“Ancient or not, mythology can only have an historical foundation, for myth is a type of speech chosen by history: it cannot possibly evolve from the ‘nature’ of things” (Barthes, 55).
Myth is an interpretation of everyday activities placed in a socially acceptable frame; a verbal expression given to these experiences over a certain period of time gives it a definite meaning. In this paper, the author explores the recurrent myths in American society which are kept alive through various media like songs, literature, films, cartoons, theatre and other performances.
Land
America, the land of opportunity, was first realised by Puritans of England who settled in the Northern regions of America and laid their foundation through means of land acquisition. Sam Shepard through his plays looks beyond romanticism into a realistic setting, while retaining the mythical background. In Silent Tongue (screenplay 1993; film 1994) he gives an extended account of colonization through a man-woman relationship in a patriarchal society.
Material Success
The myth of material success is explored by many playwrights from Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones (1920) to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1993). Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman (1949) continuously searches for the secret of success. Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun (1959) follows the desire to live the white American Dream.
Marital Success and Legacy
O’Neill’s plays Desire under the Elms, Long Day’s Journey into Night and Mourning becomes Electra chose Greek myths of Oedipus and Electra with elements from his own life. In Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, although the play explores themes of closeted homosexuality, it bases its argument on the need for procreation in a marriage.
Homosexuality
Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes employs the plot of mystery plays to uproot the myth of biological degeneration related to the practice of homosexuality. By associating AIDS with homosexuality, Kushner is indeed questioning the existing beliefs.
Identity
In plays like The Emperor Jones by O’Neill and Voodoo Macbeth (1936) by Orson Welles, even as an African-American is given the role of the protagonist, there is stereotype attached to each of them. By recreating the identities at social, racial, and sexual levels, the canon of modern American plays participate in the myth of America as the melting pot.
Memories that are transferred from one generation to the other through oral recitations, scripts, songs, movies and performative practices keeps the myths alive even in present times.
Works Cited
- Albee, Edward. The Zoo Story. New York: Penguin Books, 1959.
- Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. U.S.A.: Penguin Books, 1962.
- Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. New York: The Noonday Press, 1957.
- Bercovitch, Sacvan. “Rites of the Assent.” The American Self: Myth, Ideology and Popular Culture. Ed. Sam B. Girgus. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981.
- Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: A Samuel French Acting Edition, 1959.
- Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia of National Themes. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993.
- Levi-Strauss, Claude. Myth and Meaning. New York: Routledge Classics, 2001.
- Mamet, David. American Buffalo. New York: Grove Press, 1975.
- Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1949.
- O’Neill, Eugene. The Emperor Jones. New Delhi: East-West Press, 1989.
- Shepard, Sam. Silent Tongue. Vintage Books, 1993.
- Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: Penguin Books, 1955.