Mary Pipher's Saplings In The Storm

The American Dream is “a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position” (Adams, 1931). It is the guarantee that with hard work and passion anyone can achieve upward mobility regardless of their origin. Many Americans believe in this promise, hoping that one day their first circumstance will not dictate the outcome of the rest of their lives. However the American Dream can be elusive without any real he American Dream eludes The novel Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the

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 American Dream is a commonly known theme among the general population today. It states that with the right amount of work any US citizen can obtain success in their lives. This idea was popularized around 1930 with James Truslow Adam’s book “The Epic of America” bringing about the idea that there is opportunity for everyone in America if they can work hard enough.3 This idea of the American dream however began much earlier than the 20th century. Rather it began in the west in the 1800s as US citizens gained the ability to cross the frontier and begin completely new lives, whether those lives became advantageous or not. According to the American Dream the western settler’s level of work, not race or gender, would determine whether or not he or she became successful. However this was not the case. The American Dream of the 19th century is disparate from the one known today. Unlike Adam’s “American Dream” of the 1930s, this western “American Dream” was heavily skewed towards white male, US citizen obtainment. This was because the main drive of the western frontier was for white male US citizens to profit from the newly obtained land and keep it for themselves thus fulfilling their new “American Dream.” In the mid19th century, economic opportunities existed in the Western Frontier of America, allowing people to go and accomplish their dreams if they had the motivation, but those opportunities were prohibitive for women, nonwhites, or non US

The American Dream has held a special place in the hearts of patriots since the very founding of America in 1776. It has been a subject of many authors who grapple with its attainability, and is a beacon of hope gazed upon by victims of circumstance. The Dream has been interpreted by great minds in various ways, and has been deemed both an evil deception and a great promise of a better life. However, the American Dream has morphed from this promise of opportunities and second chances--in fact, it has become viewed as a cause for societal competition and the reason for decreasing happiness among the American people. As Americans attempt to “achieve their goals,” and “keep up with the Joneses,” they subject themselves to the materialistic cycle of greed. Success, and the goal of the American Dream, has been redefined. To be put simply, the American Dream is now to be richer than one’s neighbor, despite the fact that happiness--and thus, the Dream--cannot be achieved solely through wealth and material goods.

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.

America historically owns the reputation of being the land of opportunity, and for generations immigrants have fled to the United States to experience the freedom and equality our government lays claim to. At the root of this reputation is the American Dream, the belief that with hard work anyone can succeed based solely on his or her merits. While definitions of success vary, the American Dream defines it as the ability to become a "self-made man," thereby rising to a more-than-comfortable state of living. The American Dream is believed to be blind to race, sex, or socio-economic status and at a first glance, seems to be almost Utopian. Conversely, repeated examples and statistics of the lower-classes, those continually facing the harsh

The concept of the American Dream has borne change since its conception in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence referencing men’s unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Its definition to the American people and its attainability is conditional upon the period it is prevalent in. In general, the American Dream refers to the idea that every American has the equality, freedom, and opportunity to strive. Many classic pieces of American Literature highlight this concept in a way that is most pertinent to their corresponding time period. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich, specifically highlights a more modern time period, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Within this

Since the birth of the nation in 1776, the United States has been a land of hopes and dreams. The original pilgrims embarked to North America in hopes of escaping religious persecution from their mother country. When the suppressive leadership followed, they continued to fight eventually establishing “The land of the brave, and the home of the free”. As the country developed, so too did the American dream, the belief that with enough effort, anyone can build themselves a simple life. However, as time passes and poverty becomes more of an issue, many have begun to wonder if this ethos is still relevant today. Whether they were born into the hole of poverty, or simply stumbled into it at some point in their life, the metaphorical ladder called the American dream has seemingly disappeared for most lower class Americans. Or has it? This is the answer that the authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Adam Shepard each sought to find through direct exposure and experimentation. Barbara, a middle aged women who would take on various scenarios of poverty in her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, concluded that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to achieve the American dream without drastic changes from the government. On the other hand, Shepard, a young man fresh out of college, wrote about how he was able to live the American dream first hand in his novel, Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream. In each argument, there are both great

“Saplings in the Storm” is an essay written by Mary Pipher. This In this argument, Pipher discusses the swift mood changes in girls as they reach adolescence, and uses an analogy to the Bermuda Triangle as the thesis to her argument. She states that s often in her argument: gGirls and their unique personalities “disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle”. Pipher uses and repeats this analogy various times in order for her readers to understand her analogy and enrich our understanding of girls at this age group.

“The American Dream” has become a catch all term for the American way of life. However, since the

“The American Dream” is advertised as being the act of a person having an idea, goal, or as the saying suggests, a dream, and then them spending time, energy, and money to make it come true. However, if you haven’t realized it yet, there’s a reason they call it a dream because it hardly becomes a reality. More and more people are realizing this so called “dream” is nothing but a hoax, and that the promises America assures and guarantees such as equal opportunity and equal success are nothing but pure manipulation. Furthermore, the American dream no longer stands by the virtue of discrimination and prejudice, overwhelming debt, and failed establishments.

The American dream was marketed directly to the American woman, and in my understanding to the aspiring, semi wealthy American woman as a path to spread the desire for a single family home in a suburban setting. Such suburban prototypes were popularized by Catharine Beecher and Andrew Jackson Downing “were designed to recall the values of the puritan covenant community but to suit families whose lives were centered around profitable dealings of the new cities.”

American Dream Research Essay America, known as the country of opportunity and freedom, where any man or woman can come and have a fair chance at achieving the desired goal commonly referred to as “The American Dream.” To many, successfully obtaining the American dream means having a stable 2 parent family, with financial prosperity, and abundant in political and social freedoms. This “dream” however, is more easily achieved by certain people over others, and although America prides itself on being the land of the “freedom” and “equality”, those words serve more strongly as a source of hypocrisy and irony. Ones race, social status, and even gender all determine the ability a person has to achieve this American Dream. America discriminates heavily against people that are anything other than wealthy white males.

The American Dream is an ideology that many strive for; immigrants coming into the United States, whether legally or not, arrive here hoping that they may be the lucky ones that find it. Those born in poverty see the American Dream as an opportunity to excel, to have wealth and to live a life different than the one they had growing up. The American Dream symbolizes success. For the three women in American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare by Jason DeParle, success represented different ideologies. For these women, and many others like them, the success myth holds simple barriers, like the color of their skin and the opportunities granted to them.

The American Dream can be, in a sense, complex; in other words, it is prone to change, and has been changing over the centuries since it’s informal conception. Alexis de Tocqueville, a French writer, prominent in the 19th century, regarded the American Dream as a system of several physical and ideological components that contributed to the success of it’s people; for example, these factors included “abundant and fertile land, countless opportunities for people to acquire land and make a living, lack of a feudal aristocracy that blocked the ambitious, and the independent spirit encouraged by frontier living” (“American Political Culture”). These views are responsible for establishing a basis for the American Dream; however, this ideology does