Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan Literary Elements

Authorized Presidential Biography/American History

America over the course of the twentieth century with a special thematic focus on the Cold War era.

This Presidential biography is infamous for featuring the literary conceit of being told from the perspective of an invented fictional narrator, leading to significant controversy over whether it should even rightfully be categorized entirely as non-fiction.

The overall tone and mood is a combination of ironic detachment resulting from unusual device of a narrator claiming a historical relationship with the subject which, in fact, never existed.

Protagonist: Ronald Reagan. Antagonist: oddly enough, both the government of the Soviet Union and the federal government of the United States.

Ronald Reagan versus liberal progressive politics and the specter of communism.

Ronald Reagan’s story comes to its unbelievable climax with George H.W. Bush becoming the first sitting Vice President to succeed to the Presidency following the completion of his predecessor’s term since Martin Van Buren in 1836 despite clear evidence of impeachable offense having been committed by Reagan as part of what came to be known as the Iran/Contra Scandal.

N/A

N/A

One of the fictional constructs in the biography is an invented screenplay for a war movie to star Reagan which never existed to be titled “Tumult in the Clouds.” This is an allusion to a poem by Yeats—“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”—which is partially quoted within the text but without attribution tto its title.

From “Meditation of a Lifeguard” by Ronald Reagan, written for publication in his high school yearbook: “Like a low accompaniment to their shreiks [sic] and howls, the lifeguard paints the ether a hazy blue, by the use of lurid, vivid, flaming adjectives…Now in this motley crew there must be one ray of hope. There is, she’s walking onto the dock now. She trips gracefully over to the edge of the crowded pier, and settles like a butterfly. The lifeguard strolls by, turns and strolls by again.”

The paradox at the foundation of Ronald Reagan’s life—and for that matter, the ideological foundation of the modern Republican Party—was that he built his conservative career upon painting the government as the worst thing in the world for people to depend upon and then set about spending most of his life either working towards being elected to a position within the government or actually filling that position after being successfully elected.

N/A

“Hollywood” and “Washington” are probably the two most often utilized examples with each specific location endowed with metaphorical and symbolic meaning far beyond their geographical expanse.

While still an unproved actor waiting for his big break, Reagan furiously commits to winning the coveted role of George Gipp in a movie to be made about legendary football coach Knute Rockne: “With a sense that the ghostly boots of George Gipp were propelling him to new, possibly starry heights, Dutch prepared to start shooting on April 11, 1940.”