Neil Gaiman's American Gods

In this modern fictional book, American Gods, Neil Gaiman writes an incredible story using what we know about classical mythology to create a more modern tale here in the present. The book begins with an ex-convict widower, named Shadow, that begins to work with a mysterious figure named Mr. Wednesday. Throughout the book we learn that all the gods known from the past are real ,and are being threatened by the new modern gods. Gaiman writes an incredible modernized tale, all the while keeping some values of the classic fantasy story we all know and love, and creates a work of art that embodies the best of both worlds. Gaiman starts his tale with an anti-hero, an ex-convict. No traditional story would have had a prior criminal be the main

Shadow dies, also not conventional in our common story to kill off the main character, and learns that in reality Wednesday had orchestrated the whole thing. Gaiman has shifted us back in forth, making us all the more confused on who is in the right, and who we want to root for as readers. We see this ambiguity through this quote: “There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.” Are there good guys and bad guys? Or are there just bad guys looking for what's best for themselves? We begin to

Any modern tale that kills off anyone is likely to keep it that way, but Shadow is brought back, which starts to fulfill a resolution the readers are comfortable with. Even more so we have a conflict between two polarized groups, both justified in their logic and with no speculation that Wednesday is actually orchestrating the whole thing. Our protagonist can't necessarily defeat Wednesday since he’s technically “dead”, and if the old gods win, Wednesday wins, and if the new gods wins, Wednesday wins just the same. So what resolution would make the story resolve within our classical framework? Gaiman decides to diffuse the entire conflict, using Shadow as a messenger to stop the war all together. So in the end Shadow is revived, the war stops, Wednesday receives no “glory”, and Laura is finally put to rest. These are the makings of a classical, “happy ending”. And at the end Gaiman gives us a picture of Shadow walking off, starting to make a new way for himself, letting the reader imagine his fate for