American+Dreams+reflection

American dreams are empty. That is the lesson I took away from The Great Gatsby, but all in all, I find that there is something remarkably optimistic, hopeful, and resilient in the striving of the common American to attain his or her dreams. I opened the page with a Bono quote that I believe is especially powerful. To me, it means that being the America we all dream of is in itself an American dream. We have a feeling of pride in our country and a feeling of solidarity and righteousness in our actions that in order to really fulfill, requires the same kind of struggle that we see as being futile when we see others flounder in the face of the American dream. The images are stereotypical, rags to riches, American dream material. I used this photo of Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey because I believe they are two individuals who seem to be the very images of success in this nation. Both are represented in the media and in literature as hard working individuals who do good and have reaped the benefits for their efforts. Andrew Carnegie, famous gilded age tycoon, virtually lived out the pauper to prince fantasy that many of us have dreamed of. The next photograph is of the William Randolph Hearst castle in California. It was talked about in The Grapes of Wrath, but it is every bit as splendid and excessively decadent as the book conveyed. To many, the American dream consists of making the big bucks and then spending it on fancy cars and huge houses, which to a certain extent are the image of their vapid nature. The last photograph is of the red carpet. I personally associate the red carpet with notions like VIP, exclusivity, and being somebody. I think that to a certain extent, many people pursue the American dream to be part of the elite, to make themselves known, and to join the few who represent all that is material and at least slightly superficial in America. I used quotes from John Updike and Arnold Schwarzenegger that were simply to get the viewer thinking. I used the quote from The Great Gatsby on “being somebody” along with the red carpet, which I believe is a place reserved for the “somebodys” of society. The last quote, the final lines, from The Great Gatsby speak to a resilience in our character, which for better or worse implies that we will never give up on our dreams. If our dreams are harder to get, we don’t sit back and reconsider our goals, we simply run faster, jump higher, and reach a little bit farther even though they seem to stay just out of reach.

The Dogmas of a Democracy