How can the American dream influence different people? To most people, the American dream is basically to have shelter, a job, a family, and friends. Although most people can get those examples, some take the dream to an extreme. You can become brainwashed in a way on trying to be the most popular, have the biggest house, be able to hold the best job, also having a great family, and live in a good neighborhood. Those example are still fair but they can be too much to dream of. A dream is something that makes you happy and you should not spend your whole life on trying to get a dream that is too extreme. In the book the Great Gatsby Tom is showing Nick his extravagant house, "I've got a nice place here....' He moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep roses, and a snub-nosed, motor boat." (p 11) Nick has is well off but he is not spending all of his time trying to impress other people into liking him more because!
             he has more money. Tom goes on to say that he is proud to live in the east and says, "Oh I'll stay in the East, don't you worry, I'd be a God-damned fool to live anywhere else." (The Great Gatsby, p 15) The East is where everyone wanted to live, that was the rich and popular place to be. In the West all of the new rich were there but with out connections. They envied the East and some of them spent a lot of time trying to reach the same dream of the Easterners. Based on Arthur Miller's play and Scott Fitzgerald's novel, the "American Dream is too much for most people and your whole life should not be wasted on trying to achieve the American dream.
             In the play Death of a Salesman, The American dream is too much for Willy Loman and he becomes disillusioned in a way about how you achieve the American dream. From the time the boys were going to school Willy emphasized that to achieve success a...