Page 163 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 163
The Morphological and Archetypal Traces
in the American Dream: Exploring the Potential
of the Narrative Structure and Symbolism
Maja Gutman
Identifying the Narrative Functions
of the American Dream
However stable the generic concept of the American Dream mi-
ght be, it would be lost in the outskirts of folk wisdom if it
would not have been brought to public discourse by politici-
ans and social engineers at the beginning of 20th century. The Ameri-
can Dream appears to be a conceptually well-defined belief that has re-
ached the level of its full application, also known as ‘the engineering of
consent’ (Bernays, 1955). According to Ghosh, more than two thirds of
Americans in the time period 2005-2010 believed they have already li-
ved the American Dream or that they were on a good path to achie-
ving one (Ghosh, 2013: p. 2). The same author defines the American Dre-
am with three constitutive elements: individualism, equal opportunity,
and success (Ghosh, 2013: p. 33). This definition can be further expanded
to the notion of a construct; it can be hypothesized that the American
Dream, as a construct, imposes a particular version of prescribed reali-
ty, amplified and distributed by various media outlets which indorse spe-
cific cultural forms (being rhetorical, visual and most importantly, nar-
rativistic) that subsequently circulate in the sphere of popular culture.
The implementation of this construct and its relation to narrative theo-
ry and psychoanalytic findings is discussed in the last section of this pa-
per. However, before any conclusions about the commercial potential of
the American Dream can be reached, it is worth taking into account the
narrative aspect of the examined concept.
161
in the American Dream: Exploring the Potential
of the Narrative Structure and Symbolism
Maja Gutman
Identifying the Narrative Functions
of the American Dream
However stable the generic concept of the American Dream mi-
ght be, it would be lost in the outskirts of folk wisdom if it
would not have been brought to public discourse by politici-
ans and social engineers at the beginning of 20th century. The Ameri-
can Dream appears to be a conceptually well-defined belief that has re-
ached the level of its full application, also known as ‘the engineering of
consent’ (Bernays, 1955). According to Ghosh, more than two thirds of
Americans in the time period 2005-2010 believed they have already li-
ved the American Dream or that they were on a good path to achie-
ving one (Ghosh, 2013: p. 2). The same author defines the American Dre-
am with three constitutive elements: individualism, equal opportunity,
and success (Ghosh, 2013: p. 33). This definition can be further expanded
to the notion of a construct; it can be hypothesized that the American
Dream, as a construct, imposes a particular version of prescribed reali-
ty, amplified and distributed by various media outlets which indorse spe-
cific cultural forms (being rhetorical, visual and most importantly, nar-
rativistic) that subsequently circulate in the sphere of popular culture.
The implementation of this construct and its relation to narrative theo-
ry and psychoanalytic findings is discussed in the last section of this pa-
per. However, before any conclusions about the commercial potential of
the American Dream can be reached, it is worth taking into account the
narrative aspect of the examined concept.
161
