The Conversation of Ideas: American Myths in Postmodern Literature

Abstract

This thesis exploes some of the myths that have joined together to form the American metanarrative since the beginning of the Anglo-American republic. Using a collection of novels, I will be exploring three of these myths: The Self- Made Man; Manifest Destiny; and American Righteousness. In their Postmodern forms, these myths may have become disillusioned, turned upside-down or played for ironic effect, but through the dialectic, they are still a part of America’s collective consciousness through the Conservation of Ideas. And as a cohesive American mythology has begun to reveal itself, the existence and form of a metanarrative can be discerned.