American National Character in Early American Literature
This essay examines the formation of the American national character as reflected in four key early American literary works: Crèvecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer," Benjamin Franklin's "Autobiography," Samson Occom's narrative, and Olaudah Equiano's "Narrative." The paper argues that, unlike European societies structured by hereditary class and title, early American identity was shaped by more fluid markers such as labor, wealth, religious conversion, and race. By reading these texts together, the essay reveals the contradictions at the heart of American self-definition—a nation simultaneously promoting individual reinvention and enforcing rigid racial hierarchies that denied freedom and status to enslaved and indigenous people.
- Introduction: The Uncertain American Identity: America's unclear collective identity in its early years
- Crèvecoeur and the Plurality of the American Social Fabric: Crèvecoeur's outsider view of American pluralism and character
- Benjamin Franklin and the Self-Made American: Franklin's autobiography as a template for American identity
- Samson Occom and the Complexity of Religious Identity: Occom's narrative between Native identity and Christianity
- Olaudah Equiano and the Limits of American Freedom: Equiano's enslavement and the failure of American promise
- Race, Status, and the Contradictions of Early America: Race as an immovable barrier in a supposedly fluid society
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper reads four distinct primary sources together, allowing their contrasts and tensions to drive the argument rather than treating each work in isolation.
- It grounds abstract claims about national identity in specific quoted passages, giving the analysis textual authority.
- The essay moves logically from the most privileged narrator (Franklin) toward the most dispossessed (Equiano), building an increasingly critical picture of American idealism.
Key academic technique demonstrated
Comparative close reading: the paper places primary texts in direct conversation, using Franklin's confident self-fashioning as a foil against which Occom's marginalization and Equiano's enslavement are measured. This technique shows how a single ideological claim—that America rewards hard work—is validated for some and violently denied to others.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a framing question about American uniqueness, introduces Crèvecoeur's outsider perspective on pluralism, moves to Franklin's archetypal self-made narrative, briefly treats Occom as a transitional figure between acceptance and exclusion, then centers Equiano's narrative as a counter-testimony to Franklinian optimism. The conclusion synthesizes the tension between social mobility and racial rigidity.
Introduction: The Uncertain American Identity
What is so unique about America? During the early years of this country's existence, America was still a colonial nation with an unclear identity as a collective entity. Was it a mass of individualistic states, or was it a unique system of values and rights, as eventually embodied in the American Constitution? It began originally as a conglomerate of individuals seeking religious freedom and, in some cases, criminals seeking to establish a new life. But the nation gradually evolved into a more clearly defined social network, with its own hierarchies of status.
Unlike the hereditary hierarchies of Europe, however, the social networks generated by these individuals—"afflicted by miseries," in Crèvecoeur's phrase—were, by definition of the American character, far more shallowly rooted in emotional and practical ties to hereditary wealth, inherited land, and noble title. Other factors of social significance came to the forefront in determining American identity and social status: hard work, hard-won money, and, equally significantly if not quite as positively, the visible status markers of race and freedom.
Crèvecoeur and the Plurality of the American Social Fabric
Letters from an American Farmer is a unique snapshot of the early nation because its author lived and toiled on the land of America, yet had been transplanted from another country. It is unclear whether Crèvecoeur ever became a naturalized citizen; regardless, his commentary offers a valuable perspective on early American life. In Letter Three, the farmer Crèvecoeur writes to his correspondent: "I wish I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent." Clearly, at this juncture America was viewed—even by a Frenchman—as an English nation, albeit one with a difference.
Yet Englishness was still seen as valuable and integral to the American character. Crèvecoeur observes that the proverbial Englishman "must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled; he must necessarily feel a share of national pride, when he views the chain of settlements which embellishes these extended shores. When he says to himself, this is the work of my countrymen, who, when convulsed by factions, afflicted by a variety of miseries and wants, restless and impatient, took refuge here. They brought along with them their national genius, to which they principally owe what liberty they enjoy, and what substance they possess. Here he sees the industry of his native country displayed in a new manner, and traces in their works the embryos of all the arts, sciences, and ingenuity which flourish in Europe." England is credited for the success of America, but even this admirer of England admits that its inhabitants are once removed and different in character from the originators of the American nation, precisely because of the reasons they came.
Crèvecoeur also noted the plurality of the American social fabric: "The next wish of this traveler will be to know whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, those races now called Americans have arisen." This need to define the self—as opposed to inheriting a preexisting notion of identity based on one's parentage—brought autobiography to the forefront of American literary constructions of identity. The indeterminate national character required all thinking individuals to ask: who and what am I, beyond who my parents are and what social position the class structure bids me occupy?
Benjamin Franklin and the Self-Made American
The most famous of these autobiographies is, of course, Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. Franklin is first and foremost thought of as a founding father of the nation. However, as his Autobiography illustrates, Franklin is more than a constructor of the new American state—he was also profoundly shaped by the nation's social indeterminacy. Franklin chose to build his character through wealth and enterprise, and he wrote the story of his life to his son as a way of helping the young man navigate the treacherous territory of the new national structure.
Almost immediately in the Autobiography, a level of personal confidence is revealed that would become part of the observed American national character, at least in the eyes of later Europeans. Franklin writes: "Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life." Franklin, because fighting for wealth has brought him success and social approval, does not view ambition as unchristian. In fact, he sees it as positive and spiritually enriching as well as financially enriching—a perspective that would become central to American self-definitions of identity from Fitzgerald to Updike and beyond.
Another interesting aspect of Franklin's work is that even when he errs, he frames the mistake as a positive learning experience for the evolving self, rather than as a moral failing. He recalls: "I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho' not then justly conducted." Public spirit and leadership are presented as more important than rigid adherence to social codes.
In Franklin's view, and in contrast to the perspective offered in Crèvecoeur's letters, Europe is associated with dissipation and a failure to reward labor—conditions that drive men to drink rather than providing a positive framework for American identity. Franklin describes a companion at the printing press who "drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work." Franklin found this custom detestable, implying that because individuals do not receive sufficient status and monetary rewards for their labors in the Old World, they numb their ambitions with drink.
Works Cited
Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography. Accessed December 2, 2003. The Early American Website.
Equiano, Olaudah. Narrative and "West Indies Slavery" Essay. Accessed December 2, 2003. http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/Equiano.html.
"Letters from an American Farmer." Letter 3 and Commentary.
Occom, Samson. "Story and Biography." Commentary and Text. Accessed December 2, 2003. The Early American Website.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.