A concept that has fascinated me since the beginning of this year this been the study of the American Dream in American Literature. There are many rag to riches stories in American history, but there is a discrepancy due to the fact that more Americans fail than succeed to achieve their dream. I found time and time again humans hindering other humans, the social hierarchy preventing the freedom of social mobility and social inclusion, and the inability to assimilate with the materialistic values imposed, accepted, and expected to attain success .
From the beginning of the his novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald states that achieving the American Dream is an abortive effort: “What foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows
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This era of desperation and misfortune pitted people against each other is encapsulated in John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. In the Great Plains region The Dust Bowl coupled with The Great Depression bred inhuman business and ownership practices to survive economic hardship. Take as an example the individuals who were in charge of the banking system that collapsed during The Great Depression, who forced families that had lived for generations on farms in the Great Plains off their land to pursue and preserve their chance to achieve the American Dream. The owner man explains to the farmers in the bank the concept of borrowing money; “A bank or company can't do that, because those creatures don’t breathe air, don’t eat side meat. They breathe profit; they eat the interest money” (32). The owners rationalize their seizure of land by claiming that the bank system is not human. By comparing the bank to a monster they are able to cast aside their compassion and empathy allowing them to do immoral things to other Americans who now did not have the ability to provide for themselves let alone seek an American