cooper, and much later – by
American cinema, which poetized the era of the frontier in films called “Western”.
However, when they say “western”, they see, first of all, Cowboys. But it's in the movies,
and historically, the frontier is, first of all, the pioneers who settled the West, their way of
life. At the same time, the frontier was, of course, an escape from civilization, a desire to
merge with nature into one. Third, the frontier was a kind of enterprise. He was associated
with dreams of wealth. Furs, wood, and later Gold and oil pushed people to move faster to
reach the cherished “there” first. First – at any cost. And finally-the Earth – the vast
expanses on which you can settle, start life again, and since the Earth was so much, it
seemed that it was enough for everyone. Is this alone not enough to create a new, Just
Society? So it seemed. From the totality of all these factors, the idea of the frontier was
formed.
In folklore, this era of Frontier Development is called the epic of The Taming of the
Wild West.
However, behind the heroics and romance of frontite, there was also a less attractive
side: the success of the first settlers and the well – being of the nation were accompanied
by the merciless destruction of the Native American population-the Indians and the
barbaric destruction of the riches of nature.
The conquest of the frontier ended with the Indians being deprived of their land and
driven to reservations. The destruction of nature will make itself felt later, at the end of the
XX century and will cost the nation dearly.
One of the most obvious features that distinguish the American folklore hero from
the European one is that his adventures were always tinged with humor. After all, in fact,
there are many heroic heroes, but only a few of them are comic. In this sense, the
American national hero is also heroic because of his clowning. Perhaps the connection
between heroics and comedy was the essence of life itself in the United States of those
years. Frontier's humor was quite peculiar. They laughed at new aliens, and most often – at
those who came only to see, and if necessary, to earn extra money.
The rapid development of the newspaper business during this period led to the fact
that all these improbable “fables” – true nevernever — became the property not only of the
Americans of the frontier, but also of the inhabitants of the Old World. These jokes, jokes,
and anecdotes will later be used to build numerous humorous and satirical stories by Mark
Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Bret Garth, O'henry, and other great American writers.
According to American historians, by 1850 the frontier era was geographically and
historically over. However, in the sphere of spiritual life of the country, in the psychology
and culture of the nation, it is still alive. It is also alive in the expansionist politics of
imperialist circles, in the psychology of the United States, and in the products of “mass
culture”. It is also alive in the true democratic traditions of the American people, in their
hard work, and, of course, in humor.

The role of frontier in shaping American identity

 harsh conditions made them hard-working, brave
 freedom that gave new lands made people from different corners Americans
 wit brain helped to survive in harsh conditions and to cope with advertisity

The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization.
The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools,
modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch
canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the
moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian
palisade around him. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a
sharp stick, he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. In short,
at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the
conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and
follows the Indian trails. Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is
not the old Europe, not simply the development of Germanic germs, any more than the
first phenomenon was a case of reversion to the Germanic mark. The fact is, that here is a
new product that is American. At first, the frontier was the Atlantic coast. It was the
frontier of Europe in a very real sense. Moving westward, the frontier became more and
more American.
First, we note that the frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the
American people. The coast was preponderantly English, but the later tides
of continental immigration flowed across to the free lands. This was the case from
the early colonial days. The Scotch-Irish and the Palatine Germans, or “Pennsylvania
Dutch,” furnished the dominant element in the stock of the colonial frontier.. In
the crucible of the frontier the immigrants were Americanized, liberated, and fused into a
mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics. The process has gone on
from the early days to our own…
…But the most important effect of the frontier has been in the promotion of democracy
here and in Europe. As has been indicated, the frontier is productive of individualism.
Complex society is precipitated by the wilderness into a kind of primitive organization based
on the family. The tendency is anti-social. It produces antipathy to control, and
particularly to any direct control. The tax-gatherer is viewed as a representative of
oppression… The frontier individualism has from the beginning promoted democracy…
… The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking
characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and
inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that
masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends;
that restless, nervous energy; – that dominant individualism, working for good and for
evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom-these are traits
of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier. Since
the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has
been another name for opportunity, and the people of the United States have taken their
tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced
upon them…What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom,
offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever
retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more
remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred
years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the
first period of American history.

