Myth and heroes: the american dream

Myth and hero

I am going to talk about the notion of Myths and Heroes. At first we have to illustrate what a myth means and what a hero means to not confuse them. A myth can be defined as a story about gods or heroes, it can be a popular belief or a tradition or a false notion. A hero can be a mythological figure, a person who is admired for his achievements, a superhero or maybe a role model or an icon. Examples can be: a patriotic or national hero (sportsman, politician, human rights defender), a fictitious hero (superhero or film star), an icon or role model (fashion, tv, music), a defender of common values, a politician/king/queen who has achieved international recognition.  So we can ask ourselves: Is the American dream a myth or a reality? To answer this question I will give a brave definition of this concept and secondly, I will concentrate on the chances that the American dream could come true for those who wish to fulfill it.

 So to illustrate this notion I have chosen two documents. The first one is a text named “The American Dream: myth or reality?” talking about the meaning and the history of the American dream and the second one is the speech of Barack Obama in 2014 talking about the “broken immigration system” in the United States.

First of all we have to say that the American Dream was born in the 18th century, but the 19th century is the era in which the American Dream was the strongest. The living conditions in Europe and the hope of a better standard of living in America led to the migration of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came from different poles: like, Chinese, Italians, which used to live in poverty because of mafia, Jewish, or Irish who wanted to escape the potatoes famine.

From the first document we can learn that people risked the dangerous Atlantic crossing in order to begin a new life in America where one could became wealthy and free from prejudices of any sort. For them that was the American Dream. But what it was exactly?

First of all we have to say that the American Dream is characterized by the idea of a country full of promises and very attractive. It lets people think that anybody living in America, thanks to courage, work and determination, can succeed. People can start from scratch and make fortunes. So immigrants came to America to begin a new and better life.

In the first document we can see that the ones who had talent and worked extremely hard were more likely to live a successful life, but off course there are many obstacles.

 We know that in the beginning the living conditions and the working conditions for these immigrants were horrible and they couldn’t integrate the society so easy, so it was so difficult for them. But America needed those who were ready to work hard and they needed America to fulfill them dream.

So there come the time when the society had to help them to achieve their goals.  

The best example is the president Barack Obama, which tried to help them. Since he said during his campaign that he wanted to "keep the American dream alive", in my opinion, he represents a hero for all of us, but especially for all the immigrants who came to the United States.

 Regarding the second document, we can see that Obama is taking the role of the hero of the immigrants in America by making them dreams come true easier. Obama said “If you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law.  If you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported. " . He announced in his speech that he was taking executive actions to fix what the White House called America’s “broken immigration system,” halting the deportations of certain undocumented immigrants and calling on Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. So Obama become the hero who gives to the immigrants the opportunity to fulfill their American dream. So heroes are not only in the myths, they exist in the true life also.

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