American Dreams Peter Carey Analysis

American Dreams written in 1974 is an anecdotal story an amusing short story set in a quite 1950s provincial town in Australia; the town resembles Bacchus Marsh the town in which the author Peter Carey grew up. The story was written in the early days of globalisation. It’s a town of the main highway which begins to attract tourists who come armed with cameras and money but it turns out they expect the townspeople to remain frozen in time, just as they were when their portraits were taken. Carey within the story demonstrates the hold that American has over Australia being that of glamour, richness and perfection. It is this told of cultural dependency that Carey demonstrates through Mr Gleason, one of his main characters’, who produces a perfect replica of the …show more content…
The variety of perspectives raised throughout the story we are likely to learn something more about ourselves. With whom do we identify in the perception of the house and a blind wall? The walls are ten feet high with broken glass and barbed wire. What images does we discount? What recollections do we evoke from our own childhood or neighbourhood? The community has become a hodgepodge of ‘eyesores’ leaving behind any image of the model on Bald Hill. As we recognise the character of Mr Gleason through the subtle description of the model town he has left behind ‘’was his hobby’’ (pg.160). It takes the arrival of the outsider asking about the walls in a deceptive matter-of-fact style explores the dangers, the problems of cultural dependency as well as the relationship between art and reality. Which creates a powerful emblem for the relationship of Australia to America. Carey’s stories contain elements of science, fiction, fantasy, fable and satire. He described the theme, as a ‘collection of ‘what if’ stories which start with an idea and develop characters to act out some peculiar