Revisions of the American Adam

The figure of the American Adam is a prevalent myth
in US cultural history. Defined by R.W.B. Lewis in 1955 as "the hero of new
adventure . . .an individual standing alone, self-reliant and self-propelling,
ready to confront whatever awaited him with the aid of his own unique and
inherent resources", the figure is discernable in the American renaissance
writers and in the imagery of the frontiersman, cowboy, gangster as well as in
the heroes of US action movies.

 

Focusing on the American Adam as a paradigm of masculine identity formation,
this monograph examines how this fantasy of an imaginary ideal identity has held an ideological sway over US identity
in the main. Taking in a range of cultural texts, Jonathan Mitchell's study explores
the complexities and contradictions of Adam's 'real' condition of existence to show
how the paradigm influences both masculinity and subsequently hegemonic US
identity as represented throughout twentieth-century US culture.