Comparing Sylvia Plath's America ! America And Kevin Jennings American Dreams

The American dream is an example of a national spirit that represents different ideologies. The set of ideas may be of democracy, equality matters, liberty, rights, and opportunities. The American dream believes in freedom for prosperity and success for its citizens. The idea suggests that upward social mobility for individuals can be achieved only through hard work. In a story done by George Saunders, the American dream is exemplified in several instances. The author, George, tells the story of contemporary America through a diary. The main character in the story is a father to three daughters. The family’s struggles are examples of how individuals will go extra miles just to provide for their families and also

Many people have come to America for adventure, opportunity, freedom, and the chance to experience the particular qualities of the American landscape. The American Dream is the idea that every United States citizen, including immigrants and residents, should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. America somewhat provides access to the American dream, it is more so the citizen who provides access to the dream for themselves. Even though they encountered many trials and tribulations, with persistence, people such as Langston Hughes in “I Too Sing America and Anzia Yezierska in “America and I” they were able to achieve their individual American Dream.

America still to this day holds on to the idea of the “American Dream”. This is rather surprising in today’s society and the ups and downs that the nation is facing. The dream in the past was more about freedom and equality. Moving through the decades, this dream has morphed into something quite different. Instead of what America means for all of its inhabitants, the nation has become more individualized. Society has moved to interpret the dream of what America can do for the one. Instead of the unified nation, America has been known for in the past, a shift has started creating an inconsistency in who can realize the dream. The myth of the “American Dream” has been hugely affected by increased materialism, the gap in economic status, and the fantasy of “rags to riches” idea.

The short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is about the main character that has many conflicts with her mother because she struggles with her identity. Her family moved to America after losing everything in China, just as Tan’s mother. The struggle of identity and conflicts with her mother that Tan had when she was young influence this work. This work also talks about Americans as if they were extremely superior to everyone else and that American’s can do whatever they want in America, starting by the first sentences of the story. “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get a good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous” (Tan). This story has a small portion of the Chinese American dream, where the mother shows her daughter Shirley Temple and wants her daughter to be like her and takes her to a

Societal expectations and rules are what weigh down the backs of those who try to attain the American Dream. These unofficial rules exist as a wall between the rich and poor. They apply to the majority of the American population, and limit the amount of citizens that can live in opulence to a select few. The remaining population is left with the arduous struggle towards an almost unattainable dream, the American Dream.

Many individuals from another culture strive to live the “American Dream.” In the excerpt from the novel, The Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, he leaves Mexico to become a middle-class American man and further his education. Sherman Alexie writes “Superman and Me,” which shows how Alexie, a Spokane Indian, teaches himself American literature. Both of these stories intertwine to show how different cultures step out of their own and try to live the American Dream. This leads the audience wondering if culture affects how far individuals go in life? Whereas Alexie describes the ideology of an American Dream as an Indian young boy teaching himself how to read from comic books, Rodriguez describes the ideology of American Dream by escaping Mexico to seek higher education in America.

Many of famous figures in our society’s past have spoken their minds about the American Dream, for each and every one of those minds, are a different response. J. G. Ballard once spoke of his American Dream, “The American Dream had run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It’s over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam.” The outlook on this dream has changed over the years it has existed, most societies nowadays look onto this as a “curse” or something worse. This dream now is speculated as hurting our home, America. As Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men, the grave story of the American Dream was revealed by main characters, George, Lennie, and Candy. These main characters give us an inside look into what they think the American Dream is.

The American Dream is often one of the most well-known benefits of living in America. It is the push factor that has driven millions of foreigners to flock to the so-called land of opportunity. Originally, the American Dream was established by a clause in the Declaration of Independence. It reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration of Independence par. 2). The original American Dream, as laid out by the founding fathers, was freedom from religious persecution and the right to live a happy life. That simple idea has undergone a significant metamorphosis and now the American Dream is much more complex. It has turned into a deep avaricious dream. This transformation has been noted in contemporary literature, especially in the novels Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. These pieces of literature can be read as a larger commentary on the mutation of the American Dream and how it is now more of a negative desire for greed and material. Both Fitzgerald and Alexie surmise that the American Dream has been twisted and corrupted into an uncontrolled desire that has become unattainable for many and that the pursuit of the dream has become dangerous.

D’Souza, on the other hand, is an avid supporter of his image of the American Dream and its presence in America. Dinesh explains the popularity of the American Dream worldwide is because people wish for, “the American way of life.” (D’Souza, 73) As if it was coming from a foreigner, he continues to exemplify the American Dream as an outsider looking in and seeing all of the splendor and appeal of Americans’ lives. It is this enchantment that causes people from all ends of the Earth to migrate to the United States and even leave their families and traditions. The most emphasized element and essentially the core of the American Dream is the ability to, “write the script of your own life.” (D’Souza, 83) The writer gives his own real-life example of the American Dream, through his emergence as a writer and later a White House Staff member simply because he pursued his own dream. Through the constant comparisons with the inequalities present in countries throughout the World, D’Souza is fascinated with the diversity of America and the, “tolerant society”, that this diversity has spawned. (D’Souza, 94)

Working hard is the key to success. This struggle for success is most commonly called the “American Dream.” The aspect of the American Dream has been around forever and is often the underlying theme in many pieces of American literature. The theme of the American is especially presented in Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Two Kinds writer by Amy Tan, and in “Sophistication” by Sherwood Anderson.

   The story of America is an exciting one, filled with swift evolution and an amazing energy unprecedented in world history. In America's short existence, it has progressed from a small collection of European rebels to the economically dominant nation that it is today. Mixed up in the provocative reputation of America is the celebrated ideal of the American Dream, the fantasy of complete independence and self-reliance mixed with the opportunity to attain wealth through one's labors. On the surface, this reverie seems almost enchanted, offering people the unprecedented prospect of achieving success regardless of one's race, religion, or family history. The American Dream is exactly what it appears to

The American Dream is something many Americans desire. The desire to the mind – set or belief that anyone can be successful if they worked hard for what they’ve been yearning. It is considered to be a ‘perfect life’; it can be full of money, contentedness or even love. There are many divergent opinions given by people. Walter Younger from Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ and Willy Loman from Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of the Salesman’ both have their own views on the American Dream and how it can be achieved. Walter Lee Younger, a

The American Dream has long been thought the pinnacle idea of American society. The idea that anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or financial status, could rise from the depths and become anything they wanted to be with no more than hard work and determination has attracted people from all around the world. Two writers from America’s past, however, have a different opinion on the once-great American Dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck have given the public their beliefs on the modern Dream through the novels they have written, The Great Gatsby, and Of Mice and Men, respectively. One novel placed during the Great Depression and the other during the Roaring Twenties both illustrate how their author feels about the Dream

Each character in the novel has their own interpretation of the ‘American Dream – the pursuit of happiness’ as they all lack happiness due to the

The American Dream, the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative, is a dream that many people both living in and migrating to the United States desire. Like many dreams, the reality is sometimes much different than the image developed in those hopeful minds. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, depicts the struggle of a strong character’s journey in search of independence and yet to live cohesively with those around her.