The American Dreamman And Walt Whitman

        One of the most noticable similarities between the two pieces of poetry, "I Hear America Singing", and "I, Too, Sing America", is the theme of unity. Both poems express what America is, and that is the people in America. Whitman's poem however, doesn't include blacks in his poem, but all other kinds of people. Hughes', poem makes it so that he is included. For example, Whitman's poem celebrates, "The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

In 2012, Stephen Brighton gave a speech at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting explaining that the term “The American Dream”. It was coined by a writer named J.T. Adams and is defined as the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity. The idea behind the American Dream was that it was available to anyone who came to America (Brighton 4). “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus illustrates how the American dream and the statue of liberty welcome immigrants from across the world. Although, in Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments” the author discusses the inequality of men and women and how the American dream was not being fulfilled to women. The theme of the American dream is present in both “Declaration of Sentiments” and “The New Colossus” by discussing the liberties to which Americans should be entitled, presenting the idea that opportunity exist in America for anybody to make a living, and that everybody is welcomed into American to experience the freedom, equality and opportunity of the American dream.

In the poems “Let American be America Again” and “I hear America Singing” they are both dreams, but for different reasons. In “I hear America singing” Walt Whitman portrays America in an amazing light making people want to go this dream like utopian country. In “Let America be America Again” it portrays America as a land of false dreams and wants it to be the dream it hoped it be. It also tells of the corrupt, dark, crooked side of America. It also mentions how it should never have been like this.

From the first day that we can walk, talk, and think for ourselves, we are dreamers. These dreams can be nothing more than an illusion, or the foundations to the very lives we live daily. The American Dream is no exception to this, shaping the lives of millions of Americans each and every day, as it has done so for decades. We can see this through the works of many notable authors and their works. Some examples of these people are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lorraine Hansberry, Thomas Jefferson, and even some more recent writers like John Meacham and Lena Williams. While all of these people may have been alive at different time periods, they all, for the most part, share one common ideology: the American Dream is still alive,

Two writers who come quickly to my mind whenever I hear or see images of American patriotism are John Steinbeck and Hunter S. Thompson. As different as these two men are, their writing is similar in that the American Dream constantly fails their characters. Both seek to define America and the American Dream, however, it remains seemingly elusive, and both writers fail to find it.

The definition of the American Dream varies from person to person, however, its basic components include a healthy, happy family, a sense of safety and security, and a sufficient amount of money. People from all backgrounds strive to achieve their specific American Dream, however, actually achieving this proves extremely difficult since the nature of the American Dream is often unrealistic, fragile, or elusive. Many artists, authors, and poets use their art to explore or comment on this heavy, complex topic. Specifically, Truman Capote investigates the American Dream through his work of creative nonfiction, In Cold Blood, which centers on the violent murder of a Kansas family in the 1950’s. After interviewing law enforcement officers,

Does America still provide the American Dream? It does, after reading the three poems I have, learned that America does still provide access to the American Dream. And is alive, the examples I will give you, shows how alive the dream is in America. Introducing the first example I read, is the poem called "Ellis Island" the author Joseph Bruchac, you'll find that he's an American writer with both European immigrant ancestors and Native American, The speaker of this poem is not an immigrant just arriving in the United States. He's the grandson of immigrants who came to the U.S. almost a century ago. He rejoices for the Slovak immigrants who found new opportunities in the U.S., but for the ancestors who were here before the Europeans, the American

The so-called American Dream is one of the most time-honored and cliché phrases used to describe the conception of the United States. It is commonly used to refer to the notion that anyone can come to this country and, through hard work and sheer will, change his or her fortune and lot in life in a way that other countries simply do not allow people to do. However, it is interesting to see that this popular idea of the American Dream does not necessarily correlate to the perceptions of two authors who wrote about this subject both directly and indirectly, Martin Luther King Jr. in his "I Have A Dream Speech" and J.B. Priestley in "Wrong Isms". In fact, both of these authors view the American Dream through respective lenses in which they do not believe that the promise of the American Dream is coming to fruition. Still, they both utilize similar rhetorical devices to attempt to change their view of what the American Dream has become, which they believe is negative, to what they hope the American Dream will come to be, which is positive, by using an abundance of metaphors, anaphora, and

