Certain metaphors structure the American imagination. The house with the white picket fence, supposedly everyone’s dream. The cowboy, setting out alone across the landscape, accompanied only by his faithful horse and his ten-gallon hat. The pioneers, rolling in rickety wagons across the prairie with all of their earthly possessions, headed for a better life. The hard-working, self-made man.
Each of these images stands in for an ostensibly American value: adventure, courage, an entrepreneurial spirit, bootstrap-tugging, hope that something better will always be just beyond the horizon. The idea that the field is level and bounteous to all who are willing to work — and, conversely, that the remedy for tough times is work.
Nomadland evokes and rewrites these cultural themes by telling its own story, one that counters the metaphors with reality. Based in part on Jessica…
