Religious mysticism of the “American Dream” in the tale “The King's Indian” by John Champlin Gardner Jr.

Abstract

The metanarrative of the “American Dream” has a comprehensive impact on the social, political and cultural life of the United States, it attracts unflagging attention of researchers and it is interpreted in a significant number of works of art. This article analyses the functioning of the religious and mystical experience as a factor in achieving the “American Dream” “American Dream” in the tale “The King's Indian” (1974) by John Champlin Gardner Jr. (1933-1982), and it also attempts to determine the mechanism for the embodiment of the national utopian project in this work of fiction. The analysis examines the constituent elements of the project in synchronic and diachronic projections, it highlights the levels of the project actualisation in the work, it analyses how the characters try to implement it in relation to their worldview and individual existential plans; thus, successful and unsuccessful models of the achieving the “American Dream” are found. As a result, it is proved that the failure is due to the lack of religious mysticism. The failure leads to the destruction of the character's existential plan, built in accordance with the utopian project, and to its possible subsequent reconstruction. The successful realisation of the “American Dream” is possible only when the character follows “self-reliance" and trusts the transcendental forces. “The King's Indian” also reflects the philosophical and aesthetic program of “moral literature”, later formulated by Gardner in the essay of the same name.