American myth of “manifest destiny”

Expansion westward seemed perfectly natural to many Americans in the mid-
nineteenth century. Like the Massachusetts Puritans who hoped to build a "city upon a hill,
"courageous pioneers believed that America had a divine obligation to stretch the
boundaries of their noble republic to the Pacific Ocean. Independence had been won in the
Revolution and reaffirmed in the War of 1812. The spirit of nationalism that swept the
nation in the next two decades demanded more territory. The "every man is equal"
mentality of the Jacksonian Era fueled this optimism. Now, with territory up to the
Mississippi River claimed and settled and the Louisiana Purchase explored, Americans
headed west in droves. Newspaper editor JOHN O'SULLIVAN coined the term
"MANIFEST DESTINY" in 1845 to describe the essence of this mindset.
The religious fervor spawned by the Second Great Awakening created another
incentive for the drive west. Indeed, many settlers believed that God himself blessed the
growth of the American nation. The Native Americans were considered heathens. By
Christianizing the tribes, American missionaries believed they could save souls and they
became among the first to cross the Mississippi River.
Economic motives were paramount for others. The fur trade had been dominated by
European trading companies since colonial times. German immigrant John Jacob Astor
was one of the first American entrepreneurs to challenge the Europeans. He became a
millionaire in the process. The desire for more land brought aspiring homesteaders to the
frontier. When gold was discovered in California in 1848, the number of migrants
increased even more.
At the heart of manifest destiny was the pervasive belief in American cultural and
racial superiority. Native Americans had long been perceived as inferior, and efforts to
"civilize" them had been widespread since the days of John Smith and MILES
STANDISH. The Hispanics who ruled Texas and the lucrative ports of California were
also seen as "backward."
Expanding the boundaries of the United States was in many ways a cultural war as
well. The desire of southerners to find more lands suitable for cotton cultivation would
eventually spread slavery to these regions. North of the Mason-Dixon line, many citizens
were deeply concerned about adding any more slave states. Manifest destiny touched on
issues of religion, money, race, patriotism, and morality. These clashed in the 1840s as a
truly great drama of regional conflict began to unfold.

Southern plantation myth in national consciousness and culture

The civilization of the North was coarse and materialistic. That of the South was scant
(убоге)of shows, but highly refined and sentimental. The South was a vast agricultural
country; waste lands, forests and swamps often gave to the eye a dreary (похмура) picture;
there were no thick and intricate nets of internal improvements to astonish and bewilder
the traveler, no country picturesque with towns and villages to please his vision. Northern
men ridiculed this apparent scantiness(убогість) of the South, and took it as an evidence of
inferiority. But this was the coarse judgment of the surface of things.
The agricultural pursuits of the South fixed its features; and however it might decline in
the scale of gross prosperity, its people were trained in the highest civilization, were
models of manners for the whole country, rivaled the sentimentalism of the oldest
countries of Europe, established the only schools of honor in America, and presented a
striking contrast in their well-balanced character to the conceit and giddiness of the
Northern people…This boastful disposition of mind, this exaggerated conceit
(пихатість)was peculiarly Yankee. It belonged to the garish civilization of the North…
 The literature of the pre-war South in general was weak, secondary, dependent on
English influence and aimed at the romanticization of slavary ... In the novels of the
representatives of the so-called "plantation tradition" - VG Simms, JP Kennedy, W.
Caruzers, NB Tucker, JE Cook - life was idealized on the southern plantations and the
relationship between owners and slaves, and the inhabitants of the South were depicted as
noble knights who acted according to the code of honor. Most of these works belonged to
the genre of historical prose, which proved the original specificity and perfection of the
southern system, created by "Virgin cavaliers".
Literature`s aim was to protect slavery or at least southern society from any outside
encroachment ”. Isolationist ideas were based on the theory of a special slave-owning
democracy of the Greek type, which would be the successor of European history and
culture.

