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Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank snapped this image in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1955, and included it in his groundbreaking book, The Americans. With an introduction by Jack Kerouac, The Americans argues for a vision of America that conflicts with the optimistic narratives more commonly told. This image, in particular, is testament to the paranoid and cautious elements of the American dream. The women here, obscured by flag and shadow, look out of their tenement flats toward the viewer. The windows, like two eyes, observe a world beyond our view. The symbolic value of the flag is at odds with the partially hidden figures.

Kerouac said that Frank "sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film." That sadness arrives in this image too, and with it a projected failure. For all its promise, America, for many people, has been a land of deranged lunacy. Somehow Frank's image manages to project that sense of failure even as the flag of hope does its thing.

This photo also expresses something that I think is deeply shared by many Americans--a confirmed skepticism in the face of one's duty. Perhaps it's a sign of good intelligence that traditionally so few voters turn out for presidential elections. I know this year is supposed to be different, and the thought of four years of McCain is appalling, but I imagine that many Americans will march to toward voting booths with the kind of anxiety captured in Frank's image. Hopefully, when all's said and done, our faceless majority will elect an appropriate candidate.