The frontier has long been an important part of mythic American ideology as a space with untapped resources offering the potential for social mobility. This thesis looks at writing representing the three types of frontiers identified by Lucy Lockwood Hazard to demonstrate how this boundary between the “civilized” and “savage” actually reveals the instability and inaccessibility of the American Dream. Francis Parkman’s The Oregon Trail is one of the quintessential narratives about the geographical frontier; while deeply racist and sexist, it manifests doubts about the rhetoric of inhumanity attributed to indigenous populations. The industrial frontier’s creation of exploitative factory structures that were then translated into domestic spaces is illustrated by William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. The canonical novel speaks to the inability of the poor to achieve social mobility and the reemergence of social hubs as the space of opportunity. Finally, Jade Chang’s 2016 debut novel, The Wangs vs. the World, works to completely reframe the frontier genre by positing characters of color as protagonists, resisting their typical location on the “savage” side of the frontier binary. Chang uses the concept of the spiritual frontier to foreground the difficulties minorities face in order to be accepted into white society. The instabilities manifested by each of these frontiers ultimately point to the ways in which the American Dream has historically been an escapist impossibility and inflicted violence on women, lower classes, and people of color.

In an interview conducted by Matthew C. Roudané, Arthur Miller elaborates on the extent the myth of the American Dream infuses our literature: “The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out—the screen of the perfectibility of man. Whoever is writing in the United States is using the American Dream as an ironical pole of his story” (374). Suzan-Lori Parks is no exception to this rule. In her Pulitzer-Prize winning Topdog/Underdog, Parks reveals the illusory nature of the American Dream on a private, deeply personal level by focusing her drama on two brothers living in one under-furnished room in a rooming house. As the audience watches the main characters spiral into their tragic undoing, we are forced to question the validity of the American Dream and our free-enterprise system that supposedly enables that dream.

This thesis aims to explore how the idea of American Dream is presented in White Noise, how the Dream is represented as ¡§American magic,¡¨ and how eventually it turns into ¡§American dread,¡¨ the ultimate American nightmare. In Chapter One, I provide a brief historical survey on the concept of the American Dream, the idea that mainly shaped the American nation in history. I turn to Jim Cullen¡¦s The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation and Andrew Delbanco¡¦s The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope to explore how the idea of the American Dream changes through the course of American history as well as construct a historical background of the American Dream. Chapter Two explores how the American Dream in White Noise is exposed and transformed into what DeLillo terms in the novel as the ¡§American magic¡¨ via the novel¡¦s extreme emphasis on the issue of mass media, the operation of simulated magic. First, I briefly analyze the American Dream succeeded in White Noise based on my survey of the American Dream in the previous chapter. Reading DeLillo¡¦s ¡§American magic¡¨ as the simulated dream in White Noise in light of Baudrillard¡¦s theory of simulacra and simulation, I argue that White Noise is in fact a novel based on the critique of the American Dream due to the falsehood of the protagonists¡¦ American Dream televised through media and consumer culture. In Chapter Three, by recalling the novel¡¦s emphasis on the protagonists¡¦ fear of death, I aim to examine the true reason for such fatal fear. While many may read White Noise simply as a postmodern representation of man¡¦s uncontrollable natural fear of death, I examine the connection of this major theme of fear towards death to DeLillo¡¦s American magic and point out the possibility of American magic acting both as a cause and reinforcement of this fear as well as relating it to the larger issue of DeLillo¡¦s ¡§American dread¡¨ ¡Xa portrayal of the American Dream and magic brought to its extremity and stirred towards a possible apocalyptic end.

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 two narrative modes, and using the concept of the self as defined by Lacan, I will illustrate the trappings of the novel's construction, its emphasis on verb and the form of rising action, conflict, climax and resolution (what I call "the tyranny of the plot") to the sublimation of character. In foregoing character for plot, Yezierska's novels caricature Jewish identity in a way which ultimately engenders and reinforces Jewish stereotypes and also Jewish self-hatred. However, I will also argue that Yezierska's autobiography resists capitalism's master narrative of the American Dream in ways that her fiction simply does not and cannot. Not only is Red Ribbon on a White Horse under-studied, but the lack of any real comparative study between any immigrant fiction and immigrant autobiography is surprising. While many have theorized immigrant autobiography, there are few studies which have tried to understand the very real differences in these two modes.

