Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
American Dream Gone Wrong: Patricia Highsmith’S Dark Suburban Domesticity, Katie Liggett
American Dream Gone Wrong: Patricia Highsmith’S Dark Suburban Domesticity, Katie Liggett
Honors Projects
This thesis explores how Patricia Highsmith’s novels, The Blunderer and Deep Water, critique the American suburbs and show how the American Dream is more of a fantasy, than a realistic goal that people can achieve. Her novels reveal how the American dream becomes unattainable, or one’s pursuit of it somehow goes wrong, leaving their lives unfulfilled and them resentful. Furthermore, I argue that the American Dream, itself, goes wrong for some individuals, and the pursuit of this unrealistic Dream can lead individuals to trouble in their personal or professional lives. Ultimately, through my analysis of Highsmith’s texts, it becomes …