From “melting pot” to “salad bowl’: transformation of American self-

identification
Today the trend is toward multiculturalism, not assimilation. The old 'melting pot'
metaphor is giving way to new metaphors such as 'salad bowl' and 'mosaic,' mixtures of
various ingredients that keep their individual characteristics. Immigrant populations within
the United States are not being blended together in one 'pot,' but rather they are
transforming American society into a truly multicultural mosaic. none of the proposed
alternatives - "salad bowl", "vegetable soup", "mosaic", " tapestry " - has not yet gained
general use.
The melting pot is a monocultural metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming
more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an
alternative being a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous through the influx
of foreign elements with different cultural backgrounds, possessing the potential to create
disharmony within the previous culture. Historically, it is often used to describe the
cultural integration of immigrants to the United States.
The desirability of assimilation and the melting pot model has been rejected by
proponents of multiculturalism, who have suggested alternative metaphors to describe the
current American society, such as a salad bowl, or kaleidoscope, in which different
cultures mix, but remain distinct in some aspects.
A salad bowl or tossed salad is a metaphor for the way a multicultural society can
integrate different cultures while maintaining their separate identities, contrasting with a
melting pot, which emphasizes the combination of the parts into a single whole
In the salad bowl model, different cultures are brought together—like salad ingredients
—but do not form together into a single homogeneous culture; each culture keeps its own
distinct qualities. This idea proposes a society of many individual cultures, since the latter
suggests that ethnic groups may be unable to preserve their heritage.
The salad bowl idea in practice has its supporters and detractors. Supporters argue that
being "American" does not inherently tie a person to a single culture, though rather to
citizenship and loyalty to the United States. Thus, one does not need to abandon their
cultural heritage in order to be considered "American". Critics tend to oppose the idea in
tandem with other critiques on multiculturalism, saying that America needs to have a
common culture in order to preserve a common national identity.
 vegetable soup People are as soup ingredients that have different flavours, textures and
smells. The flavors of each individual ingredient all melt together to create the unique
flavor of the soup. But if you scoop out a spoonful, you’ll still see the vegetables and
everything else floating around in there. They don’t all disappear when they get added to
the soup.
"Cultural mosaic" (French: "la mosaïque culturelle") is the mix of ethnic groups,
languages, and cultures that coexist within society.[1][2] The idea of a cultural mosaic is
intended to suggest a form of multiculturalism, different from other systems such as the
melting pot, which is often used to describe nations like the United States' assimilation.
In a mosaic or a tapestry, each color is distinct and adds to the overall beauty of the
object. If you remove one piece from the mosaic or one thread from the tapestry, you
destroy it. Today, it is easier to keep your differences. Differences in gender, race, national
origin, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation are acceptable and need not be abandoned
to have an equal opportunity to achieve your life goals.

Statue of Liberty as America cultural symbol

In 1886, The Statue of Liberty Monument was a given to the United States from France
to celebrate the friendship the two endured during the American Revolution. Over the
years, the Statue of Liberty has symbolized the freedom and the democracy of the United
States.
The statue of Liberty – “Liberty enlightening the world” – follows centuries of tradition
in this country of representing America as an allegorical female. Emphasis on neoclassical
goddess. “Before “America” became a toga-clad goddess called “Liberty” or her other
common name, “Columbia”, this country was depicted in the form of a beautiful half-
naked Indian princess. Even earlier, in the maps of the first European discovery, the
Western hemisphere was depicted as a voluptuous but savage Indian Queen riding an
alligator or an armadillo”. During the war of independence – evolution towards robed
figure with her Liberty pole and cap. Concept of liberty like a mother. this Liberty is like a
mother who loves all her children equally, including all the poor refugees; she impartially
gives liberty to all”. The Crown of Light, that consists of seven rays , the torch (факел) are
compared with knowledge and enlightenment ideas that are to combat prejudice. Thrown
off chains – religious and political freedom.
The tablet is in her left hand (it has the date – July 4, 1776) – the birth of independence
as a nation and at the same time the Law on which this republican experience was
founded.
Summary: “We have the crown of seven rays that could refer to the seven seas or
continents, but in esoteric symbolism we see seven as the symbol of the victory of spirit
over matter. The torch raised in Liberty’s right hand is wisdom (the torch) activated (right
hand) by our recognition of the feminine principle within each of us. The tablet or book
can be compared to the book of divine law or the Akashic record, which not only notes the
thoughts and actions of all living things from inception, but also interacts with our present
and affects our future. The broken chain symbolizes both a people winning their freedom
and the ability to break our bondage to the physical world and control our personal
destiny”.

