Is America The Greatest Country In The World?

2138 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: John steinbeck’s fictional world and american dream article and journal

The view of the world differs from each human mind and eye. The view of even each country differs from human eye and mind. This happens to each country noticeable on the map. America, over years, has been depicted in numerous ways. From ‘sea to shining sea,’ dry deserts, musical woodlands, wet marshes, and across grassy plains, the multitude changed the world with each step they took the west. Voices cry out in degrees of passionate feelings. Some shout in proud patriotism, others whisper in silent melancholy, and it is certain the populace will definitely roar in pessimistic outrage if America seems to be heading in a worse condition. Helen Cohen & Lazarus Salamon, as heard in the recordings of their arrivals to America, were hopeful and bright about the future. …show more content…

A small clip in The Newsroom, titled 'Is America the Greatest Country in the World?' challenges ideas of whether America really is the greatest country in the world. The song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” by Tim O’Brien tells of a person, who’s been through so much, stands alone and confused wondering why he is extremely poor when he should be praised for aiding his country in need. John Steinbeck, a 20th-century writer, wrote an essay titled “What’s Happening to America” and evaluated America subtly with the key elements: children, morality, materialism, and the government. His tone about the survival of America dramatically changes from the start of the essay to the end like a rollercoaster. A couple perspectives around the rest of the world may stereotype Americans as loud, obnoxious, rude, egotistical, overweight, ignorant, always munching hamburgers, hot dogs, and steaks filling an entire house while guzzling down barrel after barrel of

Show More
Related

  • Sixty-Nine Cents, by Gary Shteyngart

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    The author Gary Shteyngart of “Sixty-Nine Cent” describes himself in a tug of war between the Russian culture of his parents and the American culture in which he wants to be a part of. At the age of seven, Gary Shteyngart and his family immigrated to the United States from Russia. When he was fourteen, his family and other Russian immigrant made a trip to Florida to see Disneyland. He describes “the ride over the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach was my real naturalization ceremony”( Shteyngart 103). At that age, he wanted to be like every American born boy, He wanted to eat at McDonald’s, walk the beaches, and speak to the girls, and to enjoy what every boy his age takes for granted. One of his desires was to eat a McDonald’s sixty-nine cent hamburger and drink a Coke. On the way back from Disneyland, he found out this was not going to happen. His parents were given a picnic lunch, packed by the woman who owned the motel, for them to eat instead of spending money at MacDonald’s. As his parents were sitting out “sort boiled eggs wrapped in tinfoil; vinaigrette, the Russian beet salad, overflowing a reused container of sour cream; cold chicken served between crisp white furrows of bulk, (Shteyngart 104)” Shteyngart could not believe that they were doing this to him. Here they were at McDonald’s and he was not going to get a sixty-nine-cent hamburger with a Coke.

    Read More

  • Edward Bok And Colin Powell Ap Language Essay

    538 Words  | 2 Pages

    Powell and Bok’ autobiography and essay have an prideful optimistic attitude towards America. Bok says “As the world stands to-day no nation offers opportunity in the degree that America does the foreign-born” It proves that the assertion is true by showing the pride he has toward America by stating that no other nation offers what the US does. Powell says “And America that is still the beacon of light to the darkest corner of the world” The prideful tone Powell displays is shown in this quote by saying that America is the light in the dark corner. Powell and Bok both use writing to paint the prideful

    Read More

  • A Different Mirror

    346 Words  | 1 Pages

    In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.

    Read More

  • America And I By Anzia Yezierska Analysis

    426 Words  | 1 Pages

    The tone of the short story “America and I” changed dramatically over the course of the narrative. The author, Anzia Yezierska, started the story with a hopeful and anxious tone. She was so enthusiastic about arriving in America and finding her dream. Yezierska felt her “heart and soul pregnant with the unlived lives of generations clamouring for expression.” Her dream was to be free from the monotonous work for living that she experienced back in her homeland. As a first step, she started to work for an “Americanized” family. She was well welcomed by the family she was working for. They provided the shelter Yezierska need. She has her own bed and provided her with three meals a day, but after a month of working, she didn’t receive the wage she was so

    Read More

  • Immigrant Reality Exposed in Bread Givers

    3301 Words  | 7 Pages

    Pilcer, Sonia. "2G." Visions of America Personal Narratives from the Promised Land. Ed. Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. 4th ed. New York: Peresea Books, 1993. 201-206.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Unknown American Revolution

    1147 Words  | 3 Pages

    The American Revolution has too often been dominated by the narrative of the founding fathers and has since been remembered as a “glorified cause.” However, the American Revolution was not a unified war but a civil war with many internal disputes that wreaked havoc and chaos throughout America. In his book, The Unknown American Resvolution, Gary B. Nash attempts to unveil the chaos that the American Revolution really was through the eyes of the people not in power, including women, African American slaves, and Native Americans. In his book, Gary B. Nash emphasizes their significance in history to recount the tale of the American Revolution not through the eyes of the privileged elite but through the eyes of the people who sacrificed and struggled the most, but were left forgotten, in their endeavors to reinvent America.

