Myth Building and Cultural Politics in W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe
The mythic vision of America and its national pastime which W. P. Kinsella constructed in Shoeless Joe ([1982] 1991) has extended into millions of American imaginations, both in the form of the novel and its film adap- tation, Field of Dreams (1989).1 Kinsella built the myth, and people came to live it. Perhaps literary critic Neil Randall best articulates the popular response to Shoeless Joe when he calls it a "moral book" which "makes us come away in the end feeling 'pretty damn good about being alive for the rest of the day"' (1987, 181). But when we read beyond what Randall calls "fantasy and the humor of fellow-feeling," and explore the context of the novel's morality, an unsettling portrait of America emerges (1987, 173). In this essay, I will argue that Kinsella engenders a culturally conservative world, which reflects the historical circumstances of the 1980s and repro- duces the ideology of Ronald Reagan's presidency. By discussing the text within the framework of Reagan's America and the social ...
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