American Dream Decay

Abstract

This dissertation studies the decay of the American Dream in selected works of American literature. The American Dream has traditionally been associated with freedom, equality, opportunity, self-making, and the hope of a better life. However, American literary texts often reveal that the dream becomes unstable when it is shaped by materialism, capitalism, racial hierarchy, gender roles, class inequality, historical violence, and consumer culture. The study examines major works including F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Don DeLillo's White Noise. Through these texts, the dissertation argues that American Dream decay is not merely the failure of individual ambition but the exposure of contradictions within national ideology. The study uses Marxist criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, New Historicism, race studies, gender criticism, and ideology critique. It finds that the dream survives as desire but decays as moral, social, and economic promise when success becomes commodified and unequal. The dissertation concludes that literature critiques false dreams while also suggesting more ethical forms of hope based on dignity, memory, community, and justice.