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Abstract
According to Wednesday, people in other times and in other places would build "temples, or cathedrals, or erect stone circles," yet contemporary Americans instead create a model out of beer bottles of somewhere they have never visited, or [erect] a gigantic bat-house inside part of the country that bats have traditionally declined to visit. [...]incorporation of the past is one of the three constitutive elements that Mikhail Bakhtin said formed the epic genre (13). [...]this story provides a challenge to conceptions of American-ness, which may popularly begin-even if such accounts are acknowledged to be inaccurate - with the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Low Key is Shadow's mentor of sorts in prison, encouraging him to read Herodotus's Histories and practice coin tricks, the latter skill which he carries with him throughout the narrative. Since Low Key turns out to be Loki in disguise, who then further disguises himself as Mr. World, the leader of the New Gods, Shadow has never really been solely on the side of the Old Gods but has been associated with the New from the very first page of the work since Low Key/Loki/Mr.