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James Truslow's Definition Of The American Dream

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James Truslow (1931) in The Epic of America describes the American Dream as a “dream of land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement...” Truslow’s definition of the American Dream is not concrete, and its complex meaning can vary from person to person, for example as financial security or freedom, education and the improvement of one's intellectual or physical abilities, or at the minimum, the ability to search for such a thought of a dream to exist in this country. Though, the quote by Truslow (1931) also seems to be a paradox within itself, because if everyone fulfilled their American Dream, the population as a whole has not gained any ground to achieve “the one” American Dream. This American Dream would no longer be an achievement if everyone could succeed, its value would decrease equal to that of a dollar bill re-printed to create a billion. The American Dream is attainable to anyone who seeks it, but not everyone can triumph in the task. Numerous authors within the 18th and 19th …show more content…

But Truslow’s dream cannot reached by everyone, as supported by the multiple deaths in the Gothics by Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. But the American Dream does become a reality to some in this country, as with Frederick Douglass, and Jay Gatsby. Though the definition of the American Dream varies from each individual, again as with Jay Gatsby, for he achieved the dream of the many, but not of his own, which was to be with whom he loved. The Declaration of Independence provided a basis for the theme and meaning of Truslow’s with the quote “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, and though some never fully achieve a life of perfection, and the liberty to be themselves, the pursuit of happiness is a near guaranteed right to everyone who strives for

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