What Is An American
How do you start a What is an American research paper? Our expert writers suggest like this:
At the beginning of your research paper you should introduce your topic and discuss how that topic's views relate to/challenge/affirm your own definition of what it means to be an American. You may want to provide a brief definition of what an American is and compare/contrast that definition to other sources or person's definition. Do not use dictionary definitions. Do not just repeat a research paper that you have already submitted on this text.
Because of the relative shortness of your response, you should do the following:
- Identify and focus on a few key characteristics for the term paper
- Avoid generalizations or cliches;
- Be sure to include specific illustrations or representations from your course material as well as your own observations and experiences.
- Be sure to include one direct quote, properly integrated and cited from What is an American by Crevecoeur.
It is Letter Three which posits "What is an American?" that garners the most critical attention.The letter begins amid the revelry first felt by one arriving in America for the first time, with the prospect of great natural beauty, excellent farming conditions, and private ownership laid bare. As in letter two, the author compares a world of monarchical rule to the freedom of the Americas:
We have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is free;
However, the more decisive political commentary continues in this text, using the freedoms afforded by the government system as a springboard to expound upon ethics and honor. The farmer is a just and noble being, and while he may have some perfunctory difficulty conversing with the more learned attorneys and city dwellers, he can aspire to be their equal, for all are equal in this new land. All men work for themselves, which creates and propagates an honor code that involves generosity and self-sacrifice. For Crèvecoeur, this new land may not be perfectly formed, but has the potential to be a far greater system of governance than monarchical Europe. For his reader, Letters offers a glimpse into a political realm wholly unlike any other in the world.