The Class So Far

Having taken my first exam for this class, I must admit that the whole thing has been an interesting step back in time for myself as an American. Between learning about America from different aspects in literature to figuring out who "we" is, it offers more than just factual understanding of American literature as a whole. It provides perspective on our country as a whole, our history, and how the outside world tends to view us as the "perfect" society. For example, De Crevecoeur's "What Is an American" tells of what America looks like to any European man (Englishman, Frenchman, etc.) migrating from their country to our own. They tend to view our society as a place of freedom, justice, and prosperity unaware of the many injustices and criminal activities that happen on the side. Regardless, we, not only as collective Americans, but also God's people, do our best to do the right thing and seek out the freedom and justice that everyone believes we have. It may sound like I'm just simply rattling on about the perspectives given in this story, but, personally, I feel it culminates a lot of what we've covered in class thus far and is therefore my favorite work based on how much it makes me think. If this one work could help me understand our class discussions better, I can't wait to see what we've got coming up!