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Early American Mythology
- 1. The Mythology of Early America The Garden and the Wilderness
- 2. What is Myth? • Complex of narratives that dramatize the world vision and historical sense of a people or culture. • It is a real world distilled into a collection of subjective metaphors. • These metaphors reveal, criticize and perpetuate social, religious, and political norms.
- 3. The West in European Myth - The kingdom of death and dreams - The underworld - The subconscious - This journey into darkness is ubiquitous across cultures - Odysseus - Moses - Luke Skywalker - Harry Potter - From Joseph Campbell – The Hero With a Thousand Faces
- 4. The West in European History For the love of God, of course…
- 5. The temptation of the wilderness… “…the wilderness could isolate them from their civilization, captivate and imprison them, and compel them to learn and live by its laws.” -From Richard Slotkin – Regeneration Through Violence
- 6. Indo-European Conflict DH Lawrence – “Hawthorne and The Scarlett Letter”
- 7. • The Puritans know a little about what happens to those who fall victim to temptation.
- 8. • They’ve internalized a different narrative for themselves.
- 9. Clash of Gods Indians • Pansexual Deity – Maternal – Passionate – Sympathetic – Nurturing – ‘Part and particle’ of the world itself Puritans • Patriarchal Diety – Stern – Logical – Just – Transcendent – Authority over the world
- 10. Clash of Cultures Indian Society • Communal • Non-authoritarian • Elder consultants Puritan Society • Hierarchal/Patriarchal • Authoritarian • Magisterial elders
- 12. The New Puritan Mythology • We are God’s chosen people held captive by a fallen world. • The New World is a Wilderness we can cultivate into a “City on a Hill”. • The Indians and the Wilderness they inhabit are an existential threat and a moral temptation.
Editor's Notes
- So we may be studying stories, journals, and other primary texts, but these cumulatively create a bigger picture. The “Story of America.” The importance of recognizing this is to differentiate between history and myth. What’s the difference between literature and history? Literature admits to the limitations of perspective.
- One popular mythology of the West predates Biblical stories and perpetuates even today. With some variation, a common theme emerges. The hero’s journey (albeit not always in a Westward direction), is a journey into the unknown. It requires the traveler or hero to venture beyond the protective and corrective confines of government and the church – it is a descent into the wild, an untamed land – a separation from civilization. And it is also – a grand opportunity to make monumental mistakes.
- Unfortunately, history is not as forgiving as myth. Columbus – mutiny and greed of his men. De Las Casas - hunger of the Spanish…execution of the Indians The hero does not always handle freedom and power responsibly or with honor.
- Explain the Garden and the Wilderness
- Blood-acts are sexual, but can be read as violence as well.
- William Bradford – Pilgrims, Exodus Their Calvinist beliefs aren’t completely different from the typical Englishman, but their zealotry is. They see themselves, truly, as holier than thou. They are religious Separatists, (secessionists in a way), who have been held captive in an England beset by the creeping Antichrist of Catholicism and the Pope as well as that of Anglicanism. The discrimination and antagonism they perceive in their homeland is not an illusion. But they are buoyed by the myth that models their ideology. They see the new world as a Promised Land, a “City on the Hill” in John Winthrop’s words (and Reagan’s, too). A
- The Wilderness of the Puritans is the God of the Indians… And this is where the second layer of our grand metaphor for the semester shows up. The preferred domain of the Puritans is the Garden, and the garden is governed by the masculine God. The Wilderness of the Puritans is pansexual – with male and female characteristics.
- The
- So the Puritans see themselves as God’s Chosen.