AMERICAN DREAM

A theme in American literature, film, and art that expresses optimistic desires for self-improvement, freedom, and self-sufficiency. Harry Shaw notes that the term can have no clear and fixed expression because "it means whatever its user has in mind a particular time" (12). In general, it has connotations of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in Thomas Jefferson's phrasing. One expression of this is the materialistic "rags-to-riches" motif of many nineteenth-century novels. Here, a young pauper through hard work, cleverness, and honesty, rises in socio-economic status until he is a powerful and successful man. An example here would be the stories by Horatio Alger. Other expressions of this theme focus on more more abstract qualities like freedom or self-determination. Many critics have argued that this dream is in many ways a myth in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, given America's frequent discriminatory treatment of immigrants and its continuing economic trends in which an ever smaller number of wealthy people acrue an ever larger percentage of material wealth with each generation, i.e., "the rich get richer and the poor get babies." Other events, such as the loss of the American frontier, segregation and exclusion of minorities, McCarthyism in the 1950s, unpopular wars in Vietnam in the 1960s, and gradual ecological devastation over the last hundred years, together have inspired literary works that criticize or question the American Dream--often seeing it as ultimately selfish or destructive on one or more levels. Examples of these writing would be Miller's Death of A Salesman, Ellison's Invisible Man, and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.



Since the 1920s, numerous authors, such as Sinclair Lewis in his 1922 novel Babbitt, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his 1925 classic, The Great Gatsby, satirized or ridiculed materialism in the chase for the American dream. Within 'The Great Gatsby', Gatsby - the character representative of the American dream was killed, symbolizing the pessimistic belief that the American dream is dead. In 1949 Arthur Miller wrote the play "Death of a Salesman" in which the American Dream is a fruitless pursuit. Hunter S. Thompson in 1971 depicted in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey Into the Heart of the American Dream a dark view that appealed especially to drug users who emphatically were not pursuing a dream of economic achievement.[23] George Carlin famously wrote the joke "it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."[24] Carlin pointed to "the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions" as having a greater influence than an individual's choice.[24]

Many counter-culture films of the 1960s and 1970s ridiculed the traditional quest for the American Dream. For example Easy Rider (1969), written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, shows the characters making a pilgrimage in search of "the true America" in terms of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyles.[25]



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The term "American Dream" was originally coined by James Truslow Adams in his book "The Epics of America" which as published in 1931. This dream has always played a major role on immigration to
America due to people perceiving America as the greatest country of opportunity, entrepreneurship and a freedom of spirit that all wish to attain. Around the turn of the 18th century, the promise of the American Dream had begun to lure many immigrants from around the world; Italians, Poles, Irish, Greeks, Russsians all flooded into find work and a new life that they could never hope to attain in the homelands.

There are many books, songs, plays and forms of literature which have defined, explored and denounced the American Dream.

- The American Dream by Edward Albee
- Of Mice and Men
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Death of a Salesman
- The Great Gatsby

and many more. The song "American Dream" by the Christian Rock Band Casting Crowns focuses on the idea of the dream, as it implies.

The term "THE AMERICAN DREAM" is a subjective one usually implying success and happiness. It also implies financial security, material goods, fame, exceeding ethnic or social boundaries or simply living a fulfilling life. The term is not easily defined, and has subjective meaning to many who claim it.

So, how has the American Dream impacted on your life? Has it created a new stream of consciousness within your life? Has you found ethnic peace? Are you satisfied financially? The dream in the 20th century has many challenges. The Great Depression comes to mind which caused widespread hardship during the 30's and was a reverse of the deam for those directly affected.

World War 2 springs to mind, young American families from the suburbs who sought to lead a stable life were immediately forced into a new reality. Although the drive waned during this period of time it also brought the American People closer in a way that many have not experienced to this day.