Flaubert The American Persona Sparknotes

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As a superpower of the world, our nation tries to give off the impression that we are an almighty powerful entity. As French novelist Gustave Flaubert puts it, “There is no truth, there is only perception.” In other words, the truth of who and what we are doesn’t matter, what really matters is what the world perceives of us. Our facade displays our nation and its members as a hard working and advanced in many fields. We easily mislead the rest of the world, and thus use this to our advantage to forward our agendas. The American persona however will always be subjective to each person because Americans are so diverse our image is ever changing. First, let us define the word “persona”. According to the oxford dictionaries site, a persona is, …show more content…

I think that the definition of the American persona is subjective and relative to the person that you ask. It must be considered that Americans come from all walks of life. Every factor of a person’s life should be looked at, whether it is their ethnic background, education level, economic status, sexual orientation, religion, etc. If one wants to be thorough, then you might even consider their taste in music. The United States is one of the most diverse countries in the world, we are a “melting pot” meaning that we are, “ a place where a variety of races, cultures, or individuals assimilate into a cohesive whole” (“Melting Pot”). If you look at the American persona in respect to how it is portrayed, many Americans try to give off the impression that they are ambitious, hardworking, and self motivated. We want to be portrayed as superior because superiority equates to power, and of course everyone wants to have power. The classification of what makes someone a member of the American society varies from person to person, as mentioned earlier, Americans are so diverse. One thing that could define a member of American …show more content…

We are a superpower, and we lead by example. Because of our status worldwide, “US foreign policy is thus utilized as an avenue in which to promote American ideals, combining practical capacity for realizing the evils of man, yet continuing to remain devoted to the idealistic notions of the American success story” (Tabakian). Of course we as Americans want other countries to be rich and have money because the people in those countries would be happy, and we want everyone to be happy to prevent any problems or wars. We want the world to be a better place in terms of humanity and nature. We also want other countries to be rich because that means that there is less immigration into the States. Not that there's anything wrong with immigration into our nation, but it would take off some strain of our nation’s

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