The Infamous American Dream

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The Infamous American Dream is an old tale, stuff of nightmares and daydreams alike. Started as a true infinite achievement or means of surviving in the best possible way, possible for anyone who is capable, this dream of rejuvenation in a cruel system took a sharp twist in 20th century. It had its first roar in Roaring Twenties, the decade of bourgeois, careless and Cindrella-level optimism brought by feasible technological advancements, such as broad usage of telephones, automobiles, refrigeration, electricity and so on. Once was a dream of equality, now the American Dream stood for getting rich and even richer, because it was possible. This was triggered by the need of belonging, the very basic innate longing of humankind. The glamourous …show more content…

Not everyone was worthy of this elevation, though. Some did not even make it to the top, some lost more than they gained on the road, nearly all of them were crestfallen. Just like Dexter Green of Winter Dreams, a short story by Francis Key Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s troubled love life with wayward, brazen and spoiled upper class woman, Zelda Fitzgerald inspired the story. Ultimately, it is story of a man whose infatuation with a lax girl of upper class and how this infatuation elevated and crashed him just as much, maybe even worse, for his gainings were nothing compared to the psychological trauma he has been put through along the …show more content…

Throughout the story, Dexter aspires to live by his winter dreams, only to be denied and welcomed like a cycle, which wears his self out in the end. He never dreams to be happy with Judy, Irene or his enterprise. All there is for him is achievement and having achieved the economic success, social acceptance and coming to terms with the fact that “he would love her until the day he was too old for loving--but he could not have her,” he was petrified and dull as a statue now. Cruel and demanding society, cloaked under the American Dream, destroys a young stargazer and it does not care. He will stay as unsignificant and impotent as every other American Dream child, nothing left

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