American Dream

Since the country was established in 1776, the United States has offered the promise of freedom, freedom not only to worship one's own God but freedom also to pursue material wealth. When Walt Whitman wrote "Song of the Open Road" in the middle of the nineteenth century, he represented America as a place of brotherhood and expansiveness, where each person was a cosmos unto him or herself. Possibility was limited only by what one could dream. Simpson takes that vision of America and the American Dream and shows its tawdry underbelly. He suggests that the achievement of the Dream leads not to untold happiness and communion with one's countrymen and women but to a life of monotony, where the pursuit of pleasure and convenience outweighs any desire to pursue the higher good. Rather than saying these things outright, Simpson implies them by depicting the middle-class life as one...