Read the following excerpt from the introduction to “A Quilt of a Country.” Why does Quindlen offer this contradiction about the
“ideal” of America and its “reality”? How does she develop her central idea from this point? America is an improbable idea. A mongrel nation built of ever-changing disparate parts, it is held together by a notion, the notion that all men are created equal, though everyone knows that most men consider themselves better than someone. . . . Out of many, one. That is the ideal. . . .The reality is often quite different, a great national striving consisting frequently of failure. Many of the oft-told stories of the most pluralistic nation on earth are stories not of tolerance, but of bigotry.
