The American Dream
Upward mobility ideal
The American Dream is the belief that anyone in America can achieve prosperity and success through hard work and determination, regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.
The phrase typically implies upward mobility—homeownership, financial security, a better life for one's children: My grandparents came here with nothing, chasing the American Dream.
The term is often invoked nostalgically or critically, questioning whether such opportunity remains accessible: The American Dream is harder to reach than it used to be.
- land of opportunityNation promising success
- opportunityFavorable circumstance for advancement
- successFavorable outcome attained
- homeownershipLegally possessing residential property
- prosperityGood fortune, success
freedom · suburbs · nuclear family · white picket fence · two-car garage · upward mobility · immigrant · melting pot · streets paved with gold · bootstrap · Gatsby · wealth · hard work · self-made · California · pursuit · aspiration · middle class
- PlaysHamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear
- Absurdist TheatreWaiting for Godot, Rhinoceros, Samuel Beckett, absurdist play, Ionesco
- Edward AlbeePulitzer Prize, Tony Award
- One-Act PlaysThe Bear, The Proposal, Rockaby, Silence
The American Dreamdownward mobility
Drop in socioeconomic status
generational poverty · poverty trap · wage slavery · glass ceiling · dead end
The American Dreamfalse promise
Pledge made insincerely
systemic oppression · class warfare · late-stage capitalism · rigged system · wage theft
The American Dreamhopelessness
State without hope
despair · disillusionment · fatalism · nihilism · broken dreams
American, dream, America, Americans, dreaming, dreams, dreamed, dreamt, dreamer