Myths and heroes - Notion Mythes et héros anglais PDF

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Myths and heroes I'm going to talk about the notion of myths and heroes. First i would like to give a definition of this notion. To my mind, I would define a hero as an icon or an inspirational figure who made history. A myth can be a hero or an intemporal story with a connotation more legendary. So I was wondering what are the myths and heroes of the history of the united states? In first part, i will talk about the American history shaped by Manifest Destiny and then new myths and heroes since the 20th century to nowadays. In 1845, John O'Sullivan was one of many who believed that the United States was destined to expand to the North American continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This is called the "Manifest Destiny" an ideology which had for a divine mission to extend the democratic and the civilization to the west. To be better understood, people of American thought they were chosen by God to deliver a message, to implement their institution and show the world they are better than it. John GAST, a painter is famous for painting American Progress in 1872 which is an allegory of Manifest Destiny. It shows the Spirit of America travelling from East to West, bringing civilization. The Spirit of America, wearing the Star of Empire on her head leads the way. This painting symbolize one of the most important pieces of American history and may be one of the most important world events ever. Moreover, there is also Thanksgiving which is a part of American history. In the painting The first Thanksgiving by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, is in honour of the Native americans tribe and the colonists. It depicts the first religious festival of Thanksgiving. The pilgrims fathers were not familiar with their new environment. The native Americans helped them survive. Thanksgiving was celebrated to think good for helping them overcome the difficulties. The pilgrims were grateful to the Native Americans for helping them. In this painting we see that the Native Americans and the Pilgrims share food together. The pilgrims welcome to natives to their colony. So Thanksgiving symbolizes the joy of loving, caring and sharing and not war. It’s symbolizes peace, harmony and union between two community. We just saw the American history shaped by Manifest Destiny now the new myths and heroes since the 20th century to nowadays. We know different myths and heroes in American history. First, we have Henry Ford who was the founder of Ford Motor Company. He was a visionary industrialist and became a pioneer of mass production. He is known as well for his help in progressing the assembly line and the idea of mass production as for his creation of the Model T automobile like we can see on the picture. Indeed, he started to produce cars on a large scale and hired unskilled workers to work on the assembly line. The Model T revolutionized the automobile industry and made Ford one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. He represent one of the greatest American figures of his time. There is also Steve Jobs who is the perfect example of the American work ethic. Many of the United States began with nothing and made their dreams come true with determination and Steve Jobs is a wonderful example of this. Jobs first company was born out of his garage. His first great invention was the Macintosh computer. He create the most famous company in the world, Apple Inc. Indeed, he create what is today known as Pixar and is credited with the creation of Toy Story. Jobs is a visionary, he gave to the world a computer that was portable, he change the face of technology. He has shown us that the dream is still alive, and with hard work,determination and creativity, anything is possible. To conclude, we saw that the United States have a lot of myths and heroes. There are the stories that pass from generation to generation, reflecting the history of the United States and also the heroes that changed the world...