The Quiet American - Imaginative

American Romanticism is a journey away from the corruption of civilization and the limits of rational thoughts, and toward the integrity of nature and the freedom of imagination. In other words, it is a journey away from industrialism or rationalism, which is working hard and earning money. This movement, originally started in Europe and later reached in America. It can be best defined as a thought that values feeling and intuition over reason. Some of the characteristics include the importance of feeling and intuition over reason, placing faith in inner experience and the power of imagination, preferring youthful innocence over educated sophistication, finding beauty and reality in exotic locales. It encouraged people to enjoy the integrity of nature and freedom of imagination. It also encouraged one to have faith in imagination and inner experience. In addition, romanticists found inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture and found poetry as the highest expression of imagination. Romanticists believed that the landscape was regarded as an extension of the human personality, capable of sympathy with man 's emotional state, whereas nature was regarded as a vehicle for spirit just as man; the breath of God fills both man and the earth. However, romantics would create chaos when the issues were connected with human rights, individualism, and freedom from oppression (Arpin 138-150).

In Edward L. Hudgins article, What is an American?, Hudgins defines an American in ways I had not thought of before. Hudgins stated all these ideas about Americans being driven to do their best and meeting challenges head-on. I would like to think that being an American means everything Hudgins stated, however I think Hudgins is giving the optimistic answer of what being an American means. What Hudgins explains as being an American is what I believe most Americans were like when the country was first founded. The idea of taking risks and working until the risks paid off is one that most Americans do not believe because the possibility of actually achieve one’s dream is extremely less likely today than it was when the country was first established.

The 1980’s is one of the most interesting decades that was experienced in the United States. Dealing with the stock market, the coming up of new inventions, all the way to the types of music people listened to. During the 1980s, the only thing that made Americans be “Americans” was because of the things they were provided with. Many Americans had fun throughout the 1980s with materialistic, glamorous, and technological life styles; therefore there were different economical problems that Americans faced.

June 19, 1975, began a killing spree in Colorado Springs when a soldier from Ft.Carson and his friend who worked on base shot a cook in the head. He only had fifty cents. The next week they stabbed a Fort Carson soldier with a bayonet. On July 1, 1975, they killed Kelsey Grammer’s sister. After raping her, they stabbed her throat and left her out in a trailer park to die. That night they went to Fort Carson and called a cab from a club. That pick up would be Dad’s last. Knowing he was in trouble, Dad called dispatch to ask the distance and the fare to Butts Field, a strange request for a seasoned cabbie on such a small military base. All the fares were thirty five cents except the one to their airport. One of the guys grabbed my dad and slashed his throat from ear to ear, leaving him for dead on the side of the road. They drove the cab through the housing area, across one of its inhabitants front lawns. He had driven a taxi in New York and had his money taken before, but never harmed. Mom laughed hysterically when she told me that even with witnesses, their attorney argued it was too dark to adequately identify them.The local police investigated Karen’s murder, but my dad’s killing had taken place on a military base, putting the federal agents in charge. The murderers were given the death sentence for Karen and the other murders, so the feds decided not to investigate my dad’s case.

Nevertheless, Chris died finding his freedom. If Chris had been prepared for the conditions, if

The disbanding of the Iraqi army and “debathification” or dismantling of the government in place only served to increase the casualties of American troops and Iraqi civilians as the radical Sunni insurgency expanded. This point of cause and effect, clash of two distinct political and cultural worlds, defined this war for the generation serving, at home and the future generations. The threat of increasing terrorism after the attack of September 11, 2001 was one of the driving force of invasion of Iraq. However, in one analysis the increase of global terrorism today is told to be well contributed by the conflicts that were fueled by the western presence in Iraq and the surrounding

and tired, so I had a cold shower to wake me up and make me feel

Americans have not only defined themselves by their religious, ethnic and racial identity, but also by their individual freedom and common values. America has become a nation where its people can fight for what they believe in. Our founding fathers have formed America to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. Being apart of the American culture and living on the land founded by our leaders specifies the meaning of the American Identity.

Chris thought that he had slipped out of everyone’s life painlessly but for those people, it was the opposite. Little did he know, he had left major holes in some of their lives. For Ronald Franz, it was like losing a child all over again. Chris also cut Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg, two more people that cared a lot about him, out of his life. The book goes on to reiterate how much of an impact Chris left on Ronald. ”

Carol Berkin, an American author and historian, has accomplished to make a name for herself due to her involvement and publications of early American and women’s history. Berkin takes her readers back in time with her publication of A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American. In this publication, Berkin chronologically unravels why and how delegates set up a convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Several events that brought the men the convention were the rivalry amongst the states, rebellions from citizens, and a weak government that was bullied from nations like Spain and Great Britain. Additionally, Berkin spends great effort to introduce the delegates that attended the convention. While in attendance among the delegates revolutionary leaders

during his travels he made many friends with his charm and hospitality. Chris left an

Maybe Ta-Nehisi Coates is right. Maybe we are living in deep slumber created by the racist political leaders that founded America, and we may never wake up. Maybe we cannot wake up from this dream. We live in a nightmare, but we are told it’s the American Dream. Maybe things will never change. Will black people truly ever succeed. I believe to truly succeed that means others must fail. Whose to say that white people didn’t already know that to succeed that meant others must fail. Maybe they knew and that’s why black people are failing. White people saw what they had to do and did it. There isn’t room for two people at the top of the pyramid, only room for one. I agree with Coates about the racism and how it is infinite. His arguments are valid,

I now walk out to live amongst the wild. Take care, it was great knowing you.” This means that Chris was cutting off communication with people to begin his journey into the wild. As you can see Chris had a way of keeping an emotional distance from the people he met, being able to kick these people out of his life so that it wouldn’t be so hard to leave. Regardless of the connection they made with

The era of the 1990’s was an explosive time in American history both figuratively and literally. In the 90’s there was an extreme variety of different failures and also advances in technology. We as a nation had new advancements in space travel, our military and the way of life preparing for the turn of the century. As a country we didn’t know what the new millennium had to bring for us, but we were ready. Most significantly changing America though was from our creativeness that took place, the fear we had, and our militaristic ways.

How long can you sit on the fence and not get involved? How long before you're forced to choose sides? Thomas Fowler learns the answers to this dilemma the hard way.