Diverse ethnic myths in contemporary United States

Asian American
 The history of "Asia in America" begins with a rumor about gold found in California in
1849, which reached another continent and nudged Chinese to emigrate to the United
States. Asian people saw America as a Golden hill, the land of prosperity and wealth. It is
inspired by the Puritan`s myth about the New World, “city upon the hill,” when Puritans
set off on a dangerous journey across the Atlantic. Asians dreamt to earn enough money
and take them back to their native country. Another Asian-American mythology is the
railways. Chinese invested in the development of non-native America. Asian women were
barred from entering the country, and the huge gender imbalance became a hallmark of the
demographic situation in Asian-American communities.
Racial prejudices were compounded by economic factors, such as fear of competition,
which was cheap Asian labor. A law was passed banning Chinese from entering the United
States. they could not become US citizens; had no right to own land; were deprived of the
opportunity to reunite with their families.
Today, the descendants of the discriminated and despised "yellows" as a group can
be proud of the highest level of education and higher incomes compared to all other
national and ethnic communities of the country, not excluding the Anglo-Saxons.
Mexican American
Aztlan: It is the Mexican American name for “paradise on earth”, or ancient
motherland, the territory of US South-Western states from which Aztecs migrated
to central Mexico in old times. Today the concept of Aztlan has become the symbol of
Chicano spiritual rebirth and is widely used in literature.
La Llorona – a mythical figure in Mexican American folklore, a weeping woman.
She is a vagabond ghost of a mother doomed to lament her children eternally. Her howling
predict new human victims and misfortunes.
La Malinche – a legendary figure in Mexican American folklore. According
to the legend, she was an Indian woman who became the interpreter and the mistress of
Fernan Kortez, the leader of Spanish invaders who conquered the mighty empires of
Aztecs and Maya. For centuries her name was synonymous in Mexican American culture
with the word “traitor”. Recently, however, her role is sometimes treated in
a more favorable way, as a mediator between cultures.
Ukrainian American
Princes and the Zaporozhian Sich fought with the Tatars as Americans with Indians

Popular culture as a myth-making phenomenon

Pop culture equates with Mass Culture. This is seen as a commercial culture, mass produced
for mass consumption. The specificity of the functioning of mass culture (and, in particular,
fiction) in America is due to the action of numerous factors, among which the most significant
are probably: an immeasurably higher degree of social democracy compared to old Europe;
high level of literacy among the population; massification of society, which occurred at a rapid
pace; early awareness of the fantastic commercial benefits of targeting a readership of many
thousands.
In the early twentieth century. grassroots genres of art - market literature, circus, pop,
mass song, romance and cinema - have developed into a new and viable system, which has
adopted in folklore a number of its social functions. Aesthetic language of the lower classes and
their sense of life, which the artist of the XIX century. found directly in folklore, now
increasingly manifested in "mass culture", which absorbed the simplest - and basic - folklore
models. The future historian, no doubt, considers the fact that "Kitsch" was formed and
discovered just when the era of traditional folklore was coming to a natural end. For the
democratic urban masses, "kitsch" became a substitute for folklore in the folklore-free era, and
for high art, a "source" that used to be folklore.
… If you think about what, in fact, is an attractive kitsch for the masses, which makes it
massive, it turns out that it acts with its elementary, but produced
and proven by millennial practice - and therefore faultless - signs of emotionality. These signs
are so simple that they blur the line between the signal of emotion and emotion as such. In
search of expressive cinema, Sergei Eisenstein solved a similar task for himself, and the course
of thought led him to the circus - an aesthetic phenomenon that seems in no way subject to the
known definitions of folklore (the circus is not "oral", is not "collective" and in general is not
"verbal"), but nevertheless - deeply folklore in nature. The circus turned out to be exactly the
kind of mass art that most fully “preserved” mythological and folklore elements - the simplest
signals of emotions, indistinguishable
from emotions - and continuously works with them. Rethinking the word borrowed from the
circus, Eisenstein called his discovery "montage of attractions" and transferred it to the art of
cinema.

