NOTION ANGALIS TSTMG

Myths and Heroes : Women experiencing the American Dream

Introduction :

- I would like to present the notion M&H but first I'm going to define the two words in the title. A myth is like a legend, something which is not necessarily true or wrong. A hero is by definition someone brave who saves people and is an example for others.

- In class we studied this notion by focusing on several women and their experiences in the U.S. The theme was how Women experience the American Dream.

- The A.D is the idea that anyone with work and determination can achieve their dream. It's an old concept but we saw that its definition changed through time as we  will see later.

- In the unit we studied the American Dream as the myth and women as the heroines.

-To present this notion I’m going to answer the following question through 2 parts.

Problématique et plan :

- In what way is the A.D harder to reach for women ?

I) The A.D, a changing concept

1-From the 18th century to nowadays (Doc 2 Benjamin Franklin and Doc 3 Graphics)

- B.F described the A.D as a more spiritual concept based on personal development and virtues. In his text the A.D is compared to a path one needs to follow in order to achieve their personal objectives. We saw how difficult it was for B.F to achieve his dream and to overcome his issues. It's a very different take on this concept compared to what we associate it with nowadays

- The third document we studied represents actually a more modern vision of the A .D, indeed, it's a graphic which displays the capacity for different categories of people to reach the A.D. This doc shows a much more concrete vision of this concept by quantifying its cost. It also shows the amount of money needed by the different categories of people to access the A.D. It's not a matter of virtues and spirit but an almost mathematical notion difficult to reach.

These two documents prove how the A.D shifted from a spiritual and inner concept to a money-based idea, a certain way of life. But we'll now study the loss of meaning of the A.D and its darker side.

2- The A.D in lack of meaning (Doc 5 Godfather and Doc 3 Graphics )

- The fifth document we studied was an extract of The Godfather in which a young migrant arrives in the U.S to start over. We get to see the difficulties experienced by migrants when they arrive at Ellis Island to get to NYC as well as the different steps, they go through to become official citizens. This document goes against the very principle of the A.D as we defined it in the introduction since the character is undergoing a lot of difficult things such as being treated like cattle, losing his own name or being put into quarantine. It's a straight criticism of the A.D because it shows that it's an idealized concept which is actually something very complicated to reach.

- If we go back to Document 3 we can see that the A.D is not a singular concept but actually several. There are multiple possibilities and versions of the A.D. It depends on your gender, race, job etc.. It’s not something unique that everyone can access it’s actually a way of life.

Transition → We saw in the first part that the A.D was actually not a unique concept but made of a multiple aspect. We’ll see in the second part that on top of this multiplicity the A.D is harder to reach for women because of obstacles we’re going to study now.

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