American Icarus, an essay by Henry Murray, is difficult to find. I read it forty three years ago and even at that time it was considered a classic. But there is no place it is available for free. My searching, at least, proved inadequate. It was not available in Amazon, in Google Books, in various online booksellers. Nonetheless, this is a perceptive essay about the narcissism (or "narcism") that develops during adolescence, the prevalence of drowning and fire imagery in the fantasies of certain teens (a topic Laing later took up) and coined ideas such as "ascensionsim". Henry Murray was the author of the TAT.
The article is copied here from an antique (almost) text of mine, somewhat sloppily for the time being before it can be done professionally. At some point a text can be made. This is not an essay that should slip away. It is useful in the understanding of many psychological and psychosocial events. Murray describes imagery seen in many works of fiction about adolescents written in different eras. At one time he was one of the most recognizable names in psychology. He also was a Melville scholar.
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