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About this quote

What does it mean?
Welles argues that the quintessential American identity, rooted in Protestant individualism and anti-conformity, is vanishing from society.
In plain terms
The classic American personality is disappearing.
What can you take from it?
Recognize cultural shifts in national identity.

Where it applies

  • societal analysis
  • historical reflection
  • cultural criticism

Putting it to work

  • write essays on culture
  • discuss American history

Questions to consider

  • What defines the American identity today?

Another view

The definition of the American type is subjective.

More from Orson Welles

  1. A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.

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  2. I try to be a Christian...I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God.

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  3. He [Welles] was an onlooker at the clumsy, poignant suicide of 'The Man on the Ledge,' which took place in New York in 1938, when a boy perched for fourteen ho…

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