at his origin was, could succeed in changing their social positions and making their dreams come true through their own efforts, and getting new, free and better life. This is what often called "American dream".(Zhao Hongwei,2003,6:2)American dream is a popular belief that hard work will bring forth America's bounty in the form of material well-being, a counter culture that rejects traditional thinking while promoting their own causes, information explosion, reverse discrimination----in the workplace because so many employers are hiring women and minorities. It’s the idea that the American way of life offers the equal possibility of unlimited economic, social, etc. One can always work their way up from the rags to riches just like Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the US.
In brief, the main content of American culture was emphasis on individuals' value, optimistic, pursuing of democracy and freedom, the promotion of deportation and competition and the need of realism and practicality.
However, in different historical backgrounds, the meanings of American Dream are also different from each other. In Colonial period, American Dream was the crying for wealth; and in the later 18th century, people’s American Dream was to fight for democracy; Americans had a great fantasy for expansion in the Civil War period; in the First World War, the American Dream is to pursue luxuriant life, and in the 2nd World War, the American Dream is to achieve higher standard of life.
The World War I cast the young men into an age of alienation and dissentient. They entered the War with naive and blind patriotism and under the slogan of World peace and democracy. Returning from the war, these idealized intellectuals felt separated by their war experience from conventional ideals and values of their homes. The economic bloom has deception affluence on the promising young men, not only destroyed their lives, but also destroyed their early innocent believes. Many excellent young men found it’s difficult to adapt to the after-war overflow of materialism. Scientific advances caused increase in industry, which brought vast changes to the character of American society. Millions of Americans were no longer content to follow former patterns and there was a rebellion against the falseness of society as represented by Victorian generation.
To many people, World War I was a tragic failure of old values, of old politics, of old ideas. The social mood was often one of confusion and despair. Yet, Americans entered a decade of proprietary and exhibitionism that prohibit the legal ban against alcoholic beverages, did more to encourage than to curb. Fashions were extravagant; more and more automobiles crowed the roads,
advertising flourished; and nearly every American home had a radio in it. Roads swept the nation, people danced the Charleston, and they sat upon the flagpoles. The only thing for the youth who lived in that period to pursue was material wealth, and luxuriant life.
In order to show off the wealth, many people in upper class also held big parties in weekends. In those parties, there were every kind of people who were also famous or rich, and such kind of party were so extravagant that the reason people took part in it was to know more rich people and indulged them in luxuriant life. They were looking forward to having more money and then lived a better life, which was much more extravagant. In such a special period, there was a fact that the person who had more
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