How Does The American Dream Affect Society

From a young age people are raised with the ideals and values that represent the “American Dream”. Happiness and well-being do not define success; but shiny foreign cars, large houses, and the amount of money in the bank. To meet these standards that society sets, people find themselves trying show their success through material possessions and the façade that they present to others. Along the way people forget to be happy and take care of themselves, many finding themselves working themselves to death in a job that brings them nothing but misery. People feel forced into a life that was planned for them, and many times people find themselves questioning the steps in their life that brought them to where they are today. Whether the “American Dream” is the life a person would choose to live, society’s pressure to meet to standards of the “American Dream” lead to unhappiness and dissatisfaction later in life and can eventually cause people to break these norms; although the pressure in society is usually too strong for people to stray too far from these ideals. In American Beauty, Lester has everything society tells him he wants; a family, a picture-perfect house, a successful …show more content…
Drug addicts and criminals could have easily begun as a person looking for control in their life. Society puts pressure and expectations on people from the day they are born. The “American Dream” has every step of our life planned and if you don’t follow the plan, you are criticized and shunned. People feel as if they do not have control in their life, which can lead them to resent everything and everyone in their life that even slightly resemble the “American Dream”. If that resentment grows, it can lead people to rebel against society and making decisions that could lead to them losing the parts of their life they actually enjoy and/or into a never ending desire for more rebellious