Letters from an American Farmer

In Crevecoeur’s ‘Letters from an American Farmer’ he describes the people’s feelings of America and questions what it is to be an American. The opening sentences of the third letter ‘What is an American?” tells us of the triumph and pride the settlers should feel towards the development of the country and shows us the Crevecoeur himself is vastly proud of what has become of America at this time.

“I wish I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent. He must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled. He must necessarily feel a share of national pride when he views the chain of settlements which embellish these extended shores.”

He compares this new America to Europe and says:

“Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a very few visible one, no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe.”

These point he makes have become less and less applicable to America today as the country is capitalist and does have “great manufacturers employing thousands”. Also the situation between the rich and the poor is little different to other first world countries.

However, today many people still have the sense of the ‘American dream’ and will move to the US in order to better their life. Something that I feel shows this is the MTV programme ‘MADE’. In this programme people are given the chance to break away from their lives and live out their dream and often prove fairly successful. So although America today is very different it is often still thought of in the same romanticised way of the “American Dream”.