Walt Whitman is a renowned American poet. He served as an example for all to follow. He put thoughts into peoples head. Whitman was very influential and had a very big effect on people. Langston Hughes was also a very influential American poet. He was known for changing others opinion of race and making their oppression evident to others. Hughes was very influenced by Whitman and he caused him to want to make a difference in people's thoughts on his race. Whitman wrote a poem called I Hear America Singing and some people believe that it influenced Hughes poem, I, Too, Sing America. Hughe builds on Whitman's poems in these categories; structure and technique, themes, and effect on people and society.

The American Dream was a well thought idea during the creation of the Declaration of Independence; in fact, the original belief of the American Dream was that all Americans could pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (McQuade and Atwan). Furthermore, today the American Dream is an ideal thought to the overall strive for success. According to Kimberly Amadeo, a well-known author, she elaborated in her article What is the American Dream Today “… a focus on more of what really matters, such as creating a meaningful life, contributing to community and society, valuing nature, and spending time with friends and family” (Kimberly Amadeo). Creating the American Dream, controlling decisions, and building a life that can carry out success

Renowned poets and philosophers Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, although being from different schools of thought, actually shared many of the same views about nature and mankind’s role in society. Whitman, being more of a ‘romantic’ poet, praised nature’s beauty and majestic qualities. Thoreau, on the other hand, was more of a Transcendentalist; The Transcendentalism school of thought emphasized individualism as a common theme and celebrated the ‘self’ as a separate, but equal, counterpart to the nature of our environment. While both of these poets had their opinions on the landscape around us, they were quite similar in their beliefs about mankind’s existence and skirted the line between both schools of thought.

To me the "American Dream" is not just a dollar sign, or desk name-tag at work, but the ability to walk into a room or a home, and know that your presence is welcomed and looked forward to. The dream is realizing that in America, we have the resources to make an honest difference. Unfortunately there was no reading that really embodied my version of the American dream.

Potential is something in which all human beings possess; many, however, are oblivious to these latent qualities which can be found within themselves. Sadly, many people live their lives without knowing what they are actually capable of. By realizing one’s true potential, an individual is more likely to accomplish bigger and better things. The highly valued author Walt Whitman describes this idea in many of his inspirational poems. He scrutinizes the hidden potential everyone retains inside themselves and stresses its importance and impact it could have on everyone’s lives.

As I reach into the conclusion of Walt Whitman’s “Songs of Myself”, I learned that through reading his poem, he connects to the universe with his senses of his body mind and soul. He was using his identity as a personal reasoning to how Whitman is reaching to a complete truth of the body. Through the sections of 43-52, Whitman was talking about religion in his own way and finding the truth within the universe. In Section 43, Whitman was talking about the priests in lines 1096-1098- saying “I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern” Whitman was trying to explain how he doesn’t odium them however,

Mr. Hughes, an African American poet, played an important role during the early twenties and thirties due to segregation. As his poetry portrayed the lifestyles of African men and women he eventually promoted the ideal message that African Americans were just the same as the whites that deserved to live the American Dream just as everyone else. In addition to this, Mr. Hughes’s poems represent the idealistic thoughts about these African Americans versus the actual situations they have to face to be realistic in order to reach what is to believe the “American Dream.” Regarding that the whites would immediately judge others by the color of their race rejecting the rights they wanted from the whites when all along African Americans were just as similar to the whites and strived for the same goal as everyone else not caring what race they were from. With that being said, Hughes made a huge impact towards the movement in his writings creating conflict and true experiences in his life he had to face that can relate to every African American born into the segregation era.