Gold rush | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 24 pages of analysis & critique of Gold rush.

Gold rush | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 24 pages of analysis & critique of Gold rush.
This section contains 6,834 words
(approx. 23 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Ralph Mann

SOURCE: “The Americanization of Arcadia: Images of Hispanic and Gold Rush California,” in American Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring, 1978, pp. 5-19.

In the following essay, Mann argues that writings about both Hispanic California and gold rush California utilize three types of imagery: wilderness, paradisiacal, and pastoral.

During the 1840s and 1850s California's landscape and inhabitants enjoyed a literary reputation as the geography and people of an earthly paradise, or a Romantic wilderness, or a peaceful, pastoral Arcadia, where fantasies of wealth, ease, sensual release and personal independence could be realized. At the same time, Americans in California reestablished with rapidity all the institutions and values of the urban East, the very social forces from which the myth offered an escape. The popular images of Hispanic California and of gold camp life, as expressed in the travelogues and personal narratives that gave Americans their initial impressions of these societies, contribute...

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This section contains 6,834 words
(approx. 23 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Ralph Mann
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Critical Essay by Ralph Mann from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.