Story
The story centers around Sam, an obviously distressed homeless man, who wanders the streets of an unnamed city speaking mostly in odd quotes and sound bites. As he wanders, he has disturbing visions of events of injustice in American history (dealing with Indian Wars, slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and others). Throughout his wanderings, he occasionally encounters a woman named Bea, and has conversations with Britannia. Eventually, Sam has a profoundly disillusioning vision of him participating in the bloody crushing of Shays' Rebellion.
Eventually, he comes to the remains of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, where he sees Bea once more, now recognizing her as Columbia. She helps Sam gain a more nuanced perspective of his visions of America's negative moments of its history, such as how Shay's Rebellion prompted the writing of the Constitution of the United States to help create a more stable government. He has further encounters with Britannia, Marianne and the Russian Bear, before he confronts a dark, corrupt, overtly capitalist shadow version of himself. He eventually defeats this figure by accepting all its blows, recognizing and accepting his mistakes, and learning from them.
Towards the end of the tale he thinks to himself: "It's a strange and frightening thing — to see yourself at your worst."
In the end we see him again as a homeless man, but instead of wildly hallucinating, he's now chipper and optimistic with his traditional hat, ready to face the future.
Read more about this topic: Uncle Sam (Vertigo)
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Wit is often concise and sparkling, compressed into an original pun or metaphor. Brevity is said to be its soul. Humor can be more leisurely, diffused through a whole story or picture which undertakes to show some of the comic aspects of life. What it devalues may be human nature in general, by showing that certain faults or weaknesses are universal. As such it is kinder and more philosophic than wit which focuses on a certain individual, class, or social group.”
—Thomas Munro (1897–1974)
“The old world stands serenely behind the new, as one mountain yonder towers behind another, more dim and distant. Rome imposes her story still upon this late generation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)