My Antonia by Willa Cather "Disapprobation hurt me, I found—even that of people whom I did not admire." (164). In the novel, My Antonia, by Willa Cather, society seems to govern the lives of many people. But for the others, who see past society's stereotypical values, had enough strength to overcome this and allowed them to achieve their dreams. Throughout the book, everyone seems to be trying to pursue the American Dream. While they all have different ideas of just exactly what the American Dream is, they all know precisely what they want. For some, the American Dream sounds so enticing that they have traveled across the world to achieve their goal. One girl who chases the American Dream is Lena Lingard, a small farm girl from a poverty-stricken family. "Lena gave her heart away when she felt like it, but she kept her head for her business and had got on in the world." (192). Lena had one thing on her mind: money. To her the American Dream was wealth. She wants freedom from worry about where her next meal would come from. Lena begins her journey to wealth by becoming one of the many hired girls in the town of Black Hawk. There she was apprentice to a dressmaker and before long began to show great potential. Soon she began making money with her hard work, dedication and talent, but she uses this money not to indulge in her own desires, but to benefit her family. She spent her excess funds buying clothes for them, and paying their bills. But this wasn't enough to gain society's approval. She is a hired girl. Because she went to many dances over the summer months, many young men began noticing her, as they never had before. Because of this Lena earns a reputation like those of the hired girls; that ... ... middle of paper ... ... what the town saw as amenable. As he says, "Disapprobation hurt me, I found-- even that of people whom I did not admire." (174). Jim hides behind the shadow of his dream, never fearless enough to accomplish his own goals. As Antonia faces the world with a dauntless face, Jim shrinks back at its hand. And as she cherishes her own family, Jim settles for his. He may be accepted by society but he'll never reach his own expectations. Some of us can be slaves to society, but still there are some others that will see beyond it to reach for what they want. People will do anything to fulfill their dreams. They will travel great distances or change their whole lifestyles to succeed. But not everyone prevails. In the end, it's the people that guide themselves and are not controlled by others. The best days may be the first to flee, but dreams live on forever (174).
For centuries, the American Dream has motivated citizens of the United States to go above and beyond in their efforts through life, yet not everyone is hoping to reach the same outcome. The stereotypical prosperous dream was for the average individual to have a successful job with a supportive and wealthy family. However, for some, their idealized version of the American Dream is different. Although the American Dream came in variations, a commonality within all of them was the pursuit of happiness. In the epilogue of The Epic of America, James Truslow Adams argues his idea that the American Dream cannot be defined by one type of accomplishment or triumph. He claims that the American Dream cannot be defined by one type of achievement or particular success, reiterating the fact that the dream is not about tangible goods creating a sense of artificial happiness, but every individual seeking to fulfill their utmost potential. Adams saw that the American Dream was eroding into a need for material possessions, causing him to combat the shift and attempt to preserve the original idea. This theory is echoed in Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle. Despite being hindered by
The American Dream can be described as a belief in freedom that allows all citizens and residents of the United States of America to achieve their goa...
Memories are a stockpile of good and bad experiences that are retained of a people, places. How do you remember your childhood memories? Do certain people, places or things trigger these memories to the past? Does the knowledge of these experience still affect your life today? Throughout the novel My Antonia, Jim's nostalgia for the past is represented by nature, symbolic elements, and above all Antonia.
Americans live in constant pursuit of what they want more than anything, the American Dream. The perception of the American Dream varies from person to person, depending on what they hope to accomplish. In The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men the American Dream manifests in various extravagant and corrupt forms. The lives of these characters revolve around achieving their version of the American Dream.
The american dream is not easy to obtain with many barriers standing in the way of people trying to achieve their american dream. In the novel The Raisin in the Sun and in the short stories In American Society and America and I . It is more difficult to achieve the american dream as an outsider due to social, economic and cultural barriers than those who live on the inside.
People from all around the world have dreamed of coming to America and building a successful life for themselves. The "American Dream" is the idea that, through hard work and perseverance, the sky is the limit in terms of financial success and a reliable future. While everyone has a different interpretation of the "American Dream," some people use it as an excuse to justify their own greed and selfish desires. Two respected works of modern American literature, The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman, give us insight into how the individual interpretation and pursuit of the "American Dream" can produce tragic results.
The American Dream is a strong and powerful set of values that includes the chance to have an abundance of freedom, wealth, and success. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the American Dream is something everybody wants. Sometimes it takes a long journey to achieve these goals and the path taken may not be an easy one.
The American Dream started off as propaganda in order to make the American people of the early twentieth century work harder to build a successful economy. The idea of the American Dream is that every American citizen has an equal opportunity of making money along with owning a large house, some land, and having a family with kids. In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck illustrates that the American Dream, no matter how simple is impossible to achieve. As everyone has their own interpretation of the American Dream, Steinbeck uses George and Lennie, Crooks, and Curley’s Wife to demonstrate how the American Dream is impossible to achieve and how important the dream was for people so they could carry on with their lives.
