The American Dream: perspektiver fra Schwarzenegger, Kamenetz og Wallechinsky

1. The texts I have read are articles about the American Dream, written by Americans such as the big American icon, the 38th Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, the American writer Anya Kamenetz and the Jewish-American David Wallechinsky. In all three articles the authors give us their personally point of view about the American Dream.

In an article by Arnold Schwarzenegger from the U.S. News & World Report, 17th September 2008, Schwarzenegger tell us about how he emigrated from Austria to America and achieve his purpose with his hard work, instead of becoming a police officer in Austria like his father. He is a well-succeeded person in bodybuilding, acting, modeling and also in the political life, but his succeed hasn’t come to him by itself. As I mentioned earlier he had worked very hard for it, he says: “With hard work and determination, and because the American people were so generous and welcoming, I have succeeded beyond my wildest imagination.” He believe that the American Dream is something you can make yourself worthy for (like him) by learning English, participate in politics and by giving back to the country. In the article by Anya Kamenetz, which is from Yahoo! Finance, 17th June 2008, she had a much more negative point of view about the American Dream, and the time we live in. She bases her arguments and her opinion on some surveys and studies. She says: “In fact, not surprisingly, the top earners have far less free time than the poorest fifth of Americans, and their average mood id not much better.” She believe that our level of happiness does not rise with money, as it should, according to the general assumption of the American Dream (page 7, line 17). In the article by David Wallechinsky from PRADE, 23th April 2006, even the headline of the text indicates that it’s written with doubtfulness. David Wallechinsky says: “Does the dream survive? Do most Americans still believe they can forget better lives for themselves?”. He isn’t sure whether the American Dream still exists, and he claims that the average American is having trouble due to rising prices and lesser benefits.