In Paul Revere's Ride, how does Fischer's portrayal of Paul Revere (the man) show the importance of his place in history as not just a national...

In David Hackett Fischer's Paul Revere's
Ride, the author avoids portraying Revere as a man of mythological
proportions, but presents instead someone on a mission of deep
political and military significance.

Perhaps this is easier
given that the tale is not told in
verse: Longfellow's famous portrayal of Revere's ride would essentially fail to create a
serious tone of the event because of its rhyme and rhythm. Poetry,
by nature, can often be musical to the ear. In Longfellow's poem, the intent is to not
just report the event but to excite the reader. Revere stands prepared to serve his
country:

I on
the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the
alarm

Through every Middlesex village and
farm,

For the country folk to be up and to
arm.

Then the poet
intentionally creates a sense of excitement:

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Till in the silence around him he
hears

The muster of men at the barrack
door...

The imagery
of "startled pigeons" and "trembling ladder" do the
same.

Revere, as he impatiently waits and watches, is
portrayed like a "superhero"—though remember that this is what
heroes were made of in those days, not men in tights with capes and
masks...

And
lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height

A glimmer, and then
a gleam of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he
turns...

Revere takes off and
the use of figurative language creates a magical or supernatural sense of the man and
his intent:

A
hurry of hoofs in a village street,

A shape in the
moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

And beneath, from the
pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a steed flying
fearless and
fleet...

Longfellow's poem
cannot help but capture the imagination with its descriptive
phrases.

However, Fischer describes a flesh-and-blood
individual, a hero but not a
"superhero," giving the reader a more realistic measure of the man. Here Revere is a
mere mortal who risked his safety to warn the colonials of a British invasion. He is not
only brave, but surely a man whose feet are steeped in the reality of the moment: in the
political and military implications of the task before him. Fischer presents Revere as a
figure whose actions defined what has become American history.
Fischer does not present Revere as one who is invincible, but a "common" man who was
uncommon in his patriotism—his belief
in the integrity of struggle in which he and his countrymen were engaged. Revere was
known for producing beautiful pieces of silver, copper and brass for the well-to-do of
Boston.

He
was unusual among the storied characters of the Revolutionary period in being, and
maintaining his role as, an artisan, a maker of things, whose practical skill at getting
things done most resembles perhaps that of Benjamin Franklin, the onetime
printer.

The man was
something of a contradiction in that while he seemed simply a
merchant, he was, as one historian notes...

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...a distinctive individual of strong character
and vibrant
personality.

Fischer also
uses the "aristocratic" Lieutenant-General Thomas Gage as a href="http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/lit_term.html">foil
to Revere. Gage never comes to understand the tenacity of the
Bostonians he is supposed to "govern;" they are single-minded in their purpose. He sees
them as "weak, argumentative, and divided," an enormous mistake on his part. Gage is
described as "snobbish and misinformed."

In these ways,
Fischer allows Revere to exist not as a storybook character, but a
hero in his own right: a real man who made a profound contribution in turning the tide
against the British in colonial America.