American Dream, Percorso

Why I selected this topic

We can consider the “American dream” as the sparkle that lights up

United States: a country made of possibilities, freedom and wealth.

It is the dream of every American becoming real, but also a dream

of hope for all the people who want to move to the USA in order to

achieve happiness and economy prosperity.

I have always been fascinated by what people were saying about

this country that seemed so perfect: movies, songs, television, all

talking about it. So what actually brought me in the USA was the

curiosity to see if all that was really true - my “American dream”

was living a year as an American thanks to a students’ exchange

programme.

What Is the American Dream? Definition and History

In the dictionary we can find two different definitions of American

Dream:

st

1 The ideals of freedom, equality and opportunity traditionally held

to be available to every American.

nd

2 A life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally

1

sought by individuals in the US.

So with the words "American Dream" we refer to the hope that

through hard work, courage, and determination, it is possible to

reach a better standard of living and economic prosperity.

The first man who popularized this catch-phrase was the historian

The epic of America.

2

James Truslow Adams in his book He defined it

“dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and

as a

fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or

achievement “ regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.

During that time the United States were suffering under the Great

Depression after the sudden devastating collapse of US stock

market prices on October 29, 1929, but that dream always

Dictionary.com

1 The epic of America,

James Truslow Adams, pp.214-215, Little Brown and

2

Company, 1931

motivated American people to go through the struggle. In fact we

can consider the “American Dream” as the national ethos of USA.

But The American Dream has long roots, indeed a lot of historians

think that the American Dream has its beginning in the Declaration

We hold these

of Independence and thanks the European settlers: “

truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they

are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that

among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness 3

” .

Once, the American Dream was an escape from the persecution and

the war, it was one of the principal reasons of emigration to

America. This country was seen like a place of opportunities for the

businessmen from other areas of the world. America has always

been a dream, a nation created by collective dreams, it is a “Gods’

chosen country” where all the inhabitants need to bring this dream

of democracy, freedom, opportunity and pursuit of happiness to the

rest of the world. But behind this patina of optimism and justice, we

can find a racist and conservative country that seems has never

grown up ideologically. Even if America is a country of descents of

immigrants and a cultural mix, there has always been racialism

against some populations. th

At the beginning of the 16 century European settlers arrived in

America in search for religious freedom but they encountered

frequent conflicts with the Native Americans who were

th th

exterminated by the white invaders. From the 17 to 19 centuries,

hundreds of thousands of African slaves came to America against

their will and after the independence of the USA from Great Britain,

they tried to reach their rights for centuries.

th

Up to the first half of the 19 century the racist attacks were mostly

directed against the immigrants of Northern and Western Europe

4

and in particular against German, Scandinavian and Irish people .

th

During the mid-19 century instead, a relevant number of Asian

immigrants moved to the United States. At the end of the 19th

century another major wave of European immigration took place,

these new immigrants were from Italy, Poland and there were a lot

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

3 .

Approximately one-third came from Ireland

4

of Jewish among them, and unlike the earlier European immigrants,

they brought along with them their culture and traditions that were

different from their European predecessors. Therefore they were

often the victims of discrimination.

The first relevant federal legislation that restricted immigration was

the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Before the opening of Ellis Island in

1892, the country’s first federal immigration station, individual

th

states used to regulate immigration on their own. During the 20

century most of the immigrants in the USA were from Eastern and

Southern Europe. The conflicts between born citizens and the new

immigrants were really high, in fact between 1889 and the early

1920s, approximately 50 – 100 lynchings a year occurred in the U.S.

By World War II, in the United States racialism extended to other

categories including disparate ethnic groups, they were from

Mexico, Japan, Asia, Philippines and a lot of refugees from Europe, in

particular Jews.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: a literary example of

The American Dream 5

“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck is a perfect example of the

th

American dream during the 20 century. In fact Steinbeck describes

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 Salinas, California– December 20,

5

1968 New York City) novelist and short story writer, served also as war

correspondent during World War II. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and of the

1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he is remembered as one of the greatest and

best-loved American writers of the twentieth century. In all, he wrote twenty-

five books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and several

collections of short stories. Steinbeck gained national recognition with Of mice

and men, published in 1937, and still one of the author’s most widely read

novels.

the American society during The Great Depression when it was

extremely difficult, if not hopeless, to achieve any kind of vertical

social mobility. Steinbeck’s view about the American Dream was

consequently pessimistic, but sadly realistic and the American

Dream, like Utopia, is found nowhere.

