This is an essay about "the classical American journey" as portraid in many books and movies

Essay by superman00400High School, 11th grade February 2004

download word file, 3 pages 3.5

American Journey Essay

Americans have a long history of taking journeys, which has influenced their joy of reading and writing about them. The first big journey for Americans was when they migrated from Europe to America, which happened to be before they even were Americans. After this they started making a living along the eastern shores and states of America. After a few hundred years, they migrated across America. Throughout their time settling down and starting generations of lives in America they continued to go on journeys both physical and emotional. American writers began writing about all of these journeys and they became very popular from the 1400's up until today. Journey stories in America have been so popular because of how their past has been so full of adventures.

Willa Cather's My Antonia was novel of the journey of Jim the main character's life. He moved from Virginia to Nebraska when he was nine years old because his parents died.

As he grew up he moved from a farm to a small town to a small city and eventually to the large city of New York. Getting over his parent's death was an emotional journey surrounded by physical journeys all across the country. Throughout the novel he goes on many smaller physical and emotional journeys. This novel epitomizes the classic American journey because it incorporates emotional journeys of death, emotional journeys of racial prejudice, and physical journeys across large distances.

L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a story of the journey of Dorothy's adventure to, through, and from Oz. The movie started out with Dorothy living in Kansas and not liking her life. An evil old woman named Mrs. Gulch tried to take away her dog so she ran away. When she tried to come...