Johnny Appleseed Research Paper

There’s a knock on your cabin door. You open it to find a man, dirty with disheveled clothing, and he offers you some apple seeds. He tells you that he has been walking for days, and asks for nothing as restitution for his seeds, but that he may be able to tell his story. Despite his appearance, his tenderness comforts you and you invite him inside. Seated by the fire, surrounded by your children listening diligently, the man begins with his name: Johnny Appleseed.
Long ago, a boy named John Chapman was born into the craze of the American Frontier. For months on end John’s father was away at war and he was left to fend for himself. His mother died shortly after giving birth to her second child and John’s newborn brother made it only for two weeks. His father returned from war and found love again, welcoming ten more children into the world. When John turned 18 he convinced his 11 year old half-brother to travel with him West. The two …show more content…
Johnny Appleseed is living close to the “lost paradise” (Armstrong, 14). He lives life to be in unity with divine. “In every culture we find the myth of a lost paradise in which humans lived in close and daily contact with the divine...lived in harmony with one another, with animals and with nature.” (Armstrong, 14). Appleseed lives outside of the industrialised reality, alone with the creatures of the forest. He is pure: unmarried, doesn’t kill, doesn't sin. Like the hunters of the Paleolithic period he has gone out into the wilderness and faced the hardships of living in the wild. This was his initiation, when he became a man. He fears nothing and can live a better life because of it. This myth has the, “primary purpose to show people how they could return to this archetypal world...in the regular duties of their daily lives” (Armstrong, 15). Like Appleseed realized, it is never too late to cast aside all our conveniences and live like we were supposed