The myth of Superman in American consciousness

Superman introduced a new world of heroes with super powers. A refugee from the
planet Krypton, baby Kal-El finds himself with extraordinary powers after arriving on
Earth. Adopted by the Kents, Kal-El develops a dual life as the timid Clark Kent and the
invincible Superman.
At first the simply drawn Superman had limited abilities, but as Jerry Siegel
developed the stories and Joe Shuster delegated the actual drawing to other artists, both
the character and his appearance became increasingly sophisticated. After he grows up,
Clark Kent becomes an apparently mild-mannered reporter for the newspaper The Daily
Planet in Metropolis, a generic American city named after Fritz Bang’s futuristic
dystopian film. At the same time, his alter ego, Superman, militates with evil. As a decade
of debilitating economic depression reached its end, fans of popular culture thought they
saw in Superman a figure who suggested that hidden beneath the average man was an
epic figure ready to emerge and solve the world’s problems.
There is a fairly close relationship, generally, between a society and its heroes: if a
hero does not espouse values that are meaningful to his readers, there seems little
likelihood that he will be popular. The term “super” means over, above, higher in quantity,
quality or degree, all of which conflict with the American equalitarian ethos. I believe the
answer to this dilemma lies in Superman’s qualities and character. He is, despite his
awesome powers, rather ordinary – so much so that he poses as a spectacled nonentity of a
reporter in order to avoid publicity and maintain some kind of privacy.
This schizoid split within Superman symbolizes a basic split within the American
psyche. Americans are split like Superman, alienated from their selves and bitter about the
disparity between their dreams and their achievements, between the theory that they are in
control of their own lives and the reality of their powerlessness and weakness.

