The Fifty-First Dragon: Analysis

Part I of Essay
(Empty Slogans = Propaganda) in “The Fifty-First Dragon” “It is simply this—man is not sufficient. He must have a rallying cry, a slogan by which to die and by which to live.” Heywood Broun Heywood Broun sold his first short story, “The Fifty-First Dragon”, to the New York ....

Part II of Essay
.... the nation felt. Broun put it aptly when he wrote of the second European War looms in Europe, and a man with a guitar steps in front of the microphone to sing Ickey-Ickey-Oo” “ In “The Fifty-First Dragon” the Headmaster, much like Wilson, came up with the idea that if you give the uneducated a slogan and some basic training the natural end product is a powerful killing machine. The protection that the magical word Rumplesnitz gave Gawaine very much paralleled the strong, forceful, and unbeatable war cult Wilson had created. Instead of a sin ....