The Statue of Liberty Revolves in American Migration Myths

This paper examines the narratives surrounding the Statue of Liberty as powerful American myths. It investigates how the statue's iconographic image across poetry, theater, and cinema constructs the shifting representation of both the immigrant and the American national identity between 1883 and 1968. The study adopts a post-structural and semiotic approach, following Roland Barthes’ definition of myth and Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. The paper tracks how mythic meanings are adapted and rewritten across different historical contexts. It analyzes trans textual dialogues between diverse media to uncover the underlying structures that render abstract national ideals visible through concrete symbols. The analysis identifies a four-stage mythical evolution of the Statue: from a Roman Goddess of the New World to the "Mother of Exiles" by the poet Emma Lazarus and by Israel Zangwill (The Melting Pot). During WWII, the figure shifted to "Miss Liberty," a patriotic personification (Hitchcock’s Saboteur), eventually becoming an apocalyptic symbol of civilizational ruin during the Cold War (Planet of the Apes). The study concludes that this revolving myth reflects the changing American self-perceptions and ideals.