Archetypes in the genre of Western

The 8 types are “The True Cowboy,” “The Gunslinger,” “The Gambler,” “The
Preacher,” “The Doc,” “The Sheriff,” “The Drunk” and “The Tycoon.”
 The True Cowboy (or Cowgirl of course) is the most well rounded and naturally
talented of a group or even a region. Things just seem to come naturally to them. They
may have much to learn still and tend to be a bit naive and/or lack some social skills. This
could be due to the fact that things have always come so easily to them that they didn’t
have to work hard, were praised a lot, and took certain things for granted. When things
shifted though, whether from tragedy, or just coming of age in a harsh world, they often
need to learn to accept that they need the support of others to not only get by, but to truly
thrive in life. These types are quite often loners as well. Their natural abilities may have
alienated them, or they spent so much time honing or engaging them that they became
isolated. There can be quite a thick shell to crack. The True Cowboy is often the main
character of a story but at times is an extremely versatile support character or one who
jockeys for the spotlight with the main character whether intentionally or not.
the Gunslinger can be proficient in many things but there is one thing they do better
than almost anyone. They are the heavy hitters of a team who clean up when called upon.
As specialists they can do their one thing even better than the True Cowboy can. It
happens to be something that comes in very handy of course but it may not come to
fruition right away. The Gunslinger can seem pretty normal or average until they
completely blow away everyone around them when they best all others by showing off
their particular skill. From that insecurity Gunslingers can be cocky or downright
narcissistic. They have a certain charm that still makes them likable though. Perhaps it is
the fact that they play up their one incredible skill so well that it’s easy enough to overlook
certain flaws. The bravado is also often tongue and cheek since the Gunslinger is usually
aware that outside of their wheelhouse they have to work pretty hard. Related skills to
their specialty still can come naturally but a lot of things don’t. The Gunslinger works best
as part of a group so they can fulfill a certain role better than anyone else around which
makes them extremely valuable.
The Gambler is the wild card of the group who isn’t afraid to take chances when the
stakes are high. Other characters may do the same but this is the primary feature of the
gambler and they have the best luck of anyone. They can also be a trickster type since they
possess a mercurial and playful personality. When they lose it can go very sour but when
they win, which is remarkably in high proportion, it makes them the envy of all, or the
lovable underdog. They are brash and can be very frustrating because they refuse to
operate sensibly. Being so lucky and willing to take risks they have come to rely on their
cheeky bravado which of course is both a strength and a weakness. Many a gambler has
found their early demise but the ones who find their way into epic stories have had the
dice come up well for them because they mix in just enough skill with the chances they
take. There is one more quality the gambler has and that is their ability to be okay with
losing, even if it costs them their lives. This is the character who is most willing and ready
to sacrifice themselves for the greater good since they feel they are living on borrowed
time, and the biggest score they could possible rake in is to go “all in” as a hero.
The Preacher is not necessarily an actual preacher or even spiritual type but they are
the heart and soul of a group. They have a strong code of ethics and highly developed
conscious, although it may or may not be aligned with the other characters or even the law.
Wherever their views lie in the context of the setting the Preacher is the moral compass of
the group. They may also serve as a mentor or teacher to the other characters. Often they
have an incredible faith in themselves and those around them which causes them to be in
the background until they have their big moment to shine. When they do it can shock those
around them. The subdued and passive do-gooder becomes a holy avenger and smites
everything their path. They are able to do this when something challenges their dearly
held values the most, and especially when they are backed into a corner or need to defend
their loved ones. Sometimes the Preacher is the leader or contends for leadership if their
values feel threatened by the current leadership or group dynamics. If things are relatively
smooth they will be happy to be a key player (sometimes one of the most powerful in the
long run) in the quest to see the greater good win out.
The Sheriff is the character who enforces the standards of what should be going on.
They may or may not be in a position of authority but hold this kind of sway either way.
Where the Preacher is the moral compass of a group The Sheriff is the ethics police. They
