by Maisie Greener

By Maisie Greener

On July 4th 1776, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson constructed the Declaration of Independence. He wrote: “All Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This promise of opportunity, rooted in The Land of the Free’s history, presents the third U.S President as the architect of the American Dream, whose visions were the foundations from which democracy could grow. 155 years later, the American historian James Truslow Adams elucidated the ideology, coining the phrase ‘American Dream’ in his book ‘The Epic of America’ in which he wrote “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability of achievement.” Martin Luther King Jr also continued the definition in his ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’, writing: “We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.” This new backdrop of the civil rights movement entrenched African-Americans’ pursuit of equality in the cornerstone of American society. For my research project, I looked at: ‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller, ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ by John Steinbeck, as despite the varying socioeconomic contexts, one similarity amalgamates these four pieces of literature about the Dream: the fact it is not shown as being achievable. This, in turn, has arguably killed the American Dream. Arthur Miller’s most-celebrated play, ‘Death of a Salesman’, is constantly called upon by critics when exploring the unattainability of the American Dream. Set in the late 1940s, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning drama not only incorporates the American Dream, but other contemporary views. For example, continuing your parents’ aspirations and learning from past mistakes.

In the play, Willy Loman becomes so consumed with the need to have success and money, that he overlooks the love his sons and wife have for him. In this way, Willy loses sight of the original American Dream: the opportunity and right to be happy. Throughout the play, Willy insists that charm will grant him success, as opposed to hard work and skill, as illustrated in: “And they know me, boys, they know me

up and down New England. The finest people. And when I bring you fellas up, there’ll be open sesame for all of us, ‘cause one thing, boys: I have friends.” Here, the concluding statement “I have friends,” underscores Willy’s old-fashioned and distorted perception that reputation and respectability result in prosperity. During the play, we also see the influence Willy’s attitude has on his son Biff, but unlike his Father, Biff wakes up to the harsh reality that friendliness does not get you far. This is shown when he says “Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” Here “phony dream” highlights Biff being confronted by the truth: the Lomans are not men destined for financial success, instead they will endure prolonged working lives, but receive little recognition for it. Furthermore, in Brooks Atkinson’s 1949 review of the play, he wrote “Mr Miller has no moral precepts to offer and no solutions of the salesman’s problems.” This review proves how the visual orchestration of tragedy was the awakening Americans needed, compelling them to adjust their expectations – with Willy’s sorrowful death warning them of the alternate outcome. For this reason, the play contributed to the American Dream’s death. I also studied arguably the most prolific post-depression writer, John Steinbeck, who implemented his memories of hardship during the Great Depression in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, which concentrated on an Oklahoman family’s struggle for survival after they were evicted from their farm, in the wake of the devastating Dust Bowl crisis. During the six-year period of severe dust storms, 2.5 million inhabitants fled the Southern plains, heading West where handbills and billboards had falsely guaranteed jobs and security. To underscore the hardships faced, Steinbeck deliberately plagued the novel with biblical allusions to parallel the Joads’ tribulations with that of the Israelites and Moses. In 1901, 80% of Americans identified as Protestant, so the insinuation of the Old Testament was widely recognized. Firstly, Steinbeck used the Dust Bowl as an allusion to the desert of Egypt, from which the Israelites,

INTERMEDIATE IRP PRIZE WINNER led by Moses, were compelled to evacuate in search of the Promise Land. The second biblical allusion is of the Joads travelling West along Route 66: the destination being the fertile California. Their migration parallels the Israelites leaving the kingdom of oppression and injustice, in a quest for an improved life. This implies that the Joads had been enslaved in Oklahoma but were now liberated. The third biblical reference is later in the novel, when the Joads’ boxcar floods. This event mirrors the Genesis flood narrative where Noah was instructed to assemble an ark to conserve both his family and two of every animal. Unlike the biblical characters, the Joads had not been sinful so it is likely Steinbeck is cleansing the family, preparing them for a fresh start. The novel describes how the Joads’ American Dream was about survival. So, although the novel killed the readers’ hope of affluence, it motivated families not to surrender as the Joads defied the odds and lived. To conclude, in 2013, a YouGov poll found that when asked “Do you think that the American Dream has become impossible for most people to achieve?” 41% thought it was, 38% remained optimistic and 21% were undecided. Perhaps people’s acceptance about the unlikeliness of ‘the Dream’ has materialized from literature’s dismissal of it. Of course, there are also other components which have contributed to the pessimism surrounding the dream, for instance: the financial crisis of 2008; journalist Steven Brill believes “the movement towards corporate free speech” is to blame; the dean of Harvard Business School says “Isolationism is killing the American Dream”. The British author J.G Ballard commented:

“The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It’s over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam.” I think Ballard’s extended metaphor assesses the futility the American Dream has in society today, how its control of the public has diminished and I conclude that literature is partially accountable for the death of Jefferson’s American Dream.