Myths and heroes: How the myth of the American dream influenced people’s life and can we still believe in it? What is a modern-day hero? How have they made an impact on our lives?

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Introduction:

I’m going to talk about the notion of “Myths and heroes”.

Myths and heroes refer to tales, legends, fictional stories and characters… A myth is a traditional story related to a country’s culture and history. A hero is someone who inspires people thanks to his noble qualities and a hero takes place mostly in a myth. But it seems that they are also still present in real life, they are created by society and have become part of our culture. Not to mention that these modern myths and heroes have shaped and influenced people’s lives. In class, I have studied this notion through the topic entitled “successful careers” and several question have enriched our reflection such as “what does it take to be successful.”, “why do we cling to the notion of self-made man?” or “how as the myth of the American dream influenced people’s careers?

To me, being successful means to achieve the goals you fixed to yourself in order to be happy with your life; as long as you’re not happy you’re not successful either.

How the myth of the American dream influenced people’s life and can we still believe in it? What is a modern-day hero? How have they made an impact on our lives?

Développement:

We can talk about Indra Nooyi, one of the most powerful woman business. She is the CEO of PepsiCo and she inspires many women, because it shows that, even because of the ‘glass ceiling’ women can succeed and reach leading roles. As Indra Nooyi says “My parents made us dream that we could be anyone that we wanted to be”.

The term “American dream” is basically an idea that suggests that anyone in the US can succeed through hard work and has the potential to lead a happy, successful life. The idea of the American dream is perfectly shown in the saying “from rags to riches”. It describes people who begin their lives extremely poor and end up being rich.

Oprah Winfrey herself can be seen as a living example of the American dream. She started from scratch. She had a complicated childhood, she had to suffer sexual abuses but despite this, she always fought. Now, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most famous women worldwide. With 2.7 billion dollars she is the richest black woman in the United States. She overcame racism. She owns her TV network OWN (Oprah Winfrey network), publishes the two magazines ‘O, The Oprah Magazine’ and ‘O at home’ and has changed the lives of millions of people all over the world. She really shows people that the American dream is still alive.

Then in another domain, Bill Gates can be regarded as a hero. To start with, he made technology evolve. He created a famous operating system called Microsoft and his work changed people’s lives. It became easier to have access to computers in developed countries.

He is a self-made man and a successful businessman who is regarded as a hero in the US, even more when he became a philanthropist. Indeed he does not keep all the money for himself. He finances scientific institutes to find solutions to health issues for instance. He wants a better world.

Nevertheless, poor countries in Africa are also his preoccupation. He understood that computers are not the main priority in those countries. People

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