know how the world works, who to go to for problems, how to investigate, and how to
downright get things done. The Sheriff has an observer mindset and can be a bit lofty and
detached. They actually have quite a bit of compassion but it comes out as a way of loyal
service to the cause rather than in the form of warm, fuzzy feelings. A lot of the time they
are highly intelligent or highly intuitive and this can make them a bit impatient with those
who don’t see what they do or can’t keep up. Ultimately the Sheriff means well but it can
be a rocky journey to find justice and that can mean sacrifices of health and personal well-
being along the way. Of all types The Sheriff can truly act as an effective lone wolf but
still recognizes they are most effective with at least a partner or an advisor to give them
some feedback on their theories or leverage someone else’s skills to be more efficient.
The Doc is the biggest support the group has. They may be a healer, a technical wiz, or
just very knowledgeable about a lot of things but one thing is for sure: they are the fixer of
the group and that is their primary role. They usually love that role because the skill/s they
use to fix things and people are their biggest passion. In fact they can be quite eccentric
because they are so heady but sometimes they are more in the background and are content
with just doing their thing. They can be a bit detached from the major plot or conflict but
are pivotal, sometimes more than anyone but the main character.
The Drunk is almost if not always out of it and yet somehow manages to pull things
off. Usually they have a good heart but just like to fool around more than anything. They
spur into action when they have to and do so whimsically. As such they are often comic
relief characters but like any old West saloon drunk they can have oddly sober moments
when they have to fight or figure something out. Connected to this is their high tolerance
for their vices. They may indulge so much because they have to in order to feel a buzz but
that’s also why they are strangely functional while also completely relaxed. They are often
tricksters who seem to possess special or secret knowledge hidden under their layers of
absurdity.
The Tycoon is almost always the bad guy although sometimes is a misunderstood good
guy or neutral character. They have an immense scope of vision and big plans to back it
up. A headstrong and yet sensible approach makes them extremely formidable. Usually
they are trying to acquire power and/or wealth but the main drive is to simply accomplish
what they want to do so they could be quite chaotic or mad since no one else understands
the point they are trying to make. Like the railroad tycoon failing to buy off a town to run
tracks through the area they will turn (even more) selfish and violent in order to get what
they want. Sometimes The Tycoon is a good guy anti-hero with a single minded focus on
revenge or avengeance, but like the bad guy version they will stop at nothing and are
willing to bulldoze over others who are complicit in opposing their mission.
 One of the modern researchers of the genre of Western J. Cavelti, gives the following
definition of the genre: Western usually refers to a stereo-typed adventure novel about the
Far West, usually associated with the period 1849-1900. The genre is associated with the
epic conquest of the Wild West. Western became a product of two arts: he was born in the
pages of literature, but world fame came to life primarily in cinema.
The complexity of the analysis of a literary western is that, first, it easily incorporates
elements of other literary genres: detective, trivial and mystical novel, historical-
adventure, novel of education, and so on. Secondly, it is frankly mythological. The
mythologies he uses are extremely close in nature to the general problems of any culture,
they are somehow connected with universal history, although they are "missed" through
the national ideological context, the American consciousness. Hence the special character
of the artistic conventionality inherent in the genre, which cannot be assessed from the
standpoint of ordinary realistic truthfulness.
The genre is characterized by operating with a certain set of oppositions; among them
we can distinguish the following pairs:
- American West - American East (opposition inherent in a purely western genre),
- Wildness - Civilization (opposition inherited from the prose of Romanticism). Often
acts as an opposition Patriarchy (freedom) - Bourgeoisie (bargaining, regulation by law) -
is also part of the legacy of romantic ideology,
- New World (essential advantage of American ideals) - Old World (a priori external
advantage of culture),
- Individual (personality) - Mass (crowd),
- Masculine principle (will, action) - Feminine principle (state, order),
- Good (in absolute) - Evil (in absolute).
Each part of these oppositions in a particular plot is usually correlated vertically and
serves as a multifaceted universal symbol, for example: the American West - Wildness -
Freedom - Democracy and so on.

