DECONSTRUCTING THE AMERICAN DREAM: AMERICA THROUGH KNUT HAMSUN’S EYES
DECONSTRUCTING THE AMERICAN DREAM: AMERICA THROUGH KNUT HAMSUN’S EYES

Summary/Abstract: Deconstructing the American Dream: America through Knut Hamsun’s Eyes. This paper examines Knut Hamsun’s perception of the American way of living as depicted in his Fra det moderne Amerikas aandsliv (The Cultural Life of Modern America, translated into English in 1969 by Barbara Gordon Morgridge), published in Copenhagen 1889, and in one of his short stories, Raedsel (Fear, translated by Sverre Arestad), which he has published fifteen years after his return from America. Hamsun’s American experience was rather different than the one of most immigrants in America, but this article demonstrates that the Norwegian writer’s insights into the life in the New World, though bitter and inclined to criticism, must be studied in order to achieve a broader perspective upon the immigrant experience in the land of opportunities.

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