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David Yauney
Leslie Biebau
English 2610
August 3, 2010
Living the Dream
Throughout the history of America there has been a dream that is almost always shared by
every citizen inhabiting the country. The dream is a little bit different for everyone, but the main idea is
the ability to make something for one’s self in America. This dream has been given as the reason for
many successes and has also been ridiculed by the people it has failed. Now, people are wondering if
the dream is a dream anymore or is it turning into a nightmare. The reality is that the dreaming country
is trying to skip forward in the dream, without doing the main part.
The American Dream first started when America first came into existence. The settlers that
moved to the new lands owned by Britain; moved there with dreams of the future. Many of these
dreams included a new life with new land and new freedoms. These dreams did not come about easily
though. The first colony to land on the American shore disappeared. The next colony established,
Jamestown, almost failed, but with the arrival of support after a long and hard winter the colony lived
on. Despite the hardships the settlers’ intents were to fulfill their dreams, so they did everything in their
power to do so. Eventually, it seemed to some of the people, who had built the land of their dreams,
that their government was trying to take their dream and replace it. The new dream was not as good as
theirs because its focus was on the king, not the people or their land. This interruption of the
“American” (it wasn’t really America just yet) dream caused some of the best dreamers to come
together and put their dream on paper and tell the imposing government how it was going to be. In
short: “We’re leaving.” (Not really a quote) Thus, we see the beginning of the American Dream: “Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” (Jefferson)
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Now that you know that the dream has been around since the beginning, what has it done
throughout history? History tells us that the dream has brought about a lot. Early on it inspired
Abraham Lincoln, a poor boy who grew up in a log cabin, to work to become one of the best presidents
the country had ever seen. Then, in the same lifetime, the dream fulfilled itself for many African
Americans, and other people with colored skin, in The Emancipation Proclamation. A little later the
dream allowed poor, thrifty, and hardworking boys such as Andrew Carnegie to ride the economic
boom, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, all the way to the top. Shortly thereafter the country
fought to preserve the dream in World War II. Then, in 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. voiced one of the
most beautiful dreams the country had ever heard. Now, we still have living proof of the dream. People
like Bill Gates, now the owner of Microsoft, who started out making and fixing computers in his garage.
These are just a few of the better known and more important instances where the American Dream
enabled people to make something for themselves.
Despite all the success with the American Dream people still blame it for things that go wrong
when they chase it. One example is in the book The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby starts out as nothing; a
poor boy with no money. Eventually, Dan Cody comes around and shows Gatsby what his dream has
made him; he even lets Gatsby sample his dream for 5 years. This is brought to an abrupt end when Dan
dies and Gatsby is left with nothing but his newfound knowledge. Gatsby uses this to eventually make
himself extremely rich, but one part is still missing. The part that is missing is the closure to the short
relationship he had, during the war, with Daisy [Buchanan]. In seeking his closure, which has to be a
marriage to Daisy, he runs across some problems: namely Tom Buchanan. Tom has already married
Daisy and isn’t about to give up his most beautiful trophy wife, so he appeals to Daisy that this is
nonsense and to tell Gatsby to go away. Daisy is split and in her grief accidentally kills someone’s wife
while driving. Her husband then, thinking that Gatsby is the person at fault, kills Gatsby and himself.
This you could say is bad for the American Dream.
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It is true that Gatsby died chasing his dream but there were some key faults with his dream.
This is not to say that your dream must be perfect in order for it to work, but it must be within reason.
First fault: his dream was stuck in the past. Gatsby was trying to relive something that had happened
and was over now. This is impossible, except through memory. The funny thing is that memory can be
close to dreams. Many people get their dreams mixed up with their memories and end up chasing
“American Memories” which eventually amount to nothing because recreating the past is impossible.
The second fault with Gatsby’s dream is that he is trying to use his dream to manipulate what someone
else does. This, as we saw earlier with Britain trying to change “America’s” dream, is bad. We are all
people and being so gives us certain abilities, like the freedom to choose on our own. As soon as you try
to make your dream apply to someone else, take your dream to Vegas, because it’s just a bet whether
or not you will succeed. This is why dreams sometimes fail the dreamers, because they have flaws that
go against recognized laws of the universe.
