American Dream (Academic Article)
David Cassuto's article "Turning Wine into Water: Water as Privilged Signifier in The Grapes of Wrath" was very confusing and I wasn't sure what the exact point of it was. It jumped around to a couple of different ideas.
One idea, however, that I found in the article was abotu the American Dream:
"Instead of abandoning the American Dream, the dream itself underwent an idealogical shift" (Cassuto 69).
The American Dream was a big part of life in the early-mid 1900s. The American Dream came up when we talked about The Great Gatsby. I think that the same concept is in this article and deals with The Grapes of Wrath.
People didn't abandon the dream, like Cassuto says, the dream took a shift. The shift was people wanted to move to the dream of what California brought to them. The shift was from the nice house, numerous friends to the money from California.
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL267/2009/03/academic_article/#comments
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Aja Hannah on American Dream (Academic Article): My blog was all about defining
Alicia Campbell on American Dream (Academic Article): I also talked about the Americ
Christopher Dufalla on American Dream (Academic Article): You bring up a very valid poin
You bring up a very valid point, Chelsie. Water was not the only focus point within the article. The American dream adapted according to the means available to the people. They still had a desire for home and property, but they understood that moving West and sacrificing luxuries for an extended period of time were necessary if the dream was ever to be achieved.
I also talked about the American dream in my blog. This idea of superabundance is dangerous. For example, the farmers were wreckless with the land, assuming that God and technology would allow it to continue to provide for them. If the American dream did not lose its appeal, but was appraoched more carefully, the farmers may have rotated crops, for example, to preserve the quality of the fields. To prevent the American dream from becoming a nightmare, it has to be tweeked from time to time. Thus, the people maintain the basic principles of the American dream, but change their approach in the attempt to achieve it according to the circumstances.
My blog was all about defining what the American Dream in the academic article was about and the different myths associated with the dream. Those myths (of the garden and the frontier) are what helped to create the shift as you said in the American Dream in Grapes of Wrath.
Alicia, you said the American Dream has to be tweaked from time to time. I wonder what our dream is today?
That makes sense. In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family could no longer pursue the American Dream in their home land, because they were forced out. They had to start over. Rumor had it that California was the place to be. They went there assuming and hoping that they could pursue the American Dream there, but it was just as unattainable there as it seemed to be in Oklahoma.