CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This Study Explicates the Paradoxes Of

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This study explicates the paradoxes of the American Dream idea that are revealed in the social, political, economic, religious, and cultural lives of the characters depicted in eight contemporary American plays. The plays are: Tony Kushner‘s Millennium Approaches and Perestroika (Angels in America Parts 1&2); Arthur Miller‘s All My Sons and A View from the Bridge; August Wilson‘s Fences and The Piano Lesson; and Suzan-Lori Parks‘ Topdog/Underdog and The America Play. The focus of the study is on a comparative textual analysis of white Americans' and African Americans' experiences of the American Dream. Basically, this study seeks to reveal how white Americans' and their African American counterparts' experiences of the attempts to actualise personal and collective desires that engender happiness introduce seeming contradictions into the idea of the Dream. Motivated by the American Dream idea of material and non material success and prosperities, the characters in the plays aspire for the actualisation of personal and collective dreams in a multi-racial, multi-religious, and free enterprise economic society. They strongly desire and pursue the idea that achievement of material and/or non material desires is capable of translating to happiness and ―the good life‖ for them. But instances in their communal life lives and individual experiences expose how their aspirations are fraught with American Dream contradictions, thus, affirming Jim Cullen‘s observations that the Dream is ―a complex idea with manifold implications that can cut different ways‖ (6). Characters‘ experiences in the plays under study, therefore, elicit concerns for an understanding of the complexities that underscore every human attempts at the actualisation of the ideal. 1 The American Dream is the all-encompassing idea that Americans and non-Americans who migrate to the United States of America have the freedom and opportunity to pursue individual and group desires without hindrances. In broad terms, it is the overall notion that covers the visions for the actualisation of individual and group dreams in any form they desire. The crux of the goals of the Dream is also that anyone who has the courage to dream in America will become successful, prosperous and live a happy life. To that extent, the creed has impacted on the directions and visions that Americans have had about ―the good life‖. Also, the country's socioeconomic, political, and cultural ideals, values that define the worldview and identity of its citizens, have often been motivated by Americans' instinctual drive toward an expression of freedom and happiness. In addition, the interrelationship between America‘s socioeconomic and political visions of a progressive and prosperous society, which are expressed through concepts like liberty, opportunity, citizenship, egalitarianism etc, and the Dream goal of ―happiness‖ and ―the good life‖ is a symbiotic one. Americans‘ experiences of this symbiosis have, however, often triggered debates about the exact meaning of the American Dream, its basic components, and whether it is achievable for all Americans, irrespective of the colour of their skin, religion, race, social class, gender, political ideology, and/or sexuality preferences. To this end, this study undertakes a textual analysis of the plays with the central objective of demonstrating the implications of the characters' complex experiences of the Dream for human desires for "the good life" and attainment of happiness. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY American drama is rich in its concerns about the subject of the American Dream experience. There are many plays written by Americans across the racial and gender spectrum that focus 2 primarily on diverse themes relating to it. These concerns in many contemporary American plays generally reflect the values upon which Americans and non Americans (particularly immigrants) have placed on material and non material success. In addition, American plays have significantly dramatised United States of America's preoccupation with human progress. The centrality of the Dream's impact on the broad American experience is often revealed in this regard through the philosophy, ideology, and theoretical principles underpinning its perceptions. In addition, the pragmatic expressions given to it by dramatists have represented characters as either having achieved a measure of success or aspiring to some level of material and/or non-material attainment. In extreme cases, American drama has portrayed characters as expressing a feeling disillusionment with the Dream idea after they have come short of realising their personal and group dreams. Extant examples of the diverse shades of the portrayal of the American Dream experiences are found in the plays of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Amiri Baraka, Lorraine Hansberry etc. These playwrights have, in particular, demonstrated in plays like The Glass Menagerie, Death of a Salesman, American Dream, Dutchman, A Raisin in the Sun respectively that the theme of the American Dream is constant in the American experience. The plays, using the experiences of the characters depicted in them, delineate the depth of complexities that highlight American society's eclectic, radical progress in the political and cultural spheres. These playwrights' interests in the Dream overtly and covertly depict an interrogation of the idealistic perceptions of opportunity, liberty, family values, and most of all economic prosperity by many Americans. However, the origin of the phrase "American Dream" is not essentially controversial. Carl Jillson traces the first use of it to Walter Lippmann who wrote the book Drift and Mastery in 3 1914 (6). Yet, Lawrence R. Samuel, Sandra L. Hanson and John Kenneth White are amongst numerous researchers in the field of American studies who have contested that the phrase "American Dream" originated and promoted by the American historian, James Adam Truslow in his book Epic of America (1931). What is perhaps more important is that the factors and sentiments that triggered the conceptualisation and promotion of the idea have their sources in the beginning of the American experiences, centuries before Lippmann's and Truslow's books. In other words, much of the feelings expressed about and interpretations given to the idea of the Dream have their roots in attempts by early settlers in the New World to give expressions to their emotions about liberty and individualism, which were later captured in the 1776 American Independence Constitution. Similarly, the American society where the Dream thrives as the idea for motivating and measuring human material and non material successes and failures is generally a haven of liberty and opportunity which, when properly cultivated by individuals and groups, would result in success and prosperity. To this end, every achievement made by successful Americans in life has always influenced and encouraged other Americans and immigrants to pursue America's sociopolitical and economic visions of the ideal society, which many countries of the world have also struggled to model. Hence, the political, economic, and financial successes of many individuals have continued to have a strong influence on the promotion of the ―rags to riches‖ creed, which developed in America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Individuals' success in any sphere of life have also influenced their fellow citizens' and immigrants' commitment to hard work with the overall effect in the growth of industries, entrepreneurial, and other opportunities in America. 4 To be sure, "from rags to riches" is a popular legend that is crucial to the understanding of a plethora of expressions that have characterised peoples' interpretations of the Dream idea in the contemporary American experience. In a nutshell, the legend has constituted a mythical component of the Dream idea and promoted the ―public face‖ of the economic and financial interpretations of it even in the contemporary time. It is against the background of the progress made in large–scale business enterprises and the developments in industrialisation that huge corporations have emerged in America. Thus, the ―typical American story‖ has become associated with the story of many big entrepreneurs and businessmen like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Pierpont Morgan, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Ralph Lauren etc. It is fundamental to note also that industrialisation in America has translated to technological, entrepreneurial, and business opportunities that have helped in the transformation of Americans‘ and non-Americans‘ (immigrants) lives materially. Indeed many people, through these developments, are being able to live in modern houses and good health, having access to technologically produced goods and living sophisticated, high-tech lifestyles. Nevertheless, "the good life" is most often experienced in complex ways because as life becomes easy for the people the struggles to live the Dream has also resulted in many Americans and non Americans in the United States focusing less on the core tenets of the "rags to riches" myth, which is hard work. Besides, accessibility to these opportunities have also become competitive while individuals' and groups' claims and rights to them have most times resulted in conflicts of diverse dimensions. 5 Additionally, America‘s and individual's progresses and achievements in all facets of life are persistently challenged by racial discrimination, religious intolerance, social class

Load more