Is The American Dream Still Possible

A Dreamers Dream When you think of America or an American, one thing usually comes to mind to describe the life of an American in general, success. For many people the American Dream is a goal of having either a nice house, a car, a family, maybe even a business. The American Dream should be a dream of achieving a stable life when dealing with money and even your own job. It is a dream of living a debt free life and getting a higher education if you choose to. The dream should not involve the government, it is your own vision of your future and how it can/will be. There should not be any more challenges to achieving this dream other than your job’s own difficulty. An individual who is legitimately hard working and does everything that
A debt can be a hinder in reaching the American Dream for many and can drive someone crazy because they don’t even know what to do to be able to get out of that debt. One specific way that this can be shown is through David Wallenchinsky’s article “Is the American Dream Still Possible?” when he states, “To help support his family, Oden had to dip into his 401(k) fund, paying a penalty for premature withdrawal” (Wallenchinsky 56). In this particular statement he is speaking about a man who is in a crazy amount of debt and had to basically dip into his retirement funds to be able to keep his family well which is something that no American should have to do based on what the American Dream is. Not only do people have to follow in Oden’s steps most people also get into a higher debt than what they originally had because of the original debt and because they feel the need to pay off their original debt completely. They are desperate for success and can’t get out of a hole that they were basically thrown into because of the dream. Since debt involves money and money causes many problems as well as create debts that people cannot pay off it’s no wonder that Dana Gioia talks about money in a personified manner in her poem “Money”. He shows that money can control many things including a person and can obviously create the one thing that is the downfall of many, debt. Gioia states “Money breeds money. Gathering interest, compounding daily” (Gioia 69). This basically tells that to get money one must spend money not only that but it also creates debt because of people not being able to gain anything from their investments. Money is something that a lot of people deal with, it is basically the basic supporting ground for the American Dream, without it no one would believe in the dream and the dream would be a completely false idea. Finally, the almost impossible