Journal #13 My Definition of the American Dream

The American Dream

Disney

To me, the American Dream is the pursual of ultimate happiness through hope and hard work. I sort of lead to this assumption by first dissecting the words "American Dream." The term American has always been interesting to me. How can we really define the term American? Sure, nowadays we define an American as any citizen of the United States, but in regards to ethnicity we do not really have one. With the exception of Native Americans, everyone has immigrate to this country at some point and the origin of the American Dream was first seen during the great influx of immigrants in the early 20th century; meaning the origin of the American Dream came from immigrants. I think that's such a powerful thing, because anyone can pursue the American Dream in America and had work has always been associated with this phrase. When looking at the word "Dream" I instantly think of Cinderella when she was singing "A Dream is a Wish." I immediately think of something that I really desire and hope to one day achieve. For a while we all start "dreaming" about what we want, but it takes actual action in order to achieve it, hence the association with hard work.

Taken from the eMaze Presentation: https://www.emaze.com/@AOZQTCCQ/The-American-Dream

When considering the American Dream in conjunction with The Great Gatsby we notice the major concept of the desire for wealth. For many, a lot of people felt like they could only achieve their dreams by getting extravagant things, which of course, cost money. I personally believe that wealth has two connotations; money and happiness. For Gatsby he first finds happiness in the wealth that he has achieved, but later begins to feel like his love for Daisy is worth more. Wealth can be achieved through many ways; through hard work, through inheritance, and sometimes even from illegal actions. All of this happened throughout the novel The Great Gatsby. I think most Americans believe that the key to achieving whatever they want is through wealth. I feel like this was especially true in the 1920's because many people believed that extravagant things helped increase their quality of life. I think that people today still hold this kind of mentality, especially during their youth, because the quality of material objects are continuing to improve every year. Each year cars are getting better and more expensive, same with cellphones, tablets, laptops, etc. and that for the most part is what a lot of teenagers want to get. Because we idolize this idea of wealth, we tend to overlook those who are stricken with poverty. A lot of negative judgments are formed and the idea of helping people is not really thought about amongst most people. I think this is really sad.

My attitude towards wealth and poverty is that both situations are extremely difficult to dealt with. With poverty you are constantly wondering what your next meal is going to be and whoever you are also providing for will get fed. With wealth you kind of heave to worry about still being humble because it is very easy to be corrupted both by material possessions and the people that you associate yourself with.