Glass Menagerie
For centuries, men and women from all over the world have seen in America a place where they could realize their dreams. We each dream our own American Dream. For some it is a vision of material prosperity, for others it can be a feeling of secure and safe. It can be the dream of setting goals. It can be about social justice, as Martin Luther King Jr. gave the speech of "I have a dream", says "In spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: „We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'" We believe in the American Dream because it does not fit with any temporary contentedness, rather it brings us the power for improvement and equality. However, why does the American Dream still fall? The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is considered as the representative of the decline of the American Dream, can give us some ideas of what it is about. The Great Gatsby describes the failure of American Dream, from the point of view that American political ideas conflict with actual conditions that exist. For whereas
She insists Tom should find Laura a husband before he abandons them, fearing that Laura will wind up to be an "old maid". She is like a wounded animal, mirrors her own fears of failure. The poorly born characters in The Great Gatsby, such as James Gatz and Myrtle Wilson desire to change and to go away from the "valley of ashes". The American Dream also criticizes that it is also time for idealists to wake up to reality. Tom and Laura have a close relationship. She collects tiny glass animals, and she treasures them more than actually participating in daily contact with the public. He leaves her and achieves his American Dream. I am disappointed but I'm not discouraged. However, on the other hand he longs for the past because in the past, he had a love affair with Daisy. Laura has been so perplexed by a leg-brace throughout high school that she can neither endure secretarial school nor flirt with boys. Once he becomes rich, he moves to the opposite bay to Daisy's house just want to be near to Daisy. "(182) Popular culture thrived in this decade because of the need to escape. However, he fails to make his dream to come true in the end. Maybe we can conclude the decline of the American Dream by what Fitzgerald said in his late life, "France was a land, England a people, but America, having about it still the quality of that idea, was harder to utter V it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. In the end, it appears that Laura is finally overcoming her shyness, but as she knows Jim is engaged, she returns back to her Victrola which is also the symbol of her fantasy world.
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Acceptance Essays
