The American Boy

Nathanael West's A Cool Million is without question a satyrical story about the great American hero and the great American dream and just how easily those ideals can fall apart. West's main character, Lem Pitkin, was supposed to be the "great" one, but actually turned out to not be so great at all. Everything bad that could have happened did. What I find really interesting about the novel is the very last two pages, where there is a national holiday dedicated to Pitkin.

One of the things I found most interesting about the last scene of the story was the idea of using someone else's ultimate failures to perpetuate your own American dream. Pitkin's life ended tragically - he was used and abused and ultimately was shot. As West wrote, "jail is his first reward. Poverty his second. Violence his third. Death is his last." He was better off dying than living the life he was subjected to.

Furthermore, he was portrayed by West as a hero who made a great sacrifice for a cause. He "did not live or die in vain. Through his martyrdom the National Revolutionary Party triumphed". Other than being completely depressing, the ending of this piece brings up the idea of what exactly a hero is. Pitkin was celebrated as a hero, despite his awful life and failures and in a way was celebrated as dying for his country. This brings about a few questions - can the failures of a single person be the motivating force for another group of people? Does one person's tragedy produce another person's happiness? It also got me thinking about who are the American heroes today, or the heroes of the past. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln come to mind. Martin Luther King was an American hero. Barack Obama may be a hero to some. Lemuel Pitkin is certainly not the typical American hero. However, that makes this satire as effective as it is. He is the antithesis of a hero and leaves the reader wondering at the end who should have been the hero.