The American Dream in 20th Century Literature

Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust are works that were written during the period of the Great Depression, a time of hardship when the American dream lost its value as people lost their belief in equality, prosperity and success. There are many different views of the American dream, and each of the three selected writers incorporate the effects of the Great Depression in their works in order to present a focus on a particular aspect of the American dream. In The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald highlights the false hopes of the idealized dream of getting rich which leads to disillusionment and failure. In a similar manner, Lorraine Hansberry, in A Raisin in the Sun, depicts the broken dream and harsh reality of living as an African-American in Chicago during the period between the 1920s and the 1930s. Likewise, in The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West shows the complete failure of the American dream when people are enchanted with the tales of easy money. The depression-era literature revealed facts of American life, with a particular focus on the decayed social and moral values and the decline of the American dream. In contrast to the works depicting the loss of the American dream, there were also those who stressed the power and durability of the dream that helped Americans face the hardships with fortitude and hope in rebuilding the economy as well as the nation and its values. The popularity of the socially critical literary works of the Great Depression shows the public concern with the ills of society as the belief in the rebuilding of the pure, old values for which their ancestors were fighting