The American Dream: A Literary Analysis

The journey of man, the Age of exploration, driven not only by pursuits of wealth, glory, and freedom; but also of human curiosity. An ambitious endeavor; a path filled with peril and failures, leading to fulfilment of dreams. A dream in which each man conquers the world around them, accounting for their experience of success, perseverance, obstacles, and failures which in a multitude of ways reflects the ideas of the American Dream: a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in older civilizations. These men embark on speculations of the New World, in search of riches, freedoms, creeds, and sciences.
In an effort to fill the void of greed in their minds, and achieve a new, more extravagant lifestyle, a man may risk their own existence. They may hold high hopes of opportunity, as the explorers, and the majority of people, leading only to disappointment; or possibly, not. The risk itself may not even display favorable for the taker, however, the simplistic possibility, is what drives them. The riches in which a man searches may vary vastly in each instance, which results in different stories such as “fabled cities of Asia” (60), the difficulties of any endeavor (77), “with the lord” (81). It is even explicitly stated as a
Columbus, Smith, and Bradford attempt a pursuit of happiness: whether they chose to believe as acts of god, to understand has their true nature, or to become a model of their society. Each and every one of these men achieve their desire by exercising their freedoms given to them by the world. “I shall determine” (64) exemplifies Columbus’ efforts to exhort and document that what he achieved through free will and