Thomas Fogarty’s The American dream perfectly portrays the traditional perception of the American Dream during the Modernist Era. It is focused on a white, well-off, heterosexual couple and their young male heir in a pastoral setting. This is the life that was thought to be the most satisfying during the early 1900’s in the U.S. Particularly, the lifestyle thought to bring about the most happiness was a productive, family-focused, rural one which adhered to traditional gender roles, was free from desire, and kept the family isolated from the corruption of the city.Though some people were able to attain this picture-perfect life, that was a select and minuscule group. The majority of Americans, as is explored more deeply in the other segments of the American Dream section of this site, were oftentimes unable to even participate in the pursuit of this dream yet were constantly influenced and inspired by it.
Fogarty, Thomas. The American dream. 1890-1938. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC. ARTstor. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
This segment aims to illustrate the fact that even the most privileged Americans were rarely able to attain the satisfaction that the Dream promised. It is possible that the American Dream had been more attainable is earlier eras, but with the rise of consumer culture due to the expansion of advertisement during the early 1900’s, a new standard of expendable, visible, material wealth became necessary to signal one’s attainment of the Dream. As a result of consumerism, it seems, those who would have previously been happy with what they had achieved, were disappointed by the lack of satisfaction they felt after attaining various parts of the Dream. Even if one was a white male, in order to achieve any level of wealth, they would have to find work in the city, forcing them to leave their families or expose their families to the potentially corrupting urban environment and leave the rural setting which they viewed as the setting of a happy life. If one was a wealthy white male, he still had to find a respectable, submissive wife with whom to have children at move to the more “wholesome” countryside in order to be viewed as successful. Once all of this was achieved, it was necessary to portray one’s success which was only possible through engaging in consumerism that was thought to corrupt the family structure. Ultimately, then, it became nearly impossible to achieve satisfaction through the pursuit of the American Dream even for the most privileged Americans. Only once one slowed consumption and increased meaningful productivity, it seems, could the American Dream be realized.
Historical Documents
James Truslow Adams’ “What of the ‘American Dream’?”
This article provides a detailed perspective of what a great number of Americans during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s considered the American Dream to be all about. Adams compiles opinions from various letters he has received from his readers and uses these to inform his detailed description of the American Dream. He goes on to discuss the idea that this dream has undergone a tremendous shift while he has been away in Europe and now is influenced and weakened by consumerism. While the shift he speaks of most likely did not occur over such a short period of time, Adams’ account reveals that there has been a reorganization of priorities in U.S. culture during his lifetime and that this reorganization is perceived to be due to the rising consumer culture. Productivity, Adams concludes, is the key factor of the American Dream which has been replaced and is causing such feelings of disappointment and doubt. This article, then, provides historical evidence of a shift in the concept of the American Dream due to consumerism which is used to explain a lack of satisfaction among otherwise successful people.
Adams, James T. “What of the “American Dream”?” New York Times 14 May 1933: n. pag. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.Dorothy Parker’s “Such a Pretty Little Picture”
This short story describes a newly formed family which, to outsiders, seems to epitomize success and happiness. However, the thoughts of the father and the back-handed comments of his wife reveal the truly unsatisfied state they inhabit. Overall, the story serves to illustrate the vast amounts of unhappiness that accumulate despite the seeming perfection of the family. Though the father has a popular wife, a well-behaved daughter, a reliable job, a new home, and enough wealth to employ servants, he is plagued by inadequacy. He is not handy enough to gain his wife’s approval, he feels no love for his wife or daughter, he is unable to earn enough money to care for a second child, and he has yet to pay off the house which would allow him to take control of his life and leave the family which continuously emasculates him. In this way, the story provides an illustration of the impossibility for privileged men of attaining satisfaction by pursuing the American Dream. Eventually the futility of the pursuit causes the father to want to abandon it altogether. The most depressing detail of the story, however, is that the American Dream of attaining and maintaining respectability is so enticing to the father that he cannot bring himself to give up the aspects of his life which prevent him from achieving real happiness.
Parker, Dorothy. “Such a Pretty Little Picture.” 1922. Complete Stories of Dorothy Parker. Ed. Colleen Breese. New York: Penguin, 1995. 3-12. Print.Literary Criticism
John Callahan’s “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Evolving American Dream: The ‘Pursuit Of Happiness’ In Gatsby, Tender Is The Night, And The Last Tycoon”
Callahan uses Fitzgerald’s various pieces as well as biographical materials and letters to explain the ways in which the American Dream failed both the author and his characters. He explains that Jay Gatsby’s unwavering pursuit of his romantic ideals reflect the pursuit which Fitzgerald and so many other privileged men maintained in the vain, self-destructive attempt to claim the Dream for themselves. The pursuit is futile because it, along with their conceptions of the American Dream and happiness, are “obsessive and absolute” (376). It is only after Fitzgerald realizes, like his character Monroe Stahr of The Last Tycoon, that the Dream is not a “personal matter” or a “nostalgic, romantic possibility” but a “defining characteristic of the American nation and its people” that he is able to live happily (378). Callahan defines the American Dream as the pursuit of happiness (379). Once Fitzgerald recognized the truth of this, Callahan continues, he was able to abandon the romantic pursuits and consumerism which had formerly defined the Dream for him and focus on his true aspiration of becoming a great writer by telling the story of Americans’ pursuit of happiness. By following his aspirations in a productive manner, Fitzgerald was able to attain a level of satisfaction in the final days of his life which he had not been able to find at any other time. Thus, once one navigates Callahan’s dense synthesis and criticism, a cache of evidence of the damning effects of consumerism and uncritical romanticism is revealed. Moreover, this text supports the argument that productivity was and continues to be the way in which one could actually achieve satisfaction through the pursuit of the American Dream.
Callahan, John F. “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Evolving American Dream: The ‘Pursuit Of Happiness’ In Gatsby, Tender Is The Night, And The Last Tycoon.” Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly And Critical Journal 42.3 (1996): 374-395. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 1 Dec. 2014.
Jane Nardin’s “Homosexual Identities in Willa Cather’s ‘Paul’s Case'”
Though this article nominally focuses on the various homosexual identities which were available to characters and people like Paul during the early twentieth century, it also reveals a great deal about the futility and ineffectiveness of consumption as a method of achieving lasting happiness. Both the fairy and the queer rely on consumption patterns (wearing certain accessories and going certain places to signal and maintain a homosexual identity) in order to pursue a lifestyle that will satisfy them. However, the consumption necessary to maintain a satisfying lifestyle is so costly that only the very richest can attempt it for any extended period of time. The lifestyle becomes so appealing, though, that even the relatively privileged Paul is determined to attain it at any cost, whether that be the loss of one’s morality or one’s life. In this way, Nardin reveals the corrupting and ineffective potential of consumerism as a method of attaining satisfaction for the privileged.
Nardin, Jane. “Homosexual Identities In Willa Cather’s ‘Paul’s Case’.” Literature And History 17.2 (2008): 31-46. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 Dec. 2014.
themodernismproject 