Steinbeck wrote the novel during the Wall Street’s collapse: when

the dollar was worthless, unemployment was so high to force

people move around a lot looking for work. As a consequence

people had few opportunities to form lasting relationships and this

forced them to live a very lonely existence.

Crooks in “Of Mice and Men”, is an African-American who

experienced loneliness and isolation in the ranch. This loneliness

and isolation Crooks faced lead to his desperate attempts to

become friends with Lennie. Crooks’ actions show that a person

needs somebody to be near him, no matter who this person is, to fill

A guy

his loneliness. Crooks expresses his loneliness to Lennie: “

goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the

guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely

an' he gets sick"

6 .

Using the word “nuts” referring to Crooks, Steinbeck describes a

racist society. In fact as an African-American, Crooks is not allowed

in the bunk house, socializing with other whites in that racist period.

Cause I'm black. They play

Crooks defines himself as miserable: "

cards in there, but I can't play because I'm Black ”. Crooks’ dream is

of being seen as equal to everyone else. He remembers his

childhood when he was used to play with white children who came

to his family’s ranch, and longs for a similar relationship with white

people again. Of mice and men,

John Steinbeck, chapter 4, Penguin Books, 2012

6 To a Mouse”:

7

Steinbeck was inspired by Robert Burns’ poem " the

“On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough

verse ” especially

highlights how the plans nicely landscaped by men and mice often

end badly and leave pain and suffering instead of the joy of

success. In fact in the story, there are plans for the realization of the

dreams, such as those of George and Lennie and their small plot of

land. Besides them, everyone has a dream, but dreams however too

difficult to realize because of various reasons, not least the

loneliness that is found constantly in the work. All the characters

are lonely in some way. Steinbeck underlines how strange it was in

that particular historical context that two men could travel together.

Everyone was forced to live in his loneliness, some because of a

personal belief, some for social conventions, but everyone in some

way was fatally affected. So George and Lennie cultivating this

relationship, seemed to escape this disarming reality and perhaps

this was the only advantage they had on others to realize their

dream.

George cradles Lennie in the dream of an idyllic future, with a house

and a land of their own, where breeding rabbits and growing plants

without having to work for others. Lennie believes and lives that

dream, a dream in which even George for a time has almost

believed, as long as the reality, pure and simple, broke it. A dream

that gradually conquers other workers in the last farm where the

couple worked for longer time: a man who has lost a hand and who

lives with an old smelly dog both useless and expendable, and a

man of color who at that time could not even live among white

men.

The story remains poised between the hope of achieving happiness

of those involved, and a growing sense of death that hovers

between the folds of the narrative, which appears and disappears

like a game of mirrors. Since the beginning of the story the reader

To a Mouse by Robert Burns was written in 1785 and published in 1786 in

7

Kilmarnock, Scotland, on July 31, 1786, as part of a collection of Burns's poems

Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.

entitled

suspects that, despite the dreams and fantasies of a quiet and

peaceful life, there is going to be a tragic end: fled after the murder

of Curley’s wife, Lennie is joined by George before falling into the

hands of the owner’s son and other laborers who want to lynch him.

They do not have the time because George, in a gesture of extreme

piety, kills his friend to spare further suffering. George’s Utopia

Dream is destroyed.

The broken Promise of the American Dream

Nowadays one of the causes of not achievement of the American

Dream is related to the inequality of wealth: In the United States,

1% of Americans have 40% of the nation’s wealth, while the 80% of

Americans hold only 7% of the wealth and the bottom 50% just the

0.5%. So we can say that the criticism of John Steinbeck can be

applied today, in this time of crisis the rich get richer and the poor

get poorer making harder any vertical social mobility.

As the economy continues to falter, the American Dream is

becoming more and more elusive, and we can say that it is under

profound economic and cultural pressure. Because of these difficult

economic times, a lot of people stop believing in the idea that

America creates the world’s future and find it harder and harder

catch to their own dreams. The American Dream is surely becoming

out of reach. “Time magazine” in an article of Karen Tumulty

Sixty percent of people believe

reported some statistics about it: “

that it has become harder to reach the American Dream than it was

for their parents’ generation; and an even greater majority — 68%

— say that it will be harder still for their children to reach the

Dream. Most of them believe America is in decline 8

” .

9

Also Hope Yen, in 12:54 PM EDT TPM News , reports that four out of

five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance

on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating

economic security and an elusive American dream. The gap

between rich and poor is widening more and more. Hardship is

particularly growing among whites, pessimism among that racial

Time Magazine March 15, 2010

8 July 28, 2013

9

group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the

highest point since at least 1987. The risks of poverty also have

been increasing in recent decades, particularly among people aged