The Myth of the American Dream :: ESL Essays

Striving for success nobody thinks that he follows souls well planned way. A single mortal or a small group does not create the mental picture of success, barely it is created by our whole society. The myth of strident wealth is one of the near popular myths society uses. In fact society uses the hope of instant wealth to make people work harder. The fact that they do not bewilder a real chance of obtaining that wealth by competing in the economic system stays invisible to the most of people. When we imagine a successful person, we see a person, who is working on around caller-up and is busy working all the time. This person has a nice gondola car and beautiful apartment or house, where he does not sp displace often time because he is so busy. We get this impression since we were born. Movies, magazines, and news everything supports this notion of a successful person. Interesting thing is that notion of success did not change very much since the beginning of last one C . There happened some variations but the nous stayed the same working hard will select you to the top of the society circle. This idea became very popular in the end of eighteen hundreds thanks to the stories, written by Horatio Alger. In spite of law of similarity of all his books, his works had an edition of hundred thousand copies. Simple idea of getting into upper class circles starting from the very down, was accepted by society as a model of success achievement. People have believed that if they will work hard than they can achieve success. Richard Hunter, main fictitious character of the book Ragged shit has been a typical example of American notion of success. According to this book everybody can became well recognized and financially prosperous if they would work hard and show their merit. Dick, a young human race on the way to fame and fortune, as his friend Fosdick from the tommyrot Ragged Dick describes him in the end of the story, climbs on the social ladder, star ting from the very bottom. creation absolutely illiterate and having no money in the beginning, Dick gets into business line circle of people, by working hard and showing his merit.Why did this story become so popular in the end of eighteenth century? People always need hope and this story gave hope to everyone. If person from the lowest class of society could get into the high class thus everyone else was able to do the same.