Bertrand, America

Five things I learned about America:
1. America moral system is still based on Puritanical values
2. Benjamin Franklin was a playboy
3. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams did not agree upon the issues of God nor morals
4. Abigail Adams was the first feminists
5. During the era of slavery, The North would sell escaped slaves back to the plantation owners

Five things I learned about American Literature
1. The Adventure Narrative is a writing technique unique to America
2. The character Natty Bumppo is depicted in all of Cooper's pentalogy
3. Romanticism is a writing technique that is not just unique Europe, but it also occurred in American Literature
4. There are American fairy tales
5.There was a stage of hopelessness in America and American Literature reflected this.

In the early years of my education, I was taught that America was the only country in the world that was founded on hope and free opportunity for all. I have learned that out "founding fathers" had no intention of making that possible for everyone. It was their intention to create a country that was dog eat dog. It was not equal opportunity for all, it was only equal opportunity for white men; as Abigail Adams states in her letters to her husband. Also, I learned that Thomas Jefferson was promoting to John Adams that The Declaration of Independence should have a specific clause that made Christianity the religion of the country, while John Adams was pushing for no religion at all. These facts blur the nonexistent ideals that many people believe that America was founded on. This country is in constant flux. This is a country that attracts people from all places with many different beliefs. Each person that comes here tries to be heard because of the ideals that America projects and America is constantly attempting to accommodate all of these beliefs. This is why America is in constant flux. In response to this flux, Americans try to find a common need and want of the country in the natural world itself. This response is depicted it Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" and in some of Emily Dickinson's poems. This is a unique response to immense diversity. Although the response to diversity in the present day is usually fear, with the factual history that our country posses, there is still hope that we can revert back to the teachings of Whitman and Thoreau. There is still hope that we can eventually see the commonality in the human race through the attributes natural world.