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ХАЛҚАРО МИҚЁСИДАГИ ИЛМИЙ-АМАЛИЙ КОНФЕРЕНЦИЯ МАТЕРИАЛЛАРИ
The American Dream, as one of the best known myths of American society had and still has
a major impact on literature. The ideal itself as well as the portrayal of its fall has inspired a great
number of authors. The present book proposes to describe and analyze the history and the formation
of this myth, as well as Theodore Dreiser's vision on the Fall of the American Dream. Its main goal
is to compare a male and a female version of chasing the American Dream. Dreiser's Sister Carrie
and An American Tragedy are perhaps the best studies of the mythology of the American Dream
including both stories of success and stories of failure. The book reflects on different critical
interpretations attempting to show how dreiserian heroes embody the essence of the American
career model and illustrate the effects of this mesmerizing myth. Accordingly the analysis addresses
mostly graduate and undergraduate students but also anyone else who is interested in American
literature and in the concept of American Dream.
So where does this concept of "American Dream" come from? James Adams, during the
time of the Great Depression, wrote the Epos of America tract, where the phrase “American
Dream” was first revealed. Adams saw the States as a state in which everyone can have what they
deserve, and the life of any person should become better, fuller, and most importantly richer. Since
then, this phrase has been used in an ironic sense. We can say that, now the very meaning of the
American dream has become vague and does not have clear boundaries. And it is unlikely to ever
be clearly defined. After all, everyone puts their own meaning into this concept, and this makes the
“American dream” even more attractive. It is believed that in America it is possible through
persistent independent labor to achieve success in life.[1]
The concept of "dreams" as the main core of American literature is accepted by many
foreign literary critics. In particular, in a certain aspect, it is accepted by the English literary critic
Walter Allen. In his book Tradition and the Dream, comparing English and American literature of
the 20th century, he argues that English literature developed on the basis of tradition, which became
literary and aesthetic law, while American writers were inspired by the search for the "American
dream."[2] Along with this, there is another, directly opposite concept of the relationship between
the "American dream" and American literature. It is based on the idea that the most fruitful periods
of American literature are associated with awareness of the crisis of the "American dream" and with
attempts to critically comprehend it. This concept is, for example, the basis of the book "American
dreams, American nightmares". It was compiled by j. Madden proceeds from the fact that "the
history of the dream in America is a struggle for its fulfillment and criticism of its failure".
According to him, true us fiction has always been characterized by criticism of the social structure
of the country for its inability to turn the dream into reality. The main tone of this collection is the
statement that the history of American literature is the history of the struggle of the "dream" with
nightmares, the history of crises and defeats of this "dream". According to the authors, it is the
criticism of the "American dream", the awareness of the impossibility of its implementation that has
proved to be the most fruitful direction in the development of American literature.[3]
In "American tragedy", the image of the "American dream" is invisibly present in all
American literature of the XX century. This is one of the traditional themes of the American novel,
which at different stages of the development of literature received different interpretations and
assessments. However, already in the era of economic "prosperity" for many American artists, the
vices of capitalist civilization became apparent. A broad realistic picture of American reality was
drawn in his novels by Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser's work is rich and varied. One of the main themes
of his novels was the "American dream", its ups and downs, the clash of dreams and reality, and the
reincarnation of the "American dream "into the "American tragedy". Dreiser is characterized by a
new approach to the "American dream". Instead of its praises, high-sounding and moralizing
arguments in the spirit of Horatio Alger, Dreiser included "the dream" in the context of real
American life of the late 19th to early 20th century and showed its real fate, not fictional. Assessing
the role of Dreiser in the development of American literature, the English literary critic Walter
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