"The American Dream" is an expression familiar to all Americans and the realization of the American Dream is tied closely to homeownership (Clinton, 1995). The recent financial crisis, with the housing and financial markets at levels not seen since the Great Depression, has resulted in widespread unemployment, continually dropping home prices, escalating home foreclosures, and tightened lending standards. Significant changes in the home buying behavior of Americans since the start of the crisis are clear but it is not clear if overall perceptions of homeownership have become more negative in the wake of this catastrophe (Joint Center for Housing Studies [JCHS], 2011). Might the marriage of homeownership and the American Dream be a thing of the past? The echo-boomer generation (defined as those born after 1980) comprises the largest group of Americans ever to reach their twenties���peak household formation years. They will play a critical role in the face of American housing in the years to come (JCHS, 2011). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether homeownership remains a goal for members of the echo-boomer generation. The population of interest for this study was college students in the United States who are members of the echo-boomer generation. A chain-referral sampling technique resulted in a non-random sample of 256 participants, ranging in age from 18 to 21. Participants were predominantly white non-Hispanic, single females who rented their residences. Most were undergraduate students representing 35 majors. An on-line questionnaire was used that included both closed and open-ended questions grouped around four primary research questions. (1) Do members of this population view homeownership as a safe investment? Simply put, yes. When asked directly, most participants responded "very safe" or "somewhat safe." Stepwise logistic regression was used to explore the predictor variables for this response. Predictor variables with p<.05 included participants��� expectation of the future direction of housing prices and of the economy, their preferred housing tenure, and whether homeownership was part of their own definition of the American Dream. (2) What is the preferred housing tenure form amongst members of this population? A large majority of participants indicated that they preferred homeownership to renting. Logistic regression analysis suggested strong association between preferred housing tenure and whether the participants viewed homeownership as a safe investment, as well as their belief about which housing tenure form made the most sense for them, and the adequacy of their income. (3) Is Homeownership in the Future Plans of College Student Echo-Boomers? The answer to this question was an emphatic yes. Ninety-three percent of current renters claim future plans to own their homes and 58% of current owners say that they will never rent. Logistic regression (p<.05) found that respondents' current tenure form and tenure preference, as well as their belief in the safety of investment in homeownership were predictors of future housing tenure intentions. (4) Do members of this population view homeownership as part of the "American Dream?" When asked explicitly whether owning a home is part of their own personal American Dream, a large majority of of respondents said yes. Logistic regression analysis found that predictors of this view (p<.05) included expectations of rent prices, age, preferred tenure form, and whether participants saw homeownership as a safe investment. This study was grounded in a social constructionist theoretical framework. Among the social constructions of housing is a deep-seated preference for homeownership as the ideal tenure form. Everyday discourse serves to accentuate the positive aspects of homeownership along with the negative aspects of renting (Gurney,1999). In spite of a deep financial crisis and the heightened role of housing in it, homeownership seems to continue as the preferred housing tenure form among the echo-boom generation. Importantly, homeownership as the embodiment of the American Dream seems to have been unaffected by the crisis. / Graduation date: 2012

This paper analyses Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman. The main focus is on the theme American Dream and its influences on the characters. Classical Marxism and Althusser’s Marxist theory have been used as the theoretical framework for this paper to answer the questions: In which ways has the American dream as a concept of happiness and financial success affected the characters? Can the American dream and capitalism be blamed for the Loman family’s situation? The conclusion drawn after studying Miller’s play is that the material side of the American dream can be identified as the dominant in the play and it has more negative effects than positive ones on the Lomans, the effects are both mental and physical. Despite the negative effects of the American dream and capitalism on the characters in Miller’s Death of a Salesman, one cannot blame them for the Loman family’s situation. It is the individuals (characters) that must be blamed because everyone can independently in a democratic and free society make their own choices. For that reason, people have to stand up for their actions and take responsibility for the consequences of their choices and actions whether the consequences are good or bad. Hence, the problem in Miller’s play is not so much about ideological influences as it is about self-awareness.

This paper examines the feminist perspective in Didion’s collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Throughout the text, Didion looks closely at the West and the changing social climate which surrounds her. Her essays chronicle women struggling to find a balance between the domestic and independence promised by myth the West. I analyze how women are granted only limited participation within the American Dream because of the masculine power structures which dominate our society. As the values of the American Dream shift, the women that Didion depicts attempt to find identity and independence despite the restrictive forces around them.

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.

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

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.