De Crevecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer" are a rich, engrossing read into the hopes and dreams of a young America. We get to see how people viewed the young nation and what they deemed her unique traits and promises to be. Further aiding De Crevecoeur's masterful use of language is his masterful use of tone and genre in the writing of "Letters from an American Farmer." De Crevecoeur purposefully chooses to use the letter as a genre; why? Hopefully, this blog post will be able to uncover a few answers.
As I have previously discussed in my post regarding the letters between John and Abigail Adams, the letter is a uniquely powerful medium. It allows the author to directly address the audience; if the so chose, they may even address a particular member of a particular audience. Letters are also something that people are used to receiving on a day to day basis. De Crevecoeur is apparently aware of this. The letter has a naturally humble tone in it. It's one person getting down on another person's level to directly address them. His writing's humility is also greatly aided by his adopting the persona of an American farmer. The farmer is often seen as the average joe. He works hard and receives little but the feeling of a job well done in reward. By writing his "letter" from the perspective of a farmer, De Crevecoeur is again humbling himself. He could have titled his work "Essays from a Lofty American Noble." He chose, however, to speak directly to the people, using language that the common man may be able to more easily relate to. Hopefully, this post has allowed some new angles and ideas of De Crevecoeur to surface in the minds of the reader.
Thanks for reading.
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