The Desert In The American Dream

“One of the generalities most often noted about Americans is that we are a restless, a dissatisfied, a searching people,”(Steinbeck America & Americans) John Steinbeck stated this when discussing the topic of the American dream. He believes that numerous Americans are chasing after a dream that is nearly impossible to reach. John Steinbeck expresses his belief on the American dream through a general negative attitude toward the American dream and the failed dreams of his characters.

Lorraine Hansberry's  play, A Raisin in the Sun,  revolves around the positive and negative effects of achieving the American Dream. Hansberry expresses different points of views on the American Dream through the characters and she portrays the daily struggles of African American family going throughout  A Raisin in the Sun. In this play, she can effectively show true life experiences that can have a big impact on a family. Hansberry shows the many different attachments that come with the fulfillment of this American Dream. “What happens to a dream deferred” (Lorraine Hansberry). Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, each family member has their own pursuit of happiness which involves the American Dream. Today, we have similar issues related to back then because we tend to emphasize the importance of dreams. But, we still have struggles of poverty and racism in order to reach success.

To many people, the United States is more than just a country; it’s a place of ideals. To some, those ideals are liberty and freedom. To others, the American Dream is democracy and unity between all people. Many people, especially immigrants, see the many opportunities that America offers as its greatest ideal. House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III, focuses extensively on economic opportunity, telling the tale of former Iranian Colonel, Massoud Behrani. Behrani hopes to strike it rich in the real estate market with a home he bought, so he can work towards restoring his family’s honor. Sadly, his dreams fall flat and his entire family ends up dead. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford, is about social opportunity America can offer. A young Chinese boy named Henry Lee becomes good friends with a Japanese girl named Keiko during World War II, despite that their people have long been enemies. When the government sends Keiko and her family away to an internment camp, Henry is separated from perhaps his only friend. Both House of Sand and Fog and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet discuss the opportunities that America offers, and how sometimes these opportunities fail people.

The 1960s was a time in which America underwent great change and development. This change instilled an optimism in some African-American citizens for the future. Despite the fact that racism was still alive in America many had hopes and dreams for a better future. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, ‘A Raisin In The Sun’ she greatly emphasizes that dreams can inspire and frustrate but ultimately their lasting effect can change the dreamer positively whether that be receiving a dose of reality and changing for the better or be it finally achieving dreams and goals.

The American dream, for most people, is exactly that – A dream. It’s make believe, fiction. It’s what we think American should be like, not what it actually is. The American dream will always be out of reach for common people. The majority of people I interviewed said something along the lines of, “the American dream is to be given a chance to do something or be something you want to be.” This opinion seems to be too optimistic. Everyone wants more than what they have. It’s not enough to be given the chance, you have to succeed. What it takes to succeed is an entirely different aspect of the American dream.

The American dream is full of promises and aspirations, that every American someday shall have opportunities and potential to attain self-actualization. To make this has not been the case owing to the challenges brought about income inequalities, jobless and capitalistic ideologies that pose active and reactive forces on men and women of the lower cadre. The American dream gives men the hope that one day they shall own a decent home, live an ample neighborhood, save income money for golden years and most importantly feel engrossed in the American way of life. To African-Americans, however, it is a toxic fantasy because of the unequal opportunities created by the American system. According to Ta-Nehisi, the dreamers are associated with black deaths and they take it as a way of doing business. The African bodies were to be used as currency because it was the tradition of the dreamers. According to Ta-Nehisi, there was little hope for African Americans getting freedom or equality. Coates idea that the “American Dream” for African-Americans is a toxic fantasy because of racism, financial instability, and upward mobility.

