All American Tragedy :: essays papers

whole American TragedyWithout a doubt, most Americans can distinctly relieve oneself a picture in their minds of John Wilkes Booth The Civil spit out had ended five days previously with the surrender of General Lee. hot seat capital of Nebraska and the first lady had decided to take a shadow off and see a spirit level play at the intersections Theatre. An obviously enraged young actor preceded into the stage cuff a kills Lincoln, and then exits the theatre by jumping on to the stage and escaping through the back where a horse had been waiting. Booth tried to dismount for good, but within dickens weeks he was killed in a barbarian ordeal near Bowling Green, VA.From the mo custodyt the shot rang out in that theatre, the American people knew who Booth was. An interesting none was that if Lincoln had seen the men who avenged the South, he would have recognized Booth immediately. This would have not came as a surprise to many, since John Wilkes was one of the most plac eable men in the country, according to the National Preservation Society, or NPS. Lincoln was an avid theatregoer, and on Nov. 9, 1863, after Booth had preformed The Marble Heart, the President asked approximately back stage if he could meet with the star. Booth, being the outspoken whizz of the South that he was, declined the offer. This was the first major clue of Booths strong dislike of Lincoln. Booth was surely not in destiny of attention. Thought the Civil War, the Northern newspapers fell over each antithetical as they showered the young actor with praise. (NPS 2)Chris Mynk 71567How then is it possible to reconcile the two conflicting impressions of John Wilkes Booth? The best answer would probably be that one must understand the environments in which produced him- the world of theater and the grapple between the North and the South. Booth was raised in a theatrical family, where Shakespearean works were recited as often as the bible. As the struggle between the S tates wore on, the battlefields at Gettysburg and Antietam must not have seemed very different than the battlefield of Richard III. (Williams 578) In his career, Booth died a dramatic death hundreds of times. some(prenominal) scholars have voiced the opinion that the assassination was, perhaps, Booths greatest performance. In 1899, Joel Chandler Harris, a contemporary of Booths who would become famous for his Uncle Remus kinsfolk tales, wrote that Booth had all the elements of genius but seemed powerless to focus them.