The American Dream By James Truslow Adams

The American Dream is about people doing their absolute best to attain the life that they always dreamed of having. Some people think that the American Dream is attainable. Then there are the people who think that the American Dream is not attainable. There are three sources that tell how the American Dream is attainable and how it is not attainable. They are: Grad Who Beat The Odds Asks, Why Not The Others, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation and Hollywood Dreams Of Wealth, Youth And Beauty.

The American Dream is what we all aspire to achieve. The idea of starting off with nothing and to become something has caused millions of people from all corners of the world to immigrate to this country for over 300 years. However, what exactly is the American Dream? F Scott Fitzgerald answers this question within his novel The Great Gatsby. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald analyses the high class of the 1920s and reveals that the American Dream has been distorted from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power. Fitzgerald incorporates the aspects of both the Òold dreamÓ & the Ònew dreamÓ in his tragic story to depicts how the inflexible dream has been corrupted and lost forever.

The United States was founded on a dream. A dream where we would could find our own land and be free from the tyranny of the British government. This dream was freedom. The freedom to become a Fortune 500 CEO that was born in the Southside of Chicago. The freedom to escape. The freedom to be who you wanted to be without anyone holding you back. Even the freedom to escape society and never turn back. The American Dream is basically just freedom. The ability to do whatever or achieve whatever you desire. This American Dream is not the same for everyone. It is unique to each person just as it was for Chris McCandless. In the book, Into the Wild, Chris McCandless goes on a journey to escape society and survive alone

Interpreted in multiple ways and forms, a quintessential aspiration has been the blueprint for Americans when engaging in perfection in politics, economics, and society. This “American Dream”, depicted by Jim Cullen, is a Puritan-inspired strive for opportunity presenting itself as an universal standard that constitutes to ultimate success. The reality of this Dream is a flawed repetition of a continuous pursuit of happiness, where one bleeds and sacrifices to be “happy”, and the constant modification of a new value and faith that resonates within each society introduced. The variation of this dream is communicated through the setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, where wealth, faith, and happiness is never satisfied in the three core locations of the plot. With the longevity of this dream continuing to create insecurities and unease today, the two elements from Cullen’s interpretation of the American Dream that resonates within the dynamic setting of the Fitzgerald classic are the incompatible rendering of new faith/worship in different environments and the unstoppable pursuit of happiness, revealing a dissatisfaction with the dream.

What is the American Dream? Some describe the American Dream as a two parent family with two kids and a dog living in a home with a white picket fence. Others declare having millions of dollars and a beach home is the ultimate goal. So, what exactly is the American Dream? In the Conservative conference speech “We Will Be a City upon a Hill”, Ronald Reagan demanded that traditional values defined the American Dream while President Obama argued equality was quintessential. In both presidential speeches, they each discussed two vastly drastic interpretations of the American Dream however, their speeches both themed constructs seen in Jim Cullen’s book to support their arguments.

The American Dream is steadily changing as time goes on and some say this is a bad thing. As different generations come about the dream changes with the people. As stated by Dan Kadlec in the article “Millennials Put Their Surprising Stamp on the American Dream” the American dream is now seen as having control over your daily life. Today 's generation has seen some of the main aspects of the original American Dream fail greatly so they have made up a new dream. With the things Millennials have seen change and go wrong they only believe that they can achieve a day to day lifestyle, but should this really be the case? In another article named “The Hourglass Society” it’s stated by Stewart Lansley that the middle class is going backwards. The idea of the ‘hourglass’ is that there are large amounts of people on the top and the bottom, but not many at all in the middle representing the middle class. This article also states that the American Dream is now only a myth and this generation only has a “fear of failing”. Many say the American Dream is dead but is the dream really dead or are people too afraid of failure? Millennials of today have seen so many bad things happen to their parents that they just settle and this shouldn’t be the case. The American Dream is only going to die if we let it happen.

