The American Dream, Part 1

For the past few years, I have been teaching American Literature and asking students to view the works of literature through the lens of the American Dream. Cullen, in the article that we read, describes the American Dream as "a kind of lingua franca, an idiom that everyone- from corporate exectuives to hip-hop artists- can presumably understand" (6), and I fully agree with this assessment. For proof that the idea of the American Dream is as much alive today as it has been at any point throughout history, we need only look to the fact that, when I asked both of my American Literature Honors classes to discuss the American Dream, every student in the class seemed to know immediately and instinctively what was meant by such an idea.

That being said, as we explore the American Dream in greater depth, I expect that it will become very clear that this idea is certainly one that is not easy to define- at least on any simple level. It seems to be an idea that is different for each individual, and that one of the central elements of this complex and elusive abstraction is that each person is free to identify his or her own version of the American Dream. Your American Dream might be different from mine, at least in terms of the specific details, and if you brought a thousand individuals into a room, each one might have his or her own ideas of what the American Dream means to them. For this reason, defining the American Dream is no simple task: Cullen even suggests that "the American Dream would have no drama or mystique if it were a self-evident falsehood or a scientifically demonstrable principle" (7). In other words, perhaps the most powerful aspect of the American Dream is its elusive nature and lack of simple definition.

As we read our literature this year, I expect that we will meet a fascinating cast of characters in each work, each with his or her own version of the dream. Each character will have his or her own ideas about whether or not the Dream is achievable, which begs us to question the veracity of the Dream. As we interact with John Proctor, Hester Prynne, Nick Carroway, Jay Gatsby, Tim O'Brien, Janie Starks, Walter Lee Younger, Willy Loman, and a host of other unforgettable characters, we will constantly be assessing our own ideas of the Dream and bouncing the ideas we hold sacred about the American Dream off of them. Expect your ideas of the meaning of success, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be placed into question and redefined many times this year. It should be fun.