Thriller and action film as typically American genres

Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist or protagonists are thrust into a
series of events that typically include violence, extended fighting, physical feats, rescues
and frantic chases. Action films tend to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling
against incredible odds, which include life-threatening situations, a dangerous villain, or a
pursuit which usually concludes in victory for the hero. Advancements in computer-
generated imagery (CGI) have made it cheaper and easier to create action sequences and
other visual effects that required the efforts of professional stunt crews in the past.
However, reactions to action films containing significant amounts of CGI have been
mixed, as films that use computer animations to create unrealistic, highly unbelievable
events are often met with criticism.[1] While action has long been a recurring component
in films, the "action film" genre began to develop in the 1970s along with the increase of
stunts and special effects. Common tropes of the genre include explosions, car chases,
fistfights and shootouts.

This genre is closely associated with the thriller and adventure genres and may also
contain elements of drama and spy fiction.[2]
Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies Action Film as one of eleven super-
genres in his screenwriters’ taxonomy, claiming that all feature-length narrative films can
be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are Crime, Fantasy,
Horror, Romance, Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Sports, Thriller, War and Western.
Thriller is a genre of literature. Thrillers are dark, engrossing, and suspenseful
plot-driven stories. They very seldom include comedic elements. Any novel can generate
excitement, suspense, interest, and exhilaration, but because these are the primary goals of
the thriller genre, thriller writers have laser-focused expertise in keeping a reader
interested.
The Anatomy of a Thriller
Every thriller has three C’s: the contract, the clock, and the crucible.
● The contract: an implied promise you make to the reader about what willbe delivered by
the end of the book. It’s crucial to keep every singlepromise you make, no matter how
trivial.
● The clock: the fact that adding time pressure to any character’s struggle will create
higher stakes and more interest for the reader. The goal of this element is not to be
stunningly original but to add pressure that will prompt conflicts and intense responses
from your characters.
● The crucible: a box that constrains your characters, offers them no escape, and forces
them to act. Your story should present an increasingly difficult series of tasks and
situations for the hero that will funnel them into the most severe trial of all. You must
make sure that each successive task is harder than the previous one and that, for the hero,
there is no escape. If readers begin to sense that the journey is becoming easier, they’ll
lose interest.
8 Things Every Thriller Should Include
The essential plot elements of a thriller are:
1. The element of suspense: Writing suspense is a matter of controlling information—
how much you reveal, and when and how you reveal it. While every thriller novel will
have a central, overarching storyline that seeks to answer a sole dramatic question, that
question is built on smaller moments that carry the reader through and sustain their interest
along theway.
2. A hero: The main character the reader is rooting for. Despite the term “hero,”
they don’t have to be a perfect specimen of bravery or strength; great heroes emerge from
the trials they encounter.
3. A sidekick: A secondary character that helps the reader understand the hero’s strengths
and motivations. Usually a mentor, friend, helper, or romantic interest, they assist the hero
with an alternate skill set, act as a sounding board, provide emotional support, get
themselves into trouble so the hero must rescue them, and provide comic relief.
4. A villain: The defining force that antagonizes your hero. The villain’s motivations
create the crisis for the hero. They’re usually introduced with a bang, sending the reader a
clear message that they’re malicious. However, they still need to be a thoughtful character
with their own sense of morality and believable reasons for being evil.
5. Plot twists: You don’t want to go out of your way to mislead the reader or outright lie
to them, but you do want to keep them on their toes. Unexpected plot twists will take them
by surprise and reinvigorate their interest in the story.
6. Red herrings: Hint at explanations that may not be true and get the reader to believe a
false conclusion about the plot. When done well, they’ll feel surprised by the truth and will
enjoy the misdirection, having learned something useful about the setting or the characters
along the way.
7. Cliffhangers: Pose a big question at the end of a chapter. Typically, a cliffhanger stops
during a climactic event midway through the action instead of its natural conclusion. Take
the reader to the moment before fulfillment, stop there, and switch to another scene.
They’ll want to know how it plays out.
8. An exciting climax: Thrillers built toward one exciting moment. This is when the hero
faces their biggest obstacle and the reader learns all of the remaining information that’s
been kept a secret.

Hollywood as a myth-maker
Historians and other academics point out that arrangement was the beginning of a uniquely
American mission that continues even now. Relationships forged between U.S.
government agencies and Hollywood during the Second World War and Cold War shaped
how stories about the military are still being told.
"Many of [Hollywood's] films are embedded in the American military. And made to
glorify the American military," Mirrlees said. "No country in the world churns out as
many images of itself as the military hero… like the United States does. That is a unique
cultural phenomenon."
Though he never saw combat himself, John Wayne was a kind of Second World War hero,
starring in countless films including, They Were Expendable and Back to Bataan.
The U.S. government wanted to ensure those shared, communal feelings supported
America's participation in the war, in part, because it worried that its enemies would
expose negative aspects of American society to Americans themselves.
We love hearing stories about World War II because we like to think of ourselves as the
good guys.
Hollywood manages to find ways of making Americans the good guys, Nazis the bad
guys... all's right with the world. It can be turned into a very affirming … very bankable
narrative."
That narrative continued with Hollywood's approach to later conflicts, including the
Vietnam War.

This imperative to cultivate a sense of external threat to America — bad guys from abroad
— would continue to be financially bankable and politically expedient as a storyline
throughout the Cold War as well.