„Krew patriotów i tyranów”: motyw przemocy w powieściach amerykańskiego nurtu patriotyczno-konstytucjonalistycznego
“The blood of patriots and tyrants”: the motif of violence in the novels of the American patriotic-constitutional trend

Author(s): Eric Starnes
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Revolution; Constitution of the United States; justified violence; shame;anger;
Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the problem of violence as a specific genre of American literature – the so-called “patriotic”, or “constitutional” novels. The intention of these novels is to issue a warning against the dangers of allowing the ideas of left-wing progressives, known in these novels as ‘left-wingers’, ‘socialists’ and ‘progressives’, to be rooted in American society. According to the authors of the constitutional novels, if the left wing occupies a place in society, there is a danger that the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States will be inhibited, and thus the constitutional rights of all Americans will have to be defended by the constitutional patriots. Violence appears to be a natural form of defence against the potential loss of any freedoms, of which the first two amendments to the United States Bill of Rights have particular value for constitutional patriots: freedom of religion and the right to keep and bear arms. The actions to defend these rights described in the novels under consideration are presented as a struggle for justice and equity. Given that the United States was built on the foundation of violence (American Revolutionary War) and that since colonial times brutal revolts have regularly accompanied life on the western border, it can be said that violence is an integral part of American national identity. The article explores the issue of violence on the western border (frontier), and also discusses selected novels referring to the subject of armed uprising against overly far-reaching government or left-wing agitators. The analysis of the phenomenon of violence in these contexts includes the theories of forensic psychiatrist James Gilligan on the causes of violence and social psychologist Thomas Scheff on shame and the cycle linking shame and anger.

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