Golden Lines from Robert Ray's Thematic Paradigm - Essay Example

4 December Golden Line In Robert Ray’s essay “The Thematic Paradigm,” there are a few interesting quotes that I would like to share. The first one appears on the first page in the fourth paragraph. He states, “The movies traded on one opposition in particular, American culture’s traditional dichotomy of individual and community that had generated the most significant pair of competing myths: the outlaw hero and the official hero,” (Ray 1). The second part I would like to acknowledge is his division of these hero-official oppositions.

He classifies them into three different categories on pages 1-4. These include aging, society and women, and politics and law. They are each discussed much in depth (Ray 1-4). Another quotation I would like to share is on page three. “If the outlaw hero’s motto was ‘I don’t know what the law says, but I do know what’s right and wrong,’ and the official hero’s was ‘We are a nation of laws, not of men,’ or ‘No man can place himself above the law,’” (Ray 3). This is found in the fourth paragraph on that page.

The last quotation to share is “The evident contradiction between these heroes provoked Daniel Boorstin’s observation that ‘Never did a more incongruous pair than Davy Crockett and George Washington live together in a national Valhalla.’ And yet, as Boorstin admits, ‘both Crockett and Washington were popular heroes, and both emerged into legendary fame during the first half of the 19th century,’” (Ray 4). This quotation can be found on page four in the second paragraph. Works CitedRay, Robert B.

“The Thematic Paradigm.” (n.d.) 1-6. Essay.