The American Dream

characters in the present, while simultaneously responding to different characters and different situations in the past. The result is Willy's common behavior: contradictory, somewhat angry, and often obsessive. Willy Loman is a supporter of the American dream and believes anyone can go from rags to riches. He has been able to make a living as a salesman for the past 35 years, but recently no one really tries to get in contact with him, his job is at a dead end, and he is very mentally unstable.…

afforded the simple things of life exploration, or the resources to enjoy the beauty that life offers. Since his birth, he has been on the wrong side of life tracks. He has not been able to reach his full or even partial potential to realize the American Dream. The zip code of his birth profoundly diminished his star. Even though he was raised with love by family. On occasion he seemed to hold a sadness in his heart. I surmise this is due to not having a…

misrepresentation of a powerful message “The American Dream”, this saying can be heard anywhere across the country. It is used for books, films, articles, classrooms, speeches, and many more. To most people it means anyone can have all hopes and dreams fulfilled in America. Anyone can experience true joy and the power of money. Although this statement is both powerful and motivational, very few will achieve it. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed that the dream could not be fulfilled by anyone. To…

Crime and the American Dream [ Chapter 1 and 2 ] [Ch1] By March of 2009 70 year old Bernard L. “Bernie” Madoff was sentenced to prison for 150 years for transferring money to international banks illegally. Madoff had ripped off the life of thousand of people through a Ponzi Scheme. What is a Ponzi scheme? It was named after Charles Ponzi, who made this scam popular. This scam was based on attracting investors with the agreement of big returns. They also promised investors to return their money…

The American Dream, deemed to be the greatest opportunity for prosperity and affluence in the world, and regarded by the masses as the ideal standard of living, is the quintessential lifestyle many yearn to live. However, many overlook the associating sense of delusion and deception that corresponds amongst it, resulting from the excessive fantasizing of prospective wealth, and this mindset is truly apparent in the novel, Death of a Salesman. The novel was written in 1949, the pinnacle of the…

The significance of the green light in the novel was the American Dream or the desire and envy of a goal that may be something or someone. “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.” (pg.92) Gatsby says that everyone always has something they are chasing after whether it is your dream or a goal. He also states that the green light is always there, representing the green light as an unattainable dream (future) The green light also represents the unpredictable…

largest home in America. The new American “palace” that will be known as Versailles is 90,000 square feet, it contains 13 bedrooms, 10 kitchens, a bowling alley, skating rink, spa, and more. This house is everything the family could want and embodies the fantasy dreams of most people around the world but the bigger the house gets the greater the distance between the family members both literally and figuratively. This documentary seems to be about the American Dream, rising above what you…

Chasing Pseudo Dreams: The pursuit for The American Dream in “Winter Dreams” F. Scott Fitzgerald brilliantly highlights one man’s pursuit of the American Dream in his short story “Winter Dreams.” He uses the protagonist Dexter to emphasize the shortcomings of money in America, and one’s vision of money in the 1920s. In “Winter Dreams,” Fitzgerald uses the protagonist Dexter’s unrealistic vision of the American dream to emphasize the shortcomings of the dream, which ultimately lead to Dexter’s…

A Midsummer Night’s (American) Dream Through semiotics and representation, Ellen Lauren relates the illusion of the American Dream to the conflict between reality and dreams in her 1930s interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream through the image of Puck as Charlie Chaplin. In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, by Stuart Hall, Hall explains that when a person sees an object, they can connect meaning to that object. They see the object, connect it to a concept…

Wealth has been perceived as the ultimate goal of the American dream. Americans have let the standard of wealth get in the way of more important things in life. Wealth can consume your thoughts of the definition of true love and life itself. The focus of wealth can cloud your mind to block the reality that is right in front of you. The focus of wealth can also keep you living in a façade that only ends in confusion. And the confusion could possibly be asking yourself the question: was being…