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#Post#: 852--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a literary character that could represent your coun
try?
By: Dan Smith Date: May 14, 2018, 9:55 am
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I've tried to come up with an answer, and I can't. Honestly, the
United States is too diverse. But I have to say I am very
suspicious of the whole idea of "national character."
Nevertheless, just to suggest something, I will put up Aunt
Eller, from the musical Oklahoma!, in the song "The Farmer and
the Cowman:"
[quote]I'd like to teach you all a little sayin'
And learn the words by heart the way you should
I don't say I'm no better than anybody else,
But I'll be damned if I ain't jist as good![/quote]
To get the idea, see this YouTube clip. The link should open at
3:05, if it doesn't, start watching there. Keep watching through
4:22. I guess this is from the movie, and it's interesting that
at the time, they considered "damned" to be too strong a word
and softened it to "danged."
The Farmer and the Cowman
HTML https://youtu.be/Vg5cwSBnyQU?t=185
There it is, gun culture and all. Of course, it's an
idealization... its a Broadway songwriter's idea of Oklahoma in
the early 1900s.
#Post#: 853--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a literary character that could represent your coun
try?
By: Dan Smith Date: May 14, 2018, 10:11 am
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For the United States, maybe Holden Caulfield from The Catcher
in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger?
#Post#: 890--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a literary character that could represent your coun
try?
By: Allie Date: May 15, 2018, 2:41 pm
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@Dan
You're absolutely right!
Of course, we can't really point just ONE fictional character to
represent all the diversity of a single country.
This thread was started after talking to Natalia about the way
Dostoyevsky described personalities. Out of context, it may be
misleading.
The character I chose, for example, is an anti-hero with lots of
flaws and I don't want to imply that everybody in my country
partakes them.
Still, if I didn't know the book and someone just told me the
story, as if it was something that happened to someone, after
listening, I'd ask "Is he Brazilian?"
Maybe a better question would be something like "in which
character of the literature of your country can you recognise a
compatri
#Post#: 903--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a literary character that could represent your coun
try?
By: Dan Smith Date: May 15, 2018, 4:42 pm
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George Orwell wrote this about Mark Twain, and I think there is
a good deal of truth to it:
"...all that is best in his work centres about the Mississippi
river and the wild mining towns of the West. Born in 1835... he
had had his youth and early manhood in the golden age of
America, the period when the great plains were opened up, when
wealth and opportunity seemed limitless, and human beings felt
free, indeed were free, as they had never been before and may
not be again for centuries. Life on the Mississippi and the two
other books that I have mentioned are a ragbag of anecdotes,
scenic descriptions and social history both serious and
burlesque, but they have a central theme which could perhaps be
put into these words: 'This is how human beings behave when they
are not frightened of the sack.' In writing these books Mark
Twain is not consciously writing a hymn to liberty. Primarily he
is interested in 'character', in the fantastic, almost lunatic
variations which human nature is capable of when economic
pressure and tradition are both removed from it. The raftsmen,
Mississippi pilots, miners and bandits whom he describes are
probably not much exaggerated, but they are as different from
modern men, and from one another, as the gargoyles of a medieval
cathedral. They could develop their strange and sometimes
sinister individuality because of the lack of any outside
pressure. The State hardly existed, the churches were weak and
spoke with many voices, and land was to be had for the taking.
If you disliked your job you simply hit the boss in the eye and
moved further west; and moreover, money was so plentiful that
the smallest coin in circulation was worth a shilling. The
American pioneers were not supermen, and they were not
especially courageous. Whole towns of hardy gold miners let
themselves be terrorized by bandits whom they lacked the public
spirit to put down. They were not even free from class
distinctions. The desperado who stalked through the streets of
the mining settlement, with a Derringer pistol in his waistcoat
pocket and twenty corpses to his credit, was dressed in a frock
coat and shiny top-hat, described himself firmly as a
'gentleman' and was meticulous about table manners. But at least
it was not the case that a man's destiny was settled from his
birth. The 'log cabin to White House' myth was true while the
free land lasted."
#Post#: 904--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a literary character that could represent your coun
try?
By: Dan Smith Date: May 15, 2018, 4:50 pm
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I think there is an aspect of the United States which I am not
even 100% sure is true, because it is not talked about openly.
One reads constantly of the pioneers on the edge of the frontier
"not fitting in." I'll quote the Canadian poet Robert Service
here:
[
HTML https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58012/the-men-that-dont-fit-in
"There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest."
In his poem, the implication is simply that these men are
undirected, they have ADHD as it were, they do not focus their
effort on success.
However, the men that "don't fit in" are always moving on when
"civilization" reaches them, and there is often an indication
that what particularly bothers them is the arrival of women--not
necessarily women as such, but "respectability," married
couples, churches.
I think that during the period of Westward expansion, the United
States was a haven for misfits of many kinds--religious groups
like the Mormons, for example--but, the part that is not
discussed much, I suspect it was a haven for homosexual men.
This would be a homosexual parallel to the Mormons, who were the
target of persecution due to their practice of polygamy. The
Mormons kept moving farther and farther West to escape
persecution by monogamous America. I rather think that
homosexual men were doing the same thing at the same time. As I
say I can't prove it, but it makes sense... it almost has to be
true.
#Post#: 908--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a literary character that could represent your coun
try?
By: Alharacas Date: May 16, 2018, 1:25 am
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What a fascinating theory, Dan!
Jack London adressing his best friend George Sterling as "Greek"
does make you wonder, doesn't it?
#Post#: 1701--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a literary character that could represent your coun
try?
By: nataliestpete Date: June 3, 2018, 3:13 am
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Chizuko,
Could you please share your opinion about Sachito’s comment?
HTML https://www.italki.com/notebook//entry/906888
It s not promotion of italki:)) I mean could you tell me here
please
Thank you
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