The American Dream

The American Dream is not something you get, but it’s something you have to work hard for, this is what George Milton believes the American Dream to be. Whilst George and Lennie often speak about their dream of getting a farm and working hard to get it, George always looks towards the work involved in getting it. As George states in the novel, “We gotta keep it till we get a stake. We can’t help it, Lennie. We’ll get out jus’ as soon as we can. I don’t like it no better than you do.” Through this quote, Steinbeck is revealing that for the men to get their American Dream, they must go through troubling,

If you were to ask anyone about what they thought was “the American dream” most of them would say something along the lines of a movie themed in the 50’s. A nuclear family, living in a house with red shutters and a blue door, the house is an astounding off white, there is a white picket fence around the house and the grass is cut to perfection. The family stands outside on their lawn playing tag with the family golden retriever, drinking lemonade or an ice-cold tea and the father is grilling something while laughter fills the air. If the American dream was this cookie cutter life everything would be much simpler. Instead the American dream is a social construction. Everyone has learned to believe this American dream and instead of refuting it, we play along. In recent years, we have seen that this version of the dream has changed from the cookie cutter life to just a life of equality. In an idealistic world, we would get to have both but we live in imperfection. While the dream of the house has carried over some, it is just not realistic in this time and that is why it is slowly dying out with the millennial age and morphing into a new being. Millennials would like to own a home, but with the economic standpoint of limited jobs to those without education and education being extremely overpriced, it is an impossible dream. The workplace has started to make It that only people with masters or bachelor’s degrees can get good paying jobs, otherwise you’re getting $12.00 an hour.

The American dream is establishing a successful lifestyle through hard work, as opposed to working multiple jobs living in poverty. The American dream allows for someone to benefit themselves financially or gain a higher education. Having freedom to make choices is an aspect of the American dream because many countries struggle to maintain social justice and establish civil rights. The dream allows for job opportunity to become successful without discrimination. The American dream is a work in progress that constantly changes and needs to be revised to fit today’s standard of success.

Many Americans have a strong opinion on the realism of the American dream, it is possible through wise choices and having will power, one can achieve the American dream. The idea of this dream goes back to the time where the first settlers from Europe came to the new world. Most of these settlers believed that if they worked hard in this new place they will soon harvest the benefits of it. The American Dream mainly attracts immigrants from different parts of the world where their customs and traditions are different from the American lifestyle. Some of the country’s most successful people are the ones that have immigrated to the United States and worked hard and their work paid off.

The American dream has been a long-time staple of the nation; an achievement that wasn’t exclusive to anyone and could be acquired by everyone. This is the American Dream that Tim Roemer speaks of in his article “America Remains the World’s Beacon of Success”. In his piece, he tells his audience that regardless of where he traveled or whom he spoke with, everyone was fascinated with the illusion of coming to America and fulfilling their dreams. He proposed that the American Dream was very much alive and still sought after by millions and that Americans should realize the privilege they have to already be a part of such a great nation. Roemer seems to only focus his sights on the positive feedback foreigners give about the United States without really taking into account all the real issues and unhappiness that is shared among its citizens. Over time, with globalization, expansion and even governmental shifts, the American Dream has come to vanish under the overflowing issues the nation faces. The American dream is an illusion lost in time as the disputes over immigration, the unveiling acts of racism, the resonating fear amongst residents, and even the primitive health care system near the creation of an inhabitable environment.

The American Dream, the ultimate ideal of gaining a higher social class and becoming someone significant, is a goal Americans have strived for since the birth of the country. John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men displays the sinister nature of this goal through a multitude of the characters’ desperate attempts to achieve their dreams. Set during the Great Depression, this novella follows George and Lennie, two migrant workers, in their endeavour to fulfill their lifelong dream of owning their own property and “[living] off the fatta the land” (Steinbeck 242). The two men get jobs at a ranch in California in order to earn enough money to live their dream, but face several struggles, mainly Lennie’s disabilities. In the end of the story, George kills Lennie and, in doing so, kills their dream portraying the eventual failure of the American Dream. Through the struggles of George, Lennie, Curley’s wife, and Crooks, John Steinbeck portrays how the American Dream destroys their lives and their hope for their futures.

The American Dream is the quintessence that every U.S. citizen should be capable of achieving prosperity through resolve, self-motivation, and hard work. Of Mice and Men is a classical piece of literature that presents ideas on this ideal. The novel challenges the idea of the availability of this dream to people of all social classes. The main characters are subject to difficulties through the duration of the novella. The author uses this fictional account to sway readers about the problems in their society by accentuating the plight of the migrant worker through the constant reference to the destruction of the American dream.

In Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman, the theme of the American dream is used to define how Family and the pursuit of Wealth can’t coexist together at the same time. An individual must decide which path they want to pursue, or at the very least which one is of greater importance then the other. It is this struggle to form both a tight-knit family unit while pursuing one’s desire to, not only, be financially stable but also well off as well within Miller’s character Willy Lowman.

In others perspectives the “American Dream” is what people think of as an opening to a successful life. Currently in the United States, the dream is not lived up to its expectations, instead numerous amounts of people are shocked and hit with the reality of what this country is really like. What was thought to be a gateway to a great life is now considered somewhat of a nightmare, but not completely because one will get somewhere in life most likely, but just have to go through many obstacles before reaching their goal. Perhaps the goal will not even be reached but one will still be put in a decent position. Four authors have taught and gave examples of what the dream is really like. Langston Hughes gave the piece “I, too, sing America” which shows the racial discrimination in this country that people hoped to escape, but instead are brought back into it. The writer, D Watkins,who wrote “Lessons of a former dope dealer” talks about the opportunities that he and his friends are given in this country despite their horrific background. Another author to add to this would be Mary-Beth McLaughlin who has written “Lifelong Dream”, and she talks about the extreme hardships that one woman had to go through in order to achieve her lifelong goal of having her own beauty salon, which would fall into the category of overcoming obstacles. The last author that best explained an important trait that the “American Dream holds would be Sandra Cisneros who is the author of “The house on

The term “American dream” is used in many ways, but it essentially is an idea that suggests that anyone in the US can succeed through hard work and has the potential to lead a happy, successful life. Many people have expanded upon or refined the definition to include things such as freedom, fulfillment and meaningful relationships. Someone who manages to achieve his or her version of the American dream is often said to be “living the dream.” This concept has been subject to criticism, because some people believe that the structure of society in the US prevents such an idealistic goal for everyone. Critics often point to examples of inequality rooted in class, race, religion and ethnicity that suggest that the American dream is not attainable for everyone.

One of the main goals of being an American is to live the American dream. There are people who say that the your dream can happen if you work hard enough, but then there are those who have lost hope. What is my dream and how do I obtain it? In simple terms I would graduate college with a degree and find a white collar job and work to support my family and also having enough time to spend with them. The world is not so simple. To give a more defined explanation, I have become a straddler. As described in the book Limbo by Alfred Lubrano, a straddler is someone who is moving from one social class to another. There are four main social classes. Upper, Middle, Working, and Lower class. Me as a straddler, I am making the effort to move from the Working class to the Middle class, and from there to the Upper class. Knowing what straddlers do is one thing but, how you become one is another.

When the New World was discovered, a passion for adventure and wealth was already fervent in the explorers of the Old World. The “discovery” of new foods and plants inspired the Europeans almost every nation scrambled to acquire some bit of this geographical gold mine. Since exploration is messy and domestic bliss never lasts, or really exists, these nations were spurred into inevitable turmoil. Famines, poverty, warfare, and religious monarchies were and always had been commonplace, and now as people began to migrate to acquire the new land and possible bounty, it evolved into a refuge for religious freedom and a fresh start. America’s first settlements were established as a safe haven for Protestants and that pattern continued in almost every immigrant group. Whether people were pushed to immigrate through servitude, war, or poverty, all of them came to be apart of America and mixed their own culture into an original uniquely American lifestyle.

Some people feel that the American Dream cannot be achieved by all people. They believe that the idea of an American Dream is dead. I on the other hand, disagree. I believe that the American Dream is not dead and is instead achievable to all who aspire and work hard for it.

Although we would like to believe that the “American Dream” was built upon ideas that all humans are treated equally, with justice and liberty for everyone, it is simply not true. Our Constitution was built on the ideas of a singular group of people, the elite white males in the United States, and what was most advantageous for them. “But in its own language, the Declaration of Independence limited life, liberty, and happiness to white males” (Zinn 69). The society we live in today and its ideals that we live upon were created for the benefit of a small percentage of people, within a country of many ethnicities and different social classes.

The American Dream is in favor of a certain group of people.It is structured in that because of many different factors. Many individuals are challenged daily by trying to accomplish the American Dream. They work more than normal to obtain their dream of success.This is a good thing that these other people try to achieve this goal more. Education,money, and housing are the main aspects of the American Dream. If a person does not achieve one of these then they do not achieve the dream persay. Only the white man in America has the ability to achieve the standards of the American Dream due to racism.