From John Wayne and the western motif to William Shatner and the science fiction motif, Hollywood has been obsessed with the notion of frontier, taking this notion from an American ideology that encourages men to forge ahead into the unknown. Often, though, it seems these men are more running away from society than really running to the unknown. And in The Truman Show, that is what Truman is truly doing- running to the unknown in order to escape the responsibilities of his current life. Thus The Truman Show, which looks to be a hip postmodern film about subjectivity, is actually a modernist film tying into the frontier metanarrative in which society represents a binding world, and the frontier embodies the male escapist fantasy of no responsibility.
In The Truman Show, two worlds exist: the controlled society that exists in a giant bubble, and the unpredictable “outside world” that Truman only finds out about at the end of the film. Essentially, these two worlds of the film are respectively synonymous with ‘real’ society and the fro…
The Search for America in Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Search for America in Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
In the early to mid-1800’s, Washington Irving was an immensely popular writer heralded as one of the ‘great’ American writers. Irving’s importance lies especially in “Rip Van Winkle” and ” The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the sketches in which he creates the vision of the alternate America(n). His critique of American society through his main characters-Rip and Ichabod-and the towns in which they live gives shape to an America not usually acknowledged by his contemporaries, and thus crucial to American literary studies today. J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur, who created the most definitive statement of “American” circa Irving’s time, certainly would not. Indeed, it is Crevecoeur’s type of America that Irving opposes. When viewed against the backdrop of Crevecoeur’s definition of America, Irving’s sketches portray a very different America-the other America.
Irving will be compared with Crevecoeur in five main sections: “Building the European,” in which Crevecoeur claims that traces of Europe can be found throughout American society; “The Melting Pot,” in which Crevecoeur states that the European influences are assimilated into an American whole, and creating a new society; “The American Stranger,” in which Crevecoeur claims that no one is a stranger in America; “American Industry,” which looks at the spirit of industry found in Americans; and finally, “People of the Soil,” which deals with Americans’ ties with the land. In all of these sections, Crevecoeur’s mainstream view of American will serve to show Irving’s unique America.
I. Building on the European
When defining ‘American,’ Crevecoeur is quick to point out …
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Ringe, Donald A. “New York and New England: Irving’s Criticism of American
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Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving, 1860-1974. Ed. Andrew B. Myers. Tarrytown, NY: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, 1976. 398-411.
Rourke, Constance. American Humor: A Study of the National Character. Garden City,
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Rubin-Dorsky, Jeffrey. “The Value of Storytelling: ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘The Legend
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(1985): 393-406.