America and Americans

America and Americans' first essay, after a brief foreword, examines perhaps the most prominent American teleology, from which the essay takes its title: "E Pluribus Unum." But even as Steinbeck explains his belief in the factuality of this American motto, he also highlights those discrepancies or paradoxes which make this teleology ironic. The second essay, "Paradox and Dream," continues this theme and attempts to explain both the necessity and the irony of the mythic "American Way of Life." Much like Wallace Stevens' Supreme Fictions, these national myths, according to Steinbeck, aid the individual and the nation, not so much by any actuality, but by their potentiality: "These dreams describe our vague yearnings toward what we wish were and hope we may be: wise, just, compassionate, and noble. The fact that we have this dream at all is perhaps an indication of its posiblity The Dream of the American Dream John Steinbeck, in his essay America and Americans, uses many contradictions to...