Another reason why a dream may not take flight is because there is a flaw with the person
having the dream. This is not to say that you must be perfect in order to achieve your dreams, but you
must remember a few things. First is hope. Without a belief or hope in the dream it will never come to
pass. This hope that is necessary is shown most beautifully in the book America Is in the Heart by Carlos
Bulosan. The title alone gives hope that you will find what you are looking for in yourself, but the
narrator, a young man who recently immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines, makes a great point.
“As time went by I became as ruthless as the worst of them, and I became afraid that I
would never feel like a human being again. Yet no matter what bestiality encompassed
my life, I felt sure that somewhere, sometime, I would break free. This faith kept me
from completely succumbing to the degradation into which many of my countrymen
had fallen. It finally paved my way out of our small harsh life, painfully but cleanly, into
a world of strange intellectual adventures and self-fulfillment.” (Heath 2363)
This is a perfect example of why hope, faith or belief is required; the faith that the boy had allowed him
to make something for himself eventually. “Eventually” leads into the next point that must be brought
up when talking about making a dream: Patience. Patience is absolutely necessary to any dream that is
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going to be made into a reality. Dreams don’t come about instantly, especially if they are long term
dreams that involve making a whole new life for yourself. Patience is shown in all dreams that are a
success. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that he voiced in Washington D.C. did not happen the next day,
nor did it happen the next year. Some would argue that we still have not fulfilled Dr. Kings dream.
Patience gives the dream time to take form and make itself. Without some time for things to change,
things aren’t going to change much. Finally, one of the most important aspects of making a dream is
work. For someone to have their dream become a reality they have to work at it. Nothing will limit or
advance the progress of your dream more than the amount of work put into it. This idea is explained
perfectly in the book When I Was Puerto Rican. The author is a girl who eventually moves from Puerto
Rico to New York. To survive in New York her mother works long hard hours in a factory, but tells her
children that she never wants them to go through what she does. She makes sure that they work hard
in school and get good grades. Her reasoning is, “Anyone willing to work hard can get ahead.” (Santiago
246) Her reasoning is perfect. This is the essence of the American Dream. In order to make something
for one’s self, you must make it and making something takes work. When the best dreamers in
“America” got together to form the first American Dream in the “Declaration of Independence” they did
not sit around and wait for it to write itself. They worked, they researched, and they argued. Thomas
Jefferson drafted many documents until he found one to his liking. Then, when he took it to the rest of
the convention they tore it apart and rewrote it until it suited everyone’s liking. Without work the
American Dream would not be American, it would still be British. And with work hope and patience are
also required.
In contrast to the beginning when the dream was so clear and employed so brilliantly; now the
dream seems to be in shambles. The country has hit a recession and is having a hard time picking itself
up, or even seeing the end. People are losing what exemplified their dream: their home, their money,
and their jobs. The dream seems to be stuck in the past when things could happen that way and often
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did. What is missing from the American dream that made this country, and has carried this country
through its entire lifetime? First, it was work and patience, now its hope. With the invention of the
credit card and living in a “now” world all linked together through the internet and other wireless
communications things never seemed better. Then, people saw Horatio Alger’s “rags to riches” stories
stamped on their credit cards and forgot patience and work altogether. Why work for your fortune and
wait to build it up when you can make it through a piece of plastic? This was all great until the bill came.
Now the bill is due and it must be paid and people are losing hope. Where do you go? The dream is
gone. There is no hope, no work, and patience is out of the question because every second we wait
more people lose work. Now is the time to let our memories shape, and not control our dreams.
Looking to the past will give us an outline as to what we want: “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness.” Now all there’s left to do is have faith in our dream and work for it and with patience the
dream will happen. But, what is the dream? That is the best part, it is American you can make it
whatever you want.
Throughout the history of America there has been a dream that is almost always shared by
every citizen inhabiting the country. The dream is a little bit different for everyone, but the main idea is
the ability to make something for one’s self in America. This dream still persists in America through the
people who believe in it. As soon as there is nothing left supporting the dream the dream will be
history. History will never forget this period in time if we forget the dream.
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Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Great Gatsby
Heath, The Heath Anthology of American Literature
Santiago, Esmerelda, When I Was Puerto Rican
Jefferson, Thomas (and other founding fathers), “The Declaration of Independence”. 1776