Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in American Studies
American Performance: Artistic Experience And The American Dream, Savannah M. Barrow
American Performance: Artistic Experience And The American Dream, Savannah M. Barrow
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The American Dream was first epitomized by Benjamin Franklin in his Autobiography (1791), in which he instructs his fellow citizens on how to procure the American promises of social mobility and economic prosperity. However, the moral and social performances reinforced by Franklin’s recipe-for-success promote an ideological system that prevents marginalized communities such as women, immigrants, and people of color, from procuring the Dream’s most foundational features. Inequitable access to the Dream is a theme revisited throughout American literature, wherein disenfranchised characters consume the aspirational narrative of American social mobility through art, media, and propaganda. This essay tracks the representation of …
The Significance Of The Automobile In 20th C. American Short Fiction, Megan M. Flanery
The Significance Of The Automobile In 20th C. American Short Fiction, Megan M. Flanery
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Midcentury American life featured a post-war economy that established a middle class in which disposable income and time for leisure were commonplace. In this socio-economic environment, consumerism flourished, ushering in the Golden Age of the automobile: from 1950 to 1960, Americans spent more time in their automobiles than ever before, and, by the end of the decade, the number of cars on the road had more than doubled. While much critical attention has been given to the role of the automobile in American novels, less has been given to its role in American short stories. The automobile has been featured …
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 …
The American Dream, Micronationalisms, And The Three Part National Identity As Presented By Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Brianna J. Doucet
The American Dream, Micronationalisms, And The Three Part National Identity As Presented By Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Brianna J. Doucet
English Department Theses
Hunter S. Thompson was a pioneer in Gonzo journalism, a writing style that fictionalized journalistic reporting through first draft, no editing publication. This unique writing style, coupled with Thompson’s personal collective identity based on Sedikides and Brewer’s three-part identity allowed for Thompson to draft a model for the three-part American identity based in the American dream. Throughout his career Thompson sought to find the American dream but what he found instead was the death of decency in America and the rebirth of the American dream through a whitewashed lens. The thesis paper explores three-parts of American identity, the American dream, …
Generational Dream: First Generation American Citizens And Their Relationship To The American Dream, Anna A. Mintz
Generational Dream: First Generation American Citizens And Their Relationship To The American Dream, Anna A. Mintz
Honors Theses
The term the "American Dream" was coined in 1939 by James Truslow Adams and has undoubtedly become an integral part of the American ethos. This narrative has brought thousands of immigrants to American shores with the promises of prosperity and success for centuries. Yet in 2014, it must be questioned whether this dream still holds significance for the young people of this country. By studying first-generation American citizens, whose parents did not grow up here, it can be ascertained how relevant this narrative still is and the sort of power that it retains. The following research describes my interactions with …
The Reciprocal Reshaping Of The American Dream And American Religion, Samir S. Gupte
The Reciprocal Reshaping Of The American Dream And American Religion, Samir S. Gupte
Master of Liberal Studies Theses
Religion has played an important role in the creation and dissemination of the idea now called the American Dream since the discovery of the North American continent. The first iteration of the American Dream manifested in the sixteenth century as a Return to Eden. The next phase was best represented by the Puritan quest for freedom of religion. In the eighteenth century, independence was the object of the American Dream. This was supported by the First Great Awakening. The nineteenth century American Dream can be characterized as opportunity as evidenced by immigration, westward migration, and the growth of commercial enterprise. …
How To Get From Here To There: Poetic Connections In Tracy Letts's "Man From Nebraska," "August: Osage County," And "Superior Donuts.", Deborah Ann Kochman
How To Get From Here To There: Poetic Connections In Tracy Letts's "Man From Nebraska," "August: Osage County," And "Superior Donuts.", Deborah Ann Kochman
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
In this thesis, Kochman examines the textual references to poetry in contemporary playwright Tracy Letts's "Man from Nebraska," "August: Osage County," and "Superior Donuts" and explores how specific references function as a "poetic exchange" between the protagonists and the respective agents of change or moral touchstones in each play and how these "poetic exchanges" suggest a diminishment or elevation of the intrinsic value of art -- specifically, poetry -- as a force for personal and cultural renewal. While Letts's writing is hardly "poetic" and his structure closer to "narrative," he focuses on "the repressed" - both emotionally and socially --and …
The Tyranny Of Plot: Anzia Yezierska's Struggle To Free The Voices Of Her Community Through The Autobiographical Self, Kristie Kelly Dowling
The Tyranny Of Plot: Anzia Yezierska's Struggle To Free The Voices Of Her Community Through The Autobiographical Self, Kristie Kelly Dowling
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
This thesis explores the very different ways that both the novel and autobiography mediate individual and group identities by comparing Anzia Yezierska's novel Salome of the Tenements to her autobiography Red Ribbon on a White Horse. Yezierska's texts establish the inherent difference between the novel and autobiography in that her novels contribute to the dominant ideology by colluding with the capitalist narrative of individualism while her autobiography resists that very narrative. In calling forth the multiple voices of her community, her autobiography reveals, in a series of metatextual comments, the fictional nature of the self and autobiography. Comparing these …
Sorting Out The American Dream - The Short Stories Of Raymond Carver, Matt Williams
Sorting Out The American Dream - The Short Stories Of Raymond Carver, Matt Williams
Honors Theses
As Robert Stone says of his friend and his friend's work, "People will always want to read him to get an insight into the life and art of the late-twentieth century America ... he will stand high" (Halpert 131), Carver's life and work started out in the "rag and bone shop of the heart" (Nesset 103). He started out telling us about the hardships and misfortunes that go along with being not only an American, but human. Carver showed us the darker side of the American experience, but with it, showed us that with time, hope can triumph. "Reaching deep, …