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The Failure of the American Dream
What is the American Dream? From the times of the earliest immigrants, the American dream had always been explained to mean freedom of speech and religion as well as equality. ... The social change that was going on in America gave rise to the new meaning of the American Dream. Wealth, power, and social status were now prerequisites to fulfilling the American Dream. ... This idea of the American dream spawned nationwide corruption as people did whatever was necessary to fulfill it. Many authors began to write about the corruption and disillusionment of the American Dream through the literary style of realism. ... We will examine these three novels and take a look at what went wrong as these characters failed to accomplish their American Dream. ... Jay Gatsby’s dream is to obtain the only women he has ever loved, Daisy, who is already married. ... He deceived and used his wealth to try to obtain his American Dream but failed miserably and died a lonely man. ...
Another great example of how materialism causes failure is in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. He uses a young, poor, small town girl named Carrie Meeber to show how her desire for wealthy possessions led to her failure. ... Her beauty is the only thing she has going for her and it seems like this is all she needs to obtain her American Dream. ... The failure of her dream exists in the fact that she uses other people’s wealth to try to obtain the good life but in the end only leaves her distraught and unhappy. ...
A somewhat different is view is taken in Richard Wright’s Native Son to show the failure of the American Dream.
Approximate Word count = 1399
Approximate Pages = 5.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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