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Living Like Weasels: The American Dream

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“The quest for success propels persons along diverse life paths. Beckoning is the American Dream.” (Joseph L. DeVitis) In the essay “Living Like Weasels” by Annie Gillard, we see a comparison of the ability to abide by an instinct to a weasel’s routine living conditions to those who live a more submissive life. During the time Gillard wrote “Living Like Weasels”, Due to the essay being non-fiction the time in which Gillard wrote “Living like Weasels” is which the narrator is reflecting upon was significant (Tanemura), in addition, without the narrator’s subjective response it fails to be reality (Newberry). Annie Gillard approach to her essay forces the reader to be aware of the relationship between man-nature. The metaphorical messages that …show more content…

Those groups who are unable to access social order resembles the narrator in the story, reason being both wants to exist in “the dignity of living without bias or motive.” (Dillard) The weasel represents the American dream because “A weasel doesn't "attack" anything; a weasel lives as he's meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity.” Gillard uses the weasel as a symbol; ironically she symbolizes its use in two different ways. The weasel represents the superior ethnic group in the American dream because they are “mute and uncomprehending ” to the adversities in which inferior ethic groups who because they cant acquire more cultural capital may never be able obtain the American

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