A great deal has been said and written about the history of everything. Keeping that in mind, this paper was damn hard! Finding information, discarding unimportant points, realizing that you're looking in all the wrong spots, ect. The revolver is my topic, and more over, I want to prove that it is one of the most symbolic of all icons representing what is called Americana (I couldn't possibly prove it to be the most symbolic I would lose what's left of my sanity trying to do that). The story of the revolver and its paradoxical involvement in American society is an interesting one, which I hope to share, not too blandly, with you the reader. .
To first understand why the revolver is a great American symbol, we must first determine what Americanism is. The dictionary describes it as "Allegiance to the United States and its customs and institutions."" (www.dictionary.com) But it is so much more than this. It is the subconscious need to be the best, the most daring, the bravest, and also things like the most caring, the most humane this and everything which follows the lines that strive for perfection. It is also the essence of exceptionalism; pure hypocrisy. While it wants to be this brave noble entity, it also resorts to very cheep and dirty means and expects to get away with them. A U-2 spy plane flies over hostile territory, is shot down, but instead of denying it's existence, it denies it's purpose. (U.S. Dept, 1958-60) In another very applicable aspect, it was all right for the revolver to make every man equal, but the very form of government that tries to make this a true reality, communism, is spat upo!.
n by all of America for a majority of the twentieth century. Through this type of light shines the creation of an invention, an invention that was almost unethical to use in conventional warfare. .
More than 160 years ago, an obscure young seaman, Calcutta bound, carved from a block of wood a model of what was designed to become the revolver as we know it.