The American Dream is defined as the ideal that every US citizen should have equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. However, with this dream comes great contradiction as well as paradox. The irony of the American Dream is that, though everyone has ample opportunity to build themselves up and reach high statuses, the people that do take the given opportunities are often criticized. American literature displays America’s promise, as well as the paradox of the American Dream. Pieces of work that emerge from major social changes often highlight the American Dream and its paradox. Such pieces include Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, which was written during the Second Great

From the early stages of American literature the dream of success has always been around, even at the very beginning. It has gone on the journey of merely surviving in small amounts of the literature from the native people to thriving in a growing society and being in everything. The dream to myself is becoming wealthy and being successful in everything I do. Today I believe that the dream has become different for everyone, every person has a different dream, a different way they want their life to go.

The American dream has been a beacon of hope and motivation for the millions of people who have immigrated and grown up in the United States; especially for those of the lower class. Through hard work and determination one could completely change their life for the better while provide better circumstances for future generations. The American dream is defined as, “a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S. especially by working hard and becoming successful” (The American Dream). Today, youth of the lower class are finding this dream to be nearly impossible to achieve, even by working hard. For many it has become nothing more than a pipe dream. The American dream is still alive, but it is on it’s final breath; especially for the poor youth of America.

Everyone desires wealth and fame to prosper as presented by our human nature, however wealth and fame entices the opposite. The so called “American Dream” is presented in the plays A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Through the following stories it is evident that the American Dream imbeds corruption in people, by analyzing the id which represents the desire for the dream, ego which states society guidelines of the dream and super ego which contains personal judgment of the dream. These following elements are theories developed by Sigmund Freud and will be seen in multiple points of the story. Despite the admirable pleasures that come from the American Dream, the dark corruption vastly

The American dream is the traditional social ideals of the US, such as equality and democracy. It is a life where people achieve happiness; this is done through risk taking, sacrifice, and hard work. In the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, it shows that the American dream is very difficult if not impossible to achieve for immigrants. One of the main characters, Jurgis Rudkus, hopes that through hard work and honesty he can gain the American dream, but he does not know that the American dream is dictated by naturalism and corruption. Jurgis believes the American dream is not having a lot of money, but rather having the ability to provide for his family. After migrating to Chicago his family and him discover the American Dream is nothing but

The American Dream is a idea that many people across the world strive for. It’s what brought the Irish and the Chinese over during the construction of the railways. It’s what set Americans, Europeans, and Asians to the west, and eventually to the north, on the hunt for gold. It’s what brings immigrants from all over the world to America in the Modern Age as well. Whether they are looking for jobs, religious freedom, or a whole new life. People from all over come to America to try and achieve “The Dream”. Whether you’re Indian, Israeli, English, Muslim, Jewish, Male or Female.

The Americans Dream’s inaccessibility has lead many individuals to turn towards nature to salvage a meaningful life from the disappointments of a superficial, mainstream society. Today’s America promotes a society that values dependence and conformity above one’s own aspirations, but it has not always been this way. In the beginning, the American Dream was encompassed in a larger idea of one's’ personal freedoms. Now, contemporary society at its core is the act of being pulled into these mainstream fads and as a result one is forced to give up his or her individuality. Emerson succinctly sums up these restrictions in Self- Reliance, “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock

Throughout life everybody has heard the line “Follow your dreams!” This simple sentence has inspired many. This idea of creating a dream and chasing it has inspired the American Dream. The American Dream is different for everybody. It could be getting married, creating a business, or being a hero. It turns out the American Dream is not for everybody. There is always something standing in the way of the American Dream. Race, social status, and the individual are standing in the way between the person and the American Dream.

The concept of the American dream has been related to everything from religious freedom to a nice home in the suburbs. It has inspired both deep satisfaction and disillusioned fury. The phrase elicits for most Americans a country where good things can happen. However, for many Americans, the dream is simply unattainable. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams,” Dexter Green, a hardworking young man born into the middle class, becomes wrapped up in his pursuit to obtain wealth and status in his life. These thoughts and ideas represent Dexter’s fixation on his “winter dreams,” or, the idea of what the American Dream means to him: gaining enough wealth to eventually move up in social class and become somebody, someday. As Dexter attempts