Lester Burnham American Dream

What is the American Dream? A nice house in the suburbs, Two cars, kids and a good job? This seems to be what most people consciously or unconsciously strive for. American Beauty uses one man’s quest to find happiness in his life. Lester Burnham is a 42-year-old father, trapped in a loveless marriage. His wife Carolyn Burnham desperately wants to keep up her image. Becoming obsessed with maintaining her image of the American Dream by trying to perfect everything she does. They have an evasive daughter Jane who spends much of the movie calling her parents pathetic. American Beauty uncovers the egocentric materialistic underlying of American culture

The Burnham’s seem to be living the American Dream. The Art Culture Film website refer to them

as "trapped by the ideology of the American Dream" (Structural). Carolyn Burnham is obsessed with materialism and other's opinions of them (Newman). She is obsessed with her home and possessions, to her that is success. In one scene Lester is trying to love on his wife, he tries kissing her. He is desperately trying to show her that they can still have passion for each other. They are on the couch and just when Carolyn almost submits to Lester, she notices that he is about to spill beer on her couch. She gets on to him and Lester gets upset yelling, “It’s just a couch”, she hastily responds that it is not just a couch, that it cost $4,000 and is upholstered in Italian silk. In another scene Carolyn is arguing with her daughter Jane. She yells at Jane for “not appreciating the life she has”. Implying Jane should be happy because they have a lot of material things. Carolyn seems think happiness is found in material things. She does not seem to grasp how very much her family need her time, love and affection.
The unhappier the character the harder they tried to portray themselves as someone else. Appearance versus reality is seen throughout American Beauty. Carolyn believes that the most important thing in life is success, and appearing successful (Huntley). She tries to find happiness in her career. In one scene she tries to sell a house and fails; she literally beats herself up. Slapping herself in the face screaming and crying. She spent all day scrubbing the house and telling herself, "I will sell this house today." Angela Hayes comes across as the beautiful blonde cheerleader, envied by everyone. She tries really hard to portray herself as a promiscuous seductress who has a lot of control over men. When it comes down to it and she is in a scene with Lester about to sleep with him she breaks down and confesses she is still a virgin. She is just as scared an insecure as all the people she was calling plain and boring.
Throughout this film each person is looking for beauty and happiness in their own lives through many different superficial things. The American Dream is an illusion and until people stop trying to obtain this illusion they will never find happiness. Ricky finds beauty in everything through his camera, even in the plastic bag being blown in circles by the wind. A breakthrough scene in which he explains that there is a beautiful energy behind everything in life. (Huntley.) The bag is symbolic of the everyday miracles that occur all the time which we tend to overlook (Structura) If people slowed down enough to look for beauty in everything. Maybe we would have a lot happier and more meaningful lives. The rose is also emblematic of American Beauty. It shows up various times in the film, as well as the color red in general, which symbolizes passion, love, and joy (Structural). Carolyn grooms and cuts roses, maybe cutting roses is metaphoric for cutting passion out of her life. Angela is covered in roses in Lester's fantasies of her, and in one scene, Jane is even seen sitting behind a vase of roses.