American Dream

Kaylyn Flerchinger

Professor Harper

Iconic/ Ironic 9:45 AM

10 April 2013

The Contradiction That Lies Behind the American Dream

The American dream is the contradiction between the abstract ideas that a person assumes he or she will achieve in America and the concrete reality that exists in his or her life. The America dream is nothing but a vision that exists in a person’s mind, an intangible idea that can only be accomplished by what a person is capable of attaining in real life. The American dream is to live a healthy, happy life with a successful career, a loving family, and a beautiful estate in a family oriented community. While this life may exist for some people, the reality is that there is poverty, debt, abuse of drugs and alcohol, divorce, and disappointments that Americans must overcome in order to achieve this American dream. In the chapter entitled, “American Dreams,” in Creating America, Joyce Moser and Ann Watters write, “Perhaps the closest we can come is to say that the American dream represents both what Americans believe themselves entitled to and what they believe themselves capable of. In other words, it is the promise inherent in the idea of America itself.” With the specific language that Moser and Watters use, they are proposing the idea that the American dream is the irony between the abstract and concrete views of America.

Moser and Watters explain that the America dream is what people believe themselves entitled to, meaning that Americans have an expectation, an abstract idea, of what their lives should consist of. Moser and Watters also express that the American dream is what people believe they are capable of achieving, a concrete understanding of their lives. This American dream is a glorious promise that exists naturally in Americans lives, to have beliefs of what could be and what is. The American dream is the conflict between theoretical, utopian ideas and physical, actuality that each American possesses. This idea...