The Watergate scandal has had such a large impact on American society that people alive at the time still remember it vividly and recall the hostile environment it allowed to develop. Democrats and Republicans were at each other’s throats vying for political power and support of the people. Thomas Mallon’s version of the events surrounding Watergate in Watergate: A Novel accurately exemplifies the complicated nature of myth-history. While some parts of the story are true, some characters and plot line events are fictional.

I found Mallon’s decision to blend fiction with non-fiction to tell a story very interesting as it creates a third side of the story. As readers, we are exposed to the opinions of Democrats, Republicans, and factual events that could have been altered or tampered with for either side’s advantage. Myth-history is complicated as it can be difficult to decipher true facts from false statements but I think Mallon did an excellent job in providing the stories presented from both sides.

As Bigger’s court case begins to wrap up its is clear that he will be sentenced to death for his crimes and in many ways he has accepted this fate. However, Bigger’s lawyer argues with the court that if they haven’t yet acknowledged his existence then how can he be put to death. For a fleeting moment this seems to spark a debate over Bigger’s death, yet after a brief recess, the judge returns and sentences Bigger to death.

Throughout the story, Bigger struggles to be acknowledged as a human by white people just as he struggles to see white people as a whole in a good light. While Max portrays the lead up to Bigger’s crimes as the result of white oppression, Bigger feels relief in knowing that white people, and more specifically the white people that knew him personally, understand their faults. However, ultimately, the judge ignores any fault white people may have had in damaging Bigger’s psychological health and still decides to sentence Bigger to death.

This ending is a hopeless one for the black population of Chicago in the story. Though presented with a case of how white oppression harms black people, as a whole the white people in the story seem indifferent to the struggling black families.

In Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, the American dream is presented as an unachievable and corrupt dream of many. As Nick Carraway moves to West Egg, his small house is overshadowed by the expansive mansion of Jay Gatsby. As Nick becomes acquainted with Gatsby, he observes him watching a green light across the water and longing for his lost love, Daisy. Gatsby is considered to be ‘new money’ and as such has in fact reached some level of the American dream. Although Gatsby has become very rich, he still doesn’t have everything he wants and is still striving to get Daisy but he never succeeds in doing so.

Gatsby grew up in a poor family and through bootlegging he became very rich and used this money to try and win back Daisy. Despite finding great success, Gatsby was not satisfied and he strove to gain even more material wealth. Upon finally meeting with Daisy he boasts of the wealth he has achieved and feels as if he has finally reached the American dream now that he is with Daisy. Tragically, his happiness doesn’t last long as after a hit and run car accident, Gatsby is killed. In Great Gatsby, the American dream is an unrealistic goal of many Americans. Forever longing for more and more wealth and success, Gatsby’s American dream is ended immediately after gaining everything he though he wanted.

At the beginning of the book, Henry acts very much like an individual. Before enlisting in the army, he had to decide for himself whether or not he was going to join the conflict. His mother was opposed to Henry joining the war and tried to convince him to stay but after Henry joined, his mother told him to be good and stay away from bad people. Henry’s mother was afraid that he would lose his own identity and become just a part of the large Union army going to war. During Henry’s first taste of combat he felt uplifted by the countless amounts of men in his regiment and in the army as a whole. In this battle, Henry felt like he was a part of something greater than himself. In addition, he was amazed at the discipline of another regiment as they walked through a dense forest and managed to keep their ranks. Henry wished to be a part of something greater than himself and that was a main reason for why he enlisted but in his first battle he fled for fear of his own life. Following his cowardly actions, Henry was ashamed of himself and even felt envious of the men who stayed in their lines and received red badges of courage. On his own, and searching for his regiment, Henry wished he was able to forget about some of his individualistic values and to truly be apart of the army. In the last battle of the book, Henry charges through a field toward an enemy shooting at him. After his regiment’s Color Sargent is killed, Henry picks up the flag and carries it while helping to lead his regiment to victory. While the story followed only one man, it was really about an army, and more specifically, about how many individuals can work together and contribute something greater than any one person.

In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, irony is used to display the evil of slavery. Throughout the story, the various slaves the story follows occasionally meet a ‘benevolent’ slave owner. From Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, who treat their slaves with respect, to Eva St. Clare, the daughter of a plantation owner in Louisiana, some white slave owners respected the humanity their slaves possessed while wishing for the abolishment of slavery. Slavery had a great economic benefit to the white slave owning classes in the South of the United States. Legally classified as property, the black slaves were at the whim of their masters. As such, many slaves were worked to death, while others were beaten and whipped for upsetting their masters. The quality of life the slaves would experience was entirely left up to the kindness of their owners.

