European observers, who take a close look at the characteristics that they qualify as typical for white Americans, discover soon that they were originally attributes of the American Indian. The liberation from a social hierarchy and the idea that “all men are born equal” is also an American Indigenous invention that crossed the Atlantic Ocean and made old European feudal institutions crack at their foundations.
Not that the white American will give credit to the indigenous tribes for those values since they are still perceived as a hostile and primitive culture. This attitude can be held responsible for much of the dissatisfaction and restlessness found in the U.S. To trace down the roots and evolution of the American mentality, there is no better source than to follow the historical development of the American Literature. All along the attentive reader can feel the mostly invisible presence of the Native American and the subtle incorporation of his values in the American mainstream of thinking.
Poe’s method was to put his characters in unusual situations. Next, he would describe their feelings of terror or guilt. Poe was also one of the creators of the modern detective -story. Instead of examining characters and feelings, these stories examine mysteries or problems in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity.
Longfellow was an excellent linguist and gained a lot of popularity with poetry containing pseudo-profundities as “Life is real and life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal”. Longfellow borrowed legends of colonial times but his main contribution to the American culture was to translate European poetry and make it accessible for all Americans.
Where Longfellow was more a facilitator, Brett Harte (1836 – 1902) wrote original stories about the Far West and many writers followed his lead. In all Harte’s work we see all the main characters of the West American folk culture return; the pretty New England schoolteacher, the sheriff, the bad man, the gambler and the bar girl.
Mark Twain’s writing was strongly influenced by his work as a pilot on the Mississippi. He became nationally famous with “The celebrated jumping Frog”, based on stories he heard as a journalist in a mining camp. Twain’s work is filled with stories about ordinary people tricking experts. In “The adventures of Tom Sawyer”, his two heroes are “bad boys” because they fight against the stupidity of the adult world. Some critics complain that he wrote only well when he was writing about young people. Throughout all of Twain’s writing we see the conflict between the ideals of Americans and their desire for money.
By 1875, American writers were moving toward realism in literature. William Dean Howells (1837 – 1920) stated that romanticism created false views about life. Like most Americans in the 1880’s, he realized that business and businessmen were at the center of society, and he felt that novels should depict them. Later he began attacking the evils of American capitalism.
The Maharajagar 