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"But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name.”

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"But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name.”

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In Jay McInerney's 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City, the narrator recently lost his job, and has turned to drugs, parties, and sex to ease his mind.

The narrator feels incredibly lost, and firmly believes that no one cares about him. Throughout the novel, he continues down a slippery  slope, slowly drifting into a nobody. An unrecognizable shadow. However, at the very end of the novel, he has a moment of realization, and leaves the impression that he will begin to turn his life around.

The novel displays the negative aspects of American society that occur simultaneously with the good. Within America there is a strong "every man for himself" attitude. While this drives moral, and pushed the country forward, it also opens the door for individuals to be forgotten about. This aspect of American society is one that is often forgotten about, yet effects many individuals living within this great nation.

The rediscovery of identity is an aspect to American society that is overlooked. As a result of the win big lose bigger attitude of America, it is up to individuals themselves to consciously rediscover themselves.

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"They sit there shelling the peanuts and rubbing off the tissuey brown skin... and eating the oily salty flesh and dropping the husks on the ground without ever taking their eyes off the game"

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"They sit there shelling the peanuts and rubbing off the tissuey brown skin... and eating the oily salty flesh and dropping the husks on the ground without ever taking their eyes off the game"

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In Don DeLillo's 1997 Underworld, Cotter Martin, a young black man from Harlem, sneaks into the 1951 Dodgers-Giants pennant game where he ends up sitting next to a white businessman named Bill Waterson.

While at first glance this story merely depicts a historic baseball game, in reality,  it is about two men, coming from completely different worlds, bonding over one common interest--baseball. The protagonists put aside their racial and socioeconomic differences to share a soda and bag of peanuts because they're rooting for the same team.

Even though all Americans share the same national identification, it is bonding of separate human identities that help create the American Identity as a whole. People are no longer operating from a position where, despite whatever differences may exist, they still share a common identity as Americans.

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"The problem is, your thoughts don't come out in any kind of straight order... You try to think about home, then you're in the torture house"(2).

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"The problem is, your thoughts don't come out in any kind of straight order... You try to think about home, then you're in the torture house"(2).

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In Phil Klay's 2014 Redeployment, the narrator describes the perspective of the sergeant and his fellow marines who have returned home from war. As a result of the horrific events they experienced in the war, the American protagonists have lost their identities and now work to try and relearn how to live their life.

All they can think about is war--even at home; their minds are so corrupted with this new unhealthy lifestyle they experienced in Iraq that when they come back to America they physically can not process reality.

Klay suggests that war, this fake and violent illusion of life, hinders the ability for people to find meaning in their life and completely destroys their personal identification.

Why should we Americans glorify such horrific events that clearly destroy American lives? It is for the perseverance of freedom, a belief that there are no artificial bounds and that the future is decided by knowledge and courage, that these soldiers fight for-- this freedom is the foundation of American Identity.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us... we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world."

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"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us... we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world."

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John Winthrop's 1630 sermon "A City Upon a Hill" explains how the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and American as a whole, acts as a "beacon of hope" for the world.

Winthrop depicts this idea that our American identity is partly defined by our sense of American exceptionalism. However, he also makes a vast difference between a patriot, who feels a sense of pride and love for his country, and a nationalist, who views his country as superior to others.

The idea that we are living in the promised land and that we are god's chosen people is what gives us all this analogous pride we hold for this country. Our sense of identity and our ability to live our lives freely is what makes us the perfect example for the world to follow.

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"Sure, maybe we could buy a ranch. Raise cattle, use our muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open... The Loman Brothers, eh?"

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"Sure, maybe we could buy a ranch. Raise cattle, use our muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open... The Loman Brothers, eh?"

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Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller's 1949 play, follows protagonist Willy Loman, a failing salesman, who is slipping into senility. While Miller describes Willy's dwindling career and life, the story stays somewhat hopefully as his two sons strive for their version of the American Dream.

The idea that we have the ability to do whatever we want in America brings hope to our society. While the American Dream does bring a sense of optimism into a sometimes sorrow life, it may just only create unrealistic expectations (just as Willy Loman has).

For many people, the American Dream defines the American identity. The American dream means individualism, gaining control of one’s life, and the pursuit of happiness and upward mobility.

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"I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within the boundaries."

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"I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within the boundaries."

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In Zora Hurston's 1928 "How it Feels to be Colored Me", the narrator describes her life as she grew up in a segregated America. Rather than focusing on the more obvious evil aspects of America at the time, she instead views her ancestors past as an opportunity for her future.

Hurston accepted and welcomed her own individuality, while at the same time still identifying as a united American citizen. The idea that American's can have different "external appearances" yet still fight for the same united goals, is what helps creates our American Identity.

America is starting to embrace this new, much more inclusive conception of American identity, a conception that celebrates diversity as a source of American strength.