For example, Eva St. Clare shares her love with all members of the household in which she lives. She loves her white slave owning family in addition to the numerous slaves her family owns. Upon her death bed, Eva wishes for Tom’s freedom and her father agrees. Unfortunately, Eva’s father is killed soon after her death and Tom is not freed as Marie, Eva’s mother, is now his owner. Marie decides to sell Tom who eventually comes under the ownership of Legree, a cruel plantation owner. Tom is eventually severely beaten and later dies from his wounds following his reunification with George Shelby, the son of Arthur Shelby. The Shelby family respected their slaves and only sold Tom as they had accumulated financial debt. This led Tom to be bought and sold a series of times to different slave owners. After seeing Uncle Tom die, George Shelby vows to do anything he can to have slavery abolished.

Though various characters respected their slaves and claimed to want an end to slavery, many white slave owners benefited from slavery as a system. Though George Shelby was upset at the end of Tom’s life and decides to try and end slavery, his family enabled Tom to exist within a system that would allow his death without justification. Though some slave owners may have been legitimately kind people, the system of slavery was always cruel and unpredictable to the black population as whites benefited from their suffering. The system was so large that no individual could have ended the system on their own. The irony Stowe utilizes in the story, shows how even a kind slave owner enabled the growth and strength of the system that subjugated the black population in slave states.

At the end of the novel, The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper, Natty Bumppo decides that he must depart the area around Templeton and move away to the Great Lakes. Natty claims that he must depart as the rest of his people, the Indians, are all gone despite being a white man himself. With no more of his ‘people’ around, he must leave behind the civilization that has encroached on the land he has lived off for years and find a new place, untouched by the settlers.

In the final line of the book, Natty is described as the, “foremost in that band of pioneers who are opening the way for the march of the nation across the continent” (436). Although Natty believes he is leaving civilization behind, the book ends by portraying him as the first of many pioneers who will move to other unsettled parts of the new nation. Natty dislikes Templeton and its wasteful ways, he admonishes the wasteful killing of pigeons and fish and is baffled when he is told when and where he can kill a deer. As a firm believer in taking only what is needed, Natty often clashed with the people of Templeton, specifically Judge Temple over artificial laws and the way of the land that Indian’s have abided by.

Although Natty is a white man, his values are more similar to the Indians which explains why he feels that he must leave Templeton. With no one else like him, Natty is a foreigner to the people of Templeton who work hard to build the ever growing town. Natty leaves to start over in a new, unsettled place, however his migration is the first among many steps of settling the land throughout the country. A man of the wilderness, Natty paves the way for the first pioneers that will come through his new home as he will have gained the experience needed to help them survive. Although Natty is against settling the entirety of the country, and consuming all the resources of the land, he is up against a relentless wave of pioneers moving out into the country. His way of life, the Indian’s way of life, is over and all he can do is run away from its reach.

Within a short time after the Indians attacked her home in Lancaster, Mary Rowlandson was faced with a saddening reality. Her home and livelihood was destroyed in the attack while she and her children were separated and taken captive. Faced with new harsh circumstances and unsure of her family’s well-being, Mary was constantly searching for some form of assistance or salvation. Primarily resorting to praying and reading her Bible, Mary’s faith carried her through over ten weeks of captivity by a people she did not know and couldn’t understand. Constantly exposed to the wilderness and its elements, in Mary’s mind, by the grace of God, encouraged her to persevere through tough times.

Mary often suffered both physically and emotionally throughout the duration of her captivity but managed to find solace in her Puritan faith. Upon strokes of good fortune, Mary could be thankful to God for providing her with sustenance or with a place to sleep. When she and her captors were on the move throughout the Winter, she drew on passages in the Bible to give her strength when crossing a bitterly cold river or when carrying burdensome loads on her back. Mary’s faith carried her through her captivity and the winter up until the point of her release. Even following her release, Mary found ways to praise and thank God for providing her and her family with the new life they built upon their reunification.

To some, Mary’s faith can be an inspiration, as it gave her the courage to continue life after all seemed to be lost. However, to many modern Americans, faith in God no longer plays a vital role in our lives. Some may consider Mary to be naïve and to have placed too much responsibility in God but it cannot be denied that Mary’s belief in God saved her. Regardless of the reality of the existence of God, Mary’s story remains an inspiration as it shows the necessity to believe in something greater than yourself when faced with dire circumstances.