The American Dream and the 21st Centery American

I think many aspects of these two things go togther. what makes up the 21st centery american is also what makes up the current american dream. the american dream seems to be changing to where everyone wants thing five mins ago no matter what. so many people have to have the new stuff like the new iphone. they wait in line for hours to get it. then it doesnt work right and people still buy it in millions. of course the company will fix it but if people would just have more pactiance and wait for the bugs to get worked out before rushing to buy it they wouldnt spend hours complaining about how it sucks or wont work. but that is the socity we live in today. look at drive thru restrants. we live in a give it to me now socity. is this a good thing? only time will tell but when the 21st centery american becomes so impaciant to get something first or better that the next person the quality of the things we get will continue to drop.

Gender Roles

Gender roles have changed alot over the past few decades. Stay at home moms are becoming the minority and stay at home dads are on the rise. Woman have access to many opertunites they once could only dream of. that being said there is still alot of work to do to get women on eaquel ground with men. Salery diffrences are one of the major issues facing the working woman. it will take time and still has alot of fighting to do but i believe that it will soon be on equal ground. With the change of the womans role also comes the change of the mans role. As woman want the change to them working i think many men are resistent to the changes. Even if it is on the subconscios level. Doing more house work and more of the things rasing the kids is not something that men have been doing for a long time as a whole. I think many men are adapting to the changes but many more still need work. Women are quickly becoming a part of the corpruit landscape in America. Many people point out that there are still so few female ceo and such within america. i think that it will simply take time for women with the quilifactions to hold these positions to step up. i think many woman who before didnt have the oppertunity to hold these jobs didnt use a carrier path to get them. now with the opertunity before them many mor women will begin to get these positions as they get the education and work experiance it takes to achive the top leval jobs.

Beloved

Beloved was a powerful book with a mesage that we can all learn from. The things that some people have gone throungh and the choices that they have made follow them forever. Sometimes we think that we are doing things for the right reason only to have it come back to haunt us latter in life. When Sethe choose to kill her baby rather that have it grow up as a slave she thought she was doing the right thing only to have it come back to haunt her for the reast of her life. Being chased by a ghost as to say would be a parents worst nighmare. Beloved was a very diffcult book to read. The unsuspecting flash backs took me by suprise most of the book. Even when I came to expect them I would still have to go back and reread many parts to try to understand what was happining in the story. I personally think that Toni Morrison did some of this on purpose. With all of the going back and rereading it gave me a better unserstanding of what was happining in the story. Its like when you go back and watch a movie the secound or third time you see things that you didnt see the first time. Books can be like that also. After reading other parts of the book and then rereading something from earlyer it gave me a better understanding of just what was going on.

Racial Discrimination

I have witnessed racial discrimination several times in my life. My ex wife is and African American and we were discriminated aghainst on many occasions. It was many small things. Many times it was at restaurants were our waiter or waitress would be rude or mess up our orders. There were many times that our waiter would simple ignore us for long periods of time while keeping other tables around us served. Other times in grocery stores people would make rude comments or stare at us. My ex wife would get treated very badly by other African Americans. She told me many times when she would go to the store and African American woman would say very mean and hurtful things to her when they saw our sons with her. On one instance she told me that three African American women had followed her through the store harassing her nonstop. This was something that we lived with for the ten years we were together. Personally I didn’t notice it happing all the time but my ex wife would say things like did you see the way that those people were looking at us or did you hear what someone had mumbled under their breath. I didn’t always notice because I was not always paying attention to what others were doing around me. This would constantly frustrate her but the difference was that she had been living with this type of treatment all of her life and I had not. As I began to pay more attention to it I did see that it happened quite frequently.

Indian Killer

Indian Killer was a very interesting novel with a good flow to it. I think the charter development was done very well. The struggle that John Smith had within himself as to what his life was about being and Indian but being raised by white parents caused much confusion within him. I think that if his parents wouldn’t have been so adamant about him learning Indian culture and traditions while he was never really a part of it. While learning all of the things he did about Indian society he became closer to his roots but was never able to really become a part of it. If he had known what tribe he was from and been able to become a part of that it may have helped him in his quest and not made him feel like such an outsider. His wanting to kill a white man stemmed from him not understanding many things and wanting to correct some injustices from the past that the people he was killing had nothing to do with. Many of the other relationships within the novel were very telling about what the author perceived about Indian and white relations. I think the author was right in the way some people reacted to the killing by attacking Indians would happen if there were an Indian killer. For me I was very glad that the author explained what happen to David as I was wondering who had killed him. I think this novel leaves many questions about racial relations but gives readers a chanced to have some insight into what could happen.

Fear and Loathing

Fear and loathing In Las Vegas is a very confusing yet enjoyable book. There are so many time that the reader is unsure of what is real and what is not that you become lost in the story. I found the book overall to be an enjoyable read. Thompson was doing so many drugs during the course of the book that he too didn’t know what was real or what was unreal. Of course as the reader we are left to wonder how much of the story actually took place and how much of it was completely drug induced fiction. I find it very hard to believe that he actually drove across the runway at the Las Vegas airport. But that is what makes the book so appealing is that maybe with all of the drugs he had done he could have done just that. If Thompson did half the things he said he did you should have been put in jail for a long time. How can a man who has admitted to doing so many criminal acts become a revered person. He put so many people into danger and caused so much damage and yet he is somehow revered for it. The man was a criminal who could have killed people in his drug induced experiences. He as well as everyone around him is fortunate that he did not. By glorifying what he did it tells others that hey Thompson could do all of this and become famous for it why not me.

What is the "American Dream"?

The American dream is the ability to come from nothing and become successful. When someone is able to start life out with nothing and be able to become rich, famous, or just successful. Because of this Americans feel a since of accomplishment that they were not able to have before America became a country. I think that it all comes from the fact that America was established as a way for common people to become someone important or successful. Before there was an America most of what people could accomplish was determined by whom there parents were. If you were not born into royalty you would not be able to rise to a level above what you were born into. In America it does not matter who your father was it only matter what you make of yourself. Anyone born as an American can rise as high as even becoming president. Even if that is not an individual’s goal it is still an opportunity that one has. For some it is just the gaining of wealth. Weightier it is through hard work or just simply accumulating wealth the pursuit of riches is something that many Americans strive for. As discussed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when he said he had found the American dream in Las Vegas it was through the owner of the Circus Circus casino. The owner was a man who had wanted to join the circus as a child but had not. Through his hard work and determination he had created a circus of his own that people would come from around the world to see. The fact that he made millions of dollars from it was also a key part in the owner living the American dream.

What is the quintessintial 21st century American?

I believe that the quintessential 21st century American is someone who is adaptable and understanding of others. I say this believing that what makes America a great place to live is that not everyone comes from the same background or has the same culture but we still come together to help one and other and make the country better as a whole. Not everyone has the same wants or needs but through the system of government we have we set up the systems that we have to help the majority of people while still not totally overlooking the minority of people.
The quintessential 21st century American is knows what they want out of life but also understand that if something is better for the whole they accept it or uses their influence to get others to see how they feel about a subject. Of course there are exceptions to everything the majority of Americans use the system that we have in place to make changes or just accept what has been put in place.
The most important part of the quintessential 21st century American is that they understand of others. As I said before there are exceptions to this but on the whole Americans are like this. It is very import to be understanding of others and to have others understand you. I think we can all relate to this as we are all different but want others to not persecute us for our differences.