    Read More

  • Bread Givers By Anzia Yezierska

    1079 Words  | 3 Pages

    Moving from the unpleasant life in the old country to America is a glorious moment for an immigrant family that is highlighted and told by many personal accounts over the course of history. Many people write about the long boat ride, seeing The Statue of Liberty and the “golden” lined streets of New York City and how it brought them hope and comfort that they too could be successful in American and make it their home. Few authors tend to highlight the social and political developments that they encountered in the new world and how it affected people’s identity and the community that they lived in. Authors from the literature that we read in class highlight these developments in the world around them, more particularly the struggles of assimilating

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Anthony Burgess Is America Falling Apart

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    For years, America has always been perceived as one of the top world powers due to its ability of achieving so much technological, economical, and social progress within a mere couple decades. Despite their great accomplishments, America is actually regressing psychologically, preventing the country from reaching its true potential as an “opportunity rich” country. In Anthony Burgess’ Is America Falling Apart? , the author unveils the circumstances in which America’s restricting society and selfish ideology cause the nation to develop into the type of society it tried to avoid becoming when it separated from the British Empire.

    Read More

  • 1800's Irish Immigration: An American Integration Tale

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    The United States was a recently forged nation state in the early 1800’s. Recently formed, this nation state was very fragile and relied on the loyalty of its citizens to all work collectively toward the establishment and advancement of the nation states. Many members of the nation state gave great sacrifices, often their lives, to see that the united states was a successful and democratic. However, the United States, was fundamentally a mixing pot of all foreign people (excluding marginalized Native Americans). This early 1800 's flow of new “Americans” continued as people sought new opportunities and escaped religious or political persecution and famine. One notable

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast America And The New Colossus

    890 Words  | 2 Pages

    Often depicted as a melting pot, America is always being put on a pedestal by the rest of the world due to the large amounts of successful immigrants in the United States. Millions of people have packed their bags and moved to America in hopes of achieving their dreams. While some succeed, others fail and are let down by the dim reality that not everyone can achieve their goals. This essay will compare the poems, “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes and “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus to exhibit my perspective on both works. Both poems portray people’s hopes that America will be great, however, due to the different eras and the authors’ backgrounds, the poems have different meanings. Lazarus’ poem was written in the early stages of America, as it describes her cheerful

    Read More

  • Analysis of A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

    695 Words  | 2 Pages

    This book has proven to be an enlightening read. It both teaches and inspires. Howard Zinn has offered us a perspective of the real story of American history heretofore unavailable to us – history from the perspective of real people – immigrant laborers, American women, the working poor, factory workers, African and Native Americans.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front - A Book Review

    1912 Words  | 4 Pages

    This book is written from a perspective foreign to most Americans. Historically, American students are taught from a single perspective, that being the American perspective. This approach to history (the single perspective) dehumanizes the enemy and glorifies the Americans. We tend to forget that those on the opposing side are also human.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of 'America' By Tony Hoagland

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem “America” by Tony Hoagland reflects on how peoples’ minds are clouded by small-scale items, money, and the unimportance of those items. Metaphors and imagery are utilized to emphasize the unimportance of materialistic items in America. How America is being flooded with unnecessary goods. The poem uses examples of people to create an example and connection to the overall meaning.

    Read More

  • Two Kinds by Amy Tan

    966 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story, the mother’s belief in this sentiment gave her hope for her daughter to become a prodigy. Therefore, the weight of the dream is left on the first-generation. The belief of endless possibilities is set upon first-generation Americans and Americans alike. From the beginning of the story, the daughter states that “America was where all my mother’s hopes lay” (491). The mother has the be...

    Read More

  • Analysis of John Steinbeck´s Paradox and Dream

    654 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, John Steinbeck shows how Americans are dissatisfied and angry with many things in their life. There is a paradox that states “We find our time searching for security, and hate it when we get it.” This shows that no matter what Americans want, once they get it they are always searching for more. When Americans achieve what they have been striving for, they always go above and beyond to be number one. Also, Steinbeck explains how Americans convince themselves that their country has the greatest government in the world, but we find every little problem with it and do nothing to change it. Americans say how much they love the government, but when people disagree with something, they complain, get frustrated, and become so opinionated that they do not even bother trying to understand other peoples’ views. The American dream is wanted by so many people. They want the perfect house, the perfect family, and the perfect neighborhood. We all want the American dream but most of us do not even stay in the same house for more than fiv...

    Read More

More about Is America The Greatest Country In The World?

Open Document