The idea of the American Dream has been around since America was founded, but until 1933, it was not put into words. In the article American Faces 1933’s Realities, by James Truslow Adams, he defines the American Dream as “ ...a vision of a better, deeper, richer life for every individual, regardless of the position in society which he or she may occupy by the accident of birth” (1). The American Dream does not have to be described as having copious amounts of wealth. To some, it is only a vision of a better life for themselves and their families.

How would one feel if they spent their entire lives working towards an unattainable goal? That goal is the American Dream, a term that can be loosely defined as one’s attempt at what they believe is success, whether it be a family, high-paying career, a beautiful home, or all three. The American Dream can be whatever one makes of it. James Baldwin and William Buckley strongly debated this issue with underlying similarities but ultimately Baldwin had a stronger argument. This House Believes in the American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro, was a historic 1965 debate about society’s mistreatment of the African American race throughout history. Baldwin highlighted that white Americans innately believe they are still superior to African Americans and their pursuit of the American Dream holds more weight while Buckley attempted to discredit him. Baldwin drew scrutiny to the social injustices faced by blacks in their daily lives especially in their pursuit of the American Dream and attempted to direct white America’s attention to the issues that desperately need a solution.

The American Dream is the idea that every United States citizen has equal opportunity to achieve success through hard work and determination. However, ideas of the dream have evolved throughout time from the 18th century up to present day. The general population’s view and my view of the American Dream both have altered throughout time. My idea of the American Dream has developed from not only today’s views on The Dream, but also from the evolutionary process the meaning has been through.

Founding father Benjamin Franklin described the American dream as the “pursuit of a better existence… a higher quality of life through hard work, determination, and devotion” (Benjamin Franklin). The American dream is an idea that if you work hard, you can rise from “rags to riches” and live a wealthy and prosperous life with moral values of respect and integrity. Ironically, Franklin’s version of the dream was decaying during the roaring 1920s when society became corrupt and obsessed with greed. In his classic book, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows how the American dream of “hard work, determination, and devotion” was deteriorating because society had become greedy and materialistic. In addition, moral values were in decline and that

The American Dream was first evinced in the Declaration of Independence, which expresses the idea that all men are created equal with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, the phrase “The American Dream” was disseminated by James Truslow Adams, in his novel Epic of America. He described the American Dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.". However, in the 1920’s the meaning of the American Dream morphed from the opportunity and right to achieve a better life through hard work to the impatient attainment of material possessions. This corruption of the American Dream can be seen in the novel The Great Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerld demonstrates the corruption of the American Dream through three social groups within West Egg, East Egg, and The Valley of Ashes.

In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. If you have a dream in America, you can achieve it with old fashioned hard work. Whether it’s going from rags to riches or finding love, the American Dream can offer it. But the ever-popular American dream is easily corrupted. This is greatly shown in the novel The Great Gatsby as it explores both the beauty and the corruption of the American Dream in the 1920’s. In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald includes many aspects in the story which show how the pursuit for the American Dream affected

The American Dream; a reality chased by Americans for centuries, based on the ideas of liberty, happiness and equal right to success for all. But, for F. Scott Fitzgerald the American Dream was a materialistic world of permanent riches and fortune. This distorted perception of the American Dream, shared by many others, resulted in the failure of the real American Dream, a reality where one can live comfortably and safely. Instead, the American Dream became this unattainable goal that can never result in satisfaction, as humans will always have that desire for more. F. Scott Fitzgerald clearly represents the failed American Dream, as he proved throughout his life of short periods of glamor which concluded

The American Dream exists in the hearts of all Americans and is a concept that drives many people from all over the world to want to come to America. It holds the promise of infinite possibilities and allows them to escape a society of poverty and racism. This Dream also exists in the hearts of many Americans already living in America. However, this dream primarily exists in the minds of minority populations, such as African Americans, whose past is full of discrimination based on their race. The American Dream not only offers success in the form of economic stability but also acceptance from society regardless of an individual’s race or religion. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, shows how the American Dream is not often available to

What is the purpose of our government? Is the meaning of Lady Justice true? Does every citizen have equal rights and opportunities as stated in the United States Constitution? If so, why are there so many cases of people fighting for equality? How can we approach this effectively?