In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, the ‘new normal’ left many Americans deflated after losing their financial savings and general confidence in the political system. There is a growing movement saying the traditional path to the American Dream is no longer satisfying. From coast to coast families are moving from sleepy towns to so-called ‘intentional communities’ in search of alternatives. They are building new lives in spiritual enclaves, nudist havens, eco-wonderlands and other unorthodox societies while seeking like-minded souls and a better way of making a living. Although they don’t often reflect the traditional lifestyle of most citizens, they do represent the widespread frustration with the status quo. The United States has long been a safe haven for these nonconformists and continues to attract those seeking escape from the mainstream each year. Intentional communities throughout Texas and the U.S. are flourishing despite harsh economic times elsewhere. This report documents daily life in three intentional communities during 2011 and 2012, all focused on achieving their individual goals of environmental protection, building community bonds, and achieving spiritual enlightenment. / text

This thesis examines the ways in which American Idol producers rely on the white, Christian, heterosexual, middle-class, Americanness of contestants’ bodies and identities to advance the show’s American Dream narrative. When contestants do not meet all four of the components of Americaness, producers highlight some aspects of the contestants’ identities while hiding other truths about who they are. Additionally, those contestants who are able to adhere simultaneously to their producer-constructed personas while also asserting their individuality tend to fair best in the competition. / text

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis focuses on the long-established interrelation between spatial and social mobility in the American context, the result of the westward movement across the frontier that was seen as being attended by the promise of improving one’s social standing – the essence of the American Dream. The focal texts are F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again (1940), journey narratives that all present geographical relocation as necessary for social progression. In discussing the novels’ depictions of the itinerant characters’ attempts at attaining the American Dream, my study draws on Peter Brooks’s theory of narrative dynamic, a theory which contends that the plotting operation is a dynamic one that propels the narrative forward toward resolution, eliciting meanings through temporal progression. This thesis seeks to analyse the relation between mobility and narrative by applying Brooks’s theory, which is primarily consolidated by means of nineteenth-century texts, to the modernist moment. It considers these journey narratives in view of new technological developments and economic conditions, underpinned by the process of globalisation, that impact upon mobility. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis konsentreer op die onderlinge verband tussen ruimtelike en sosiale mobiliteit in die Amerikaanse konteks, synde die gevolg van die weswaartse beweging oor grense en grondgebiede heen wat oënskynlik aangevuur was deur die belofte van ’n beter sosiale stand – die kern van die Amerikaanse Droom. Die soeklig val in die besonder op F. Scott Fitzgerald se The Great Gatsby (1925), John Steinbeck se The Grapes of Wrath (1939) en Thomas Wolfe se You Can’t Go Home Again (1940), welke drie reisverhale almal geografiese hervestiging as ’n vereiste vir sosiale vooruitgang voorhou. In die bespreking van hoe dié romans die rondreisende karakters se strewe na die Amerikaanse Droom uitbeeld, put my studie uit Peter Brooks se teorie van narratiewe dinamiek, wat aanvoer dat die intrigefunksie dinamies is en die verhaal voortstu na ontknoping, terwyl dit deur middel van temporele progressie betekenis ontsluit. Hierdie tesis ontleed die verhouding tussen mobiliteit en die narratief deur Brooks se teorie, wat hy hoofsaaklik deur interpretasie van 19de-eeuse tekste gevorm het, op die modernistiese tydsgewrig toe te pas. Dit besin dus oor hierdie reisverhale teen die agtergrond van nuwe, globalisasie-gegronde tegnologiese ontwikkelings en ekonomiese omstandighede wat mobiliteit beïnvloed.

abstract: This study examines the identity development of young women in the context of an urban high school in the Southwest. All of the participants were academically successful and on-track to graduate from high school, ostensibly ready for “college, career and life.” Life story interviews were co-constructed with the teacher-researcher. These accounts were recorded, transcribed and coded for themes related to identity development. The narrative interviews were treated as historical accounts of identity development and, simultaneously, as performances of identity in the figured world of the urban high school. The interviews reflected the participants’ ability to create a coherent life story modulated to the context of the interview. Generally, they used the interviews as an opportunity to test ideas about their identity, or to perform an ideal self. Several key findings emerged. First, while content and focus of the interviews varied widely, there was a common formulation of success among the participants akin to the traditional “American Dream.” Second, the participants, although sharing key long term goals, had a diverse repertoire of strategies to achieve their goals. Last, schooling, both informal and formal, played different roles in supporting the women during this transition from childhood to adulthood. Results indicate that multiple pathways exist for students to find success in US high schools, and that the “college for all” narrative may limit educators’ ability to support students as they create their own narratives of successful lives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Psychology 2016

