Rick Van Noy
English 340

Week 2

Response 1

Crevecoeur's Definition of the "American"

In his "Letters from an American Farmer," how does Crevecoeur define "the American, this new man" (402)?

His answer has two main aspects: that of the blending of earlier nationalities and ethnicities, and that of economic opportunity for all. Crevecoeur begins with a rhetorical question asking "what attachment" a poor person can have to "a country where he had nothing" (402). In addition to the "love of a few" kin, Crevecoeur can only think of a known language as a bond. He cites a Latin phrase meaning "where the bread is, there is a fatherland," as a proverbial, conventional wisdom showing that anyone will prefer to identify with a nation that gives "land, bread, protection, and consequence" (402). The first two terms are figures for property and sustenance, but the last two are abstractions: "protection" comes from "indulgent laws," while "consequence" is the dignity due a man of property.

He then explains why the American ought to "love his country" better than where he came from. Crevecoeur concludes that his natural self-interest predetermines it. He portrays wives and children in the old country pleading for bread, but now "fat and frolicsome," stressing their delight with alliteration. Even the crops of the fields are "exuberant," personified as they flourish to bestow themselves to the farmer. In the old country, the bounty is claimed by a ruler, in contrast to the voluntary giving in America to the minister and "gratitude to God." "Can [the American] refuse these?" he asks, and we reply, "Impossible.!" (403).

He concludes by summarizing his definition, using the word new in each phrase: new principles, new ideas, new opinions. These are contrasted with the humiliating past: "the involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labor" which in the American has emerged into "ample subsistence." By contrasting the old society with the new, Crevecoeur produced a benchmark definition to which we still turn for an understanding of "the American Dream." [304 words]