The American Dream, as referred by all, speaks of the great nation – America - which upholds the notion of “equality, liberty and fraternity” and, that all men are created equal by the Creator and hence, are given equal rights for equal opportunity at success. The American Dream glorifies the nation of America as the highest Super-power in the wor...
The concept of the American Dream has always been that everyone wants something in life, no matter if it is wealth, education, financial stability, safety, or a decent standard of living. In addition, everyone will try to strive to get what they want. The American Dream, is said to be that everyone should try and get what they hope they can get in life. In the play A Raisin in the Sun the author Hansberry tells us about a family where each has an American Dream, and Hughes in the poem “ Let America be America Again “is telling us to let America be the America that was free for us to obtain The American Dream. Hansberry and Langston see America like as a place to find the dream desired, although they also see limitation to obtain the American Dream, such as poverty, freedom, inequality, racism and discrimination.
The “American Dream” is something that can affect anyone, good or bad. It creates a goal that some may be able to achieve. The American Dream is “an American social ideal that stresses egalitarianism and especially material prosperity; also the prosperity or life that is the realization of this ideal” (Merriam Webster). When the “American Dream” was first used it was in a book called “The Epic of America” written by the American historian, James Truslow Adams. When this book was written America was going through a difficult time, The Great Depression. In his book he used the “American Dream” to describe the complex beliefs, religious promises and political and social expectations (America Day Dreamer). The “American Dream” can mean many different depending on who you ask. It can be compared to many different types and styles of literature. It can go a closely along with different works of literature as well, such as “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes. Despite all of the different definitions and ideals, each American is working harder and getting closer to the goal of the “American Dream”
In the United States there is an idea many pursue called the American dream, which differs from person to person. The American dream according to americanradioworks.publicradio.org is “a revolutionary notion: each person has the right to pursue happiness, and the freedom to strive for a better life through hard work and fair ambition”. Yet it has been said there is no real definition of American dream, instead it merely proves that it has an unconscious influence in American mentality (Ştiuliuc 1). The American dream is different for each person because everyone yearns for things that will they hope will in return make them happy. Whatever that may be, each person goes through different struggles to obtain what they want. According to Frederic Carpenter, the American dream “has never been defined exactly, and probably never can be. It is both too various and too vague” (3). The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse depicts the different interpretations on what the American dream actually is through the opinions and actions of Hector Esperanza, Efren Mendoza and Mrs. Calhoun.
The American Dream seems almost non-existent to those who haven’t already achieved it. Every character in the novel has moments of feeling happy and endures a moment where they believe that they are about to achieve their dreams. Naturally everyone dreams of being a better person, having better things and in 1920’s America, the scheme of getting rich is quick. However, each character had their dreams crushed in the novel mainly because of social and economic situations and their dream of happiness becomes a ‘dead dream’ leading them back to their ‘shallow lives’ or no life at all.
With America actually being seen as the land of assurance, the American dream is usually associated with the freedom and opportunity of gaining prosperity, recognition, power, triumph, and contentment. On the surface, this dream appears virtually delighted, offering individuals the exceptional hope of accomplishing success despite of one’s race, religion, or family history. The American Dream is accurately what it seems to be the chance of perfect lying nearby the corner. However, the actual nature of this dream prohibit the pleasure of the victory one has earned, as the desire is always demanding one to work a slight harder and gain a slightly more.
Mrs. Marian Forrester strikes readers as an appealing character with the way she shifts as a person from the start of the novel, A Lost Lady, to the end of it. She signifies just more than a women that is married to an old man who has worked in the train business. She innovated a new type of women that has transitioned from the old world to new world. She is sought out to be a caring, vibrant, graceful, and kind young lady but then shifts into a gold-digging, adulterous, deceitful lady from the way she is interpreted throughout the book through the eyes of Niel Herbert. The way that the reader is able to construe the Willa Cather on how Mr. and Mrs. Forrester fell in love is a concept that leads the reader to believe that it is merely psychological based. As Mrs. Forrester goes through her experiences such as the death of her husband, the affairs that she took part in with Frank Ellinger, and so on, the reader witnesses a shift in her mentally and internally. Mrs. Forrester becomes a much more complicated women to the extent in which she struggles to find who really is and that is a women that wants to find love and be fructuous in wealth. A women of a multitude of blemishes, as a leading character it can be argued that Mrs. Forrester signifies a lady that is ultimately lost in her path of personal transitioning. She becomes lost because she cannot withstand herself unless she is treated well by a wealthy male in which causes her to act unalike the person she truly is.