The American Dream Essay Example for Free

The American Dream Essay â€Å"The American Dream† has a few interpretations, but one of the most popular is â€Å"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness† which is the dream that most Americans strive for. In simpler terms, The American Dream is the opportunity of the pursuit of freedom, opportunity, and satisfaction of needs and wants. As Thomas Wolfe said, â€Å" to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him† (Wolfe2). This quote explains how everyone in the United States gets the right to fulfill this American Dream: to function as a member of modern day society and to pursue his or her hopes and dreams. If you come to America underprivileged or destitute, then you have the chance to turn that around through hard work and determination. As the explanation of the term states, everyone has the opportunity to achieve the American Dream, depending on how much effort they put in or how fortunate they are. In other words, some people will be able to work hard, achieve their dreams, while others will work hard, and not end up being fortunate enough to complete their goals. In most case, everyone’s American dream is not the same some people have different careers in which they would want to follow. Over time, the American Dream has changed more it is not any more talk about freedom it is more about their personal belonging and etc†¦ stuff that people would need to make their American dream come true. Four years have passed during this shot and the Depression has taken its toll. Braddock has lost his savings, can scarcely get $30 a bout and then has his license taken away after fighting with a broken hand. Work is short on the New Jersey docks and arbitrarily assigned and Jim is threatened with his starving children being handed over by their devoted mother to relatives that are more prosperous. The ultimate humiliation comes when he goes cap in hand to the gathering place of fight promoters, begging for the money to pay his utility bills. Then, in 1934, his old manager, Joe Gould, also facing penury but desperately keeping up middle-class appearances, gets him a one-off fight at the Garden, filling in after a last-minute cancellation. He is expected to lose to a promising newcomer, but he scores a surprise knockout. Because the fight is on the lower half of a card the night Max Baer humiliated world champion Primo Carnera, his performance attracts attention. Gould persuades a cynical promoter to exploit the publicity generated by this underdog and two fights later Braddock is an unlikely contender for the world title now held by Baer, the strongest puncher of his generation, a man who had killed two opponents. As we know, Braddock won. The long-standing appeal of A Raisin in the Sun lies in the fact that the familys dreams and aspirations for a better life are not confined to their race, but can be identified with by people of all backgrounds. Even though what that better life may look like is different for each character, the underlying motivation is universal. The central conflict of the play lies in Walters notion of this American dream. Walter buys into the middle-class ideology of materialism. The notion of the self-made man who starts with nothing and achieves great wealth through hard work seems innocuous enough, but the idea can become pernicious if it evolves into an idolization of wealth and power. In the beginning, Hansberry shows how Walter envies Charlie Atkins dry-cleaning business because it grosses $100,000 a year. He ignores Ruths objection to his potential business partners questionable character and dismisses his mothers moral objection to achieving his goals by running a liquor store. The liquor store is a means to an end, and Walter is desperate for his dreams to come to fruition. That same Machiavellian ethic is demonstrated when Walter plans to accept Mr. Lindners offer. Walter is not concerned with the degrading implications of the business deal. It is simply a way to recover some of the lost money. However, Hansberry challenges Walters crude interpretation of the American dream by forcing him to actually carry out the transaction in front of his son. Walters inability to deal with Mr. Lindner marks a significant revision of his interpretation of the American dream, a dream that inherently prioritizes justice and equality over money.