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2016-06-21T11:50:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 1337450 bytes, checksum: e3fe65ca349fb0f55797ab50469a23b7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-21T11:50:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 1337450 bytes, checksum: e3fe65ca349fb0f55797ab50469a23b7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-17 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Willy Loman, the protagonist of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) is a simple, flawed, middle class salesman. Can a common man such as Willy Loman be considered as a tragic hero? Does tragedy still exist in modern drama? Could the dark side of the “American dream” be the external flaw that provoces Loman’s fall? The objective of studying Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is focused on the possibility whether the protagonist, Willy Loman, can be considered a tragic hero. This study consists of a literary and historical perspective and is of a qualitative-descriptive character. The problem focuses on the question: what could be the influence, or rather, the illusion of the “American dream” that causes Willy’s tragic fall? This study is constructed by three cornerstones: first, the analysis of drama and tragedy from the perspective of Aristotle’s theory; second, the analysis of social drama and ultimately, the historical and literary perspective of the concept of the “American dream” as a reason for Willy Loman’s fall. The results of this study indicate that Death of a Salesman is not a period piece and that this play highlights issues from the past that are still current. It is noticed that Willy Loman meets his inglorious end because he is fooled and deluded by the “American dream”. The development of tragedy, culminating in modern social drama, indicates that a common man can be tragic, exactly because of the fact that Willy is an ordinary human being, which even more provoces feelings such as fear and pity, once what happened to him can happen to anyone of us. / A Morte de um Caixeiro-Viajante (1949) de Arthur Miller tem como protagonista Willy Loman, um simples vendedor fracassado da classe média baixa. Um homem comum como Willy Loman pode ser considerado como herói trágico? Existe ainda tragicidade no drama moderno? Seria o lado sombrio do “sonho americano” a falha trágica externa para a queda de Loman? O objetivo do estudo da peça de Arthur Miller, A Morte de um Caixeiro-Viajante, está centrado na possibilidade do protagonista, Willy Loman, ser considerado um herói trágico. Esta é uma pesquisa que abrange a perspectiva históricoliterária, bibliográfica e de carater qualitativo-descritiva. A problemática trabalhada centra-se na questão: qual seria a influência, ou melhor, a ilusão, do “sonho americano” que provoca a queda trágica de Willy? O estudo é desenvolvido sob três frentes: em primeiro lugar, a análise da dramaticidade e tragicidade sob a ótica da teoria de Aristóteles; em segundo lugar, a análise do drama social e, finalmente, a perspectiva histórico-literária do conceito do “sonho americano” como uma razão para a queda de Willy Loman. Os resultados do estudo apontam na direção de que A Morte de um Caixeiro-Viajante não é uma peça de época, e que esta peça ressalta questões do passado, ainda atuais. Percebe-se que Willy Loman encontra seu fim inglório porque é enganado e iludo pelo “sonho americano”. O desenvolvimento da tragédia culminando no drama social moderno mostra que um homem comum pode ser trágico, pois, o fato de Willy ser um ser humano comum, provoca sentimentos tais como terror e piedade, e estes ficam maiores, uma vez que aconteceu com ele pode acontecer a qualquer um de nós.

Exploring the theme of Diaspora, this paper is an accompanying document for the documentary, A Dream Lost in Dream. It sheds light on the purpose, and process of producing this documentary. The main purpose for the production of this documentary has been described as initiation of healthy and casual dialog between diverse populations in America. It emphasizes the importance of creating visual media targeting masses rather than the elite. It is argued that it can act as a tool of awareness, reducing anxiety in the society. It also embarks on the production journey of the documentary A Dream Lost in Dream. The film is a portrayal of an East Indian immigrant struggling between economic survival, family issues and passion to fly.