The Impossible Adoption: West’s Critique of Horatio Alger’s Myth and American Identity in Nathanael West’s A Cool Million, or the Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In this paper, I examine Nathanael West’s A Cool Million, or the Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin (1934) as a narrative exploring the (im)possibility of an orphan’s adoption into American society. West satirizes the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches narrative—a central national myth that persisted despite economic downturns and political unrest in early twentieth-century America. Lem begins as a hero with humble, rural origins, ventures into the city, overcomes life-threatening dangers, and appears to be the ideal candidate for a bildungsroman narrative. However, instead of being set on a path to success like the traditional Alger hero, even a white “American boy” possessing all the traits of a potential hero in Alger’s stories is ultimately destroyed by capitalism and exploited as fascist propaganda posthumously. By complicating this “perfect” candidate, who could have embodied and represented American ideals, West critiques not only the viability of the American cultural myth but also the failure of the country to protect the vulnerable.