The American Dream: Overview

(Excerpted from Literary Themes for Students: The American Dream, available in print or eBook and included in For Students Online. Free trial.)

Introduction

In 1965, "The Impossible Dream," from Man of La Mancha, a Broadway musical based on the novel "The Adventures of Don Quixote" (1604) by Miguel de Cervantes, reflected not only the undying optimism of protagonist Don Quixote, but also an ideology shared by its American audience. At a time when the fight for civil rights knocked down both social and political boundaries and the war in Vietnam was escalating, the lyrics, "To dream the impossible dream," written by Joe Darion, spoke to an individual quest and a united hope.

The notion that every man and woman in America, amid national and international chaos, could still persevere, achieve, and become successful was more important than ever. As protesters called for peace, and African Americans and women demanded equality, America was literally and figuratively reaching for the moon. As promised with the birth of the nation, Americans were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "The Impossible Dream" illustrates that deep-seated sense of entitlement and ownership of certain unalienable, constitutional rights, particularly the rights to pursue any and all opportunity, even those that seem impossible.

American history demonstrates that the reasons behind the pilgrims' escape to the New World differ from the reasons behind suffrage, or even the robber barons' controversial business practices. However, social and political motivations aside, the same American dream connected them all: the opportunity to create something from virtually nothing, to "right the unrightable wrong," to follow whatever "star" they chose. This loose interpretation of the American dream allowed a variety of manifestations, and over the centuries, though born from a group of white forefathers, the American dream has taken a multicultural, multidimensional shape. With native, ethnic, female, young, and old voices added to the mix, the American dream was challenged and ultimately began to change.

As a result, the idea of the "impossible dream" became, in some ways, exposed as the American nightmare. The myth of "equal opportunity for all" no longer held up. Once a melting pot, America seemed to be harkening back to its late nineteenth and early twentieth century history and questioning immigration practices. Women in business still kept an eye toward the glass ceiling. America's super-power came at the expense of other countries around the world. But these cracks in the American dream dogma allowed room for amendment and revolutionary action as Americans realized that more than one version of the dream, of happiness, of liberty, exists. American literature tracks the American dream's historical and ideological arc from sanctuary and settlement to rights and respect.

Birth of the American Dream

William Bradford, American forefather and one of the first Puritans to arrive in the New World, signed the Mayflower Compact in November 1620, a contract that established a government determined by the settlers. The Compact, a response to near mutiny on the ship among disgruntled Church of England members, united these "Strangers" and "Separatists," or pilgrims, in a binding pact. No one could simply do their own will or, as Bradford writes in chapter 11 in Of Plymouth Plantation, "use their own liberty." Instead, they would come together as a "Civil Body Politic," for "better ordering and preservation." This act would be for the "general good of the colony," and the American dream became a joint hope and quest for survival. John Carver, who had been appointed governor, guided the group in building homes and establishing laws, and as Bradford observes,

In these hard and difficult beginnings they found some discontents and murmurings arise amongst some, and mutinous speeches and carriages in others; but they were soon quelled and overcome by the wisdom, patience, and just and equal carriage of things, by the Governor and better part, which clave faithfully together in the main.

More than a century later, in 1776, "discontents and murmurings" arose after the British imposed new taxes and laws on the colonies. While some demanded independence from England, the Tories, or Loyalists, resisted. The Tories did not believe separating from the motherland would be beneficial. However, revolutionaries, or Patriots, rallied much of the "national" community and battled the British for their rights and territory. On July 4, 1776, after the colonists abolished the royal governments and formed locally elected legislative assemblies, the Declaration of Independence was written by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, and then signed by the members of the Second Continental Congress. This document, like the Mayflower Compact, ensured the government to be controlled by those governed yet, more importantly, established the foundation for the individual American dream:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Benjamin Franklin not only helped establish the foundation for the individual American dream but also was a model, a living example, of how to achieve the American dream. Born one of seventeen children, Franklin completed only two years of education by age ten. By age twenty-two, however, he had opened his first printing office. Through his curiosity, love of learning, and hard work, he would become a brilliant statesman, printer, scientist, inventor, and diplomat. But in his role as author, Franklin shared his views on how to achieve the American dream.

In his famous Poor Richard's Almanack, Franklin dispensed such pearls of wisdom as this:

In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them everything. He that gets all he can honestly and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted), will certainly become rich.

Franklin's notion that the only true way to wealth was through hard work became the soul of the "American dream," which naturally fed the idea that each person has the same opportunity to achieve success.

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