Table of Contents
Series Introduction by Harold Bloom: Themes and Metaphors xi
Volume Introduction Harold Bloom xv
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1
"Huckleberry Finn and the Problem of Freedom" Sanford Pinsker, in Virginia Quarterly Review (2001)
The American Dream Edward Albee 11
"Albee's The American Dream and the Existential Vacuum" Nicholas Canaday, Jr., in South Central Bulletin (1966)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 21
"Franklin's Autobiography and the American Dream" J.A. Leo Lemay, in The Renaissance Man in the Eighteenth Century (1978)
"Children's Rhymes" Langston Hughes 37
"The American Dream and the Legacy of Revolution in the Poetry of Langston Hughes" Lloyd W. Brown, in Studies in Black Literature (1976)
Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller 47
"Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman" Merritt Moseley
"The Gift Outright" Robert Frost 57
"The Dream of Possession: Frost's Paradoxical Gift" Jeffrey Gray
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 67
"The Great Gatsby: The Tragedy of the American Dream on Long Island's Gold Coast" Tanfer Emin Tunc
The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros 81
"In Search of Identity in Cisneros' The House on Mango Street" Maria Elena de Valdes, in The Canadian Review of American Studies (1992)
The Jungle Upton Sinclair 97
Upton Sinclair Jon A. Yoder (1975)
Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 109
"Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)" Walt Whitman
Love Medicine Louise Erdrich 123
"Love Medicine and the American Dream" Margaret J. Downes
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 133
"Of Mice and Men" Peter Lisca, in The Wide World of John Steinbeck (1958)
My Antonia Willa Cather 141
"My Antonia andthe American Dream" James E. Miller, Jr., in Prairie Schooner (1974)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 153
"Frederick Douglass" Harriet Beecher Stowe, in The Lives and Deeds of Our Self-Made Men (1872)
On the Road Jack Kerouac 161
"Alternative Routes along the Road: Kerouac and the Multifaceted American Dream" Jeff Williams
A Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry 171
"Discrimination and the American Dream in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in The Sun" Babacar M'Baye
"Self-Reliance" Ralph Waldo Emerson 187
"Emerson as an American" Julian Hawthorne, in The Genius and Character of Emerson (1885)
Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 203
"Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and the American Dream" Aimable Twagilimana
Walden Henry David Thoreau 213
"Thoreau's Walden and the American Dream: Challenge or Myth?" Michaela Keck
Acknowledgments 225
Index 227
