The American Dream - Essay

What is the American dream? A unitary definition does not exist the American dream probably has a different meaning to every individual person. For some people it’s the dream of freedom and equality, for others it’s the dream of a fulfilled life or even the dream of fame and money. For many years’ people have been sacrificing everything and taken the huge risk of failing to make their dreams come true many of them have succeed but even more have failed. According to me the American dream is starting from nothing and fighting your way through to the top. Basically it is to do something with your life, to achieve the unachievable and to make yourself standout from others. A very good example of a person who achieved and fulfilled The American Dream in many people’s eyes is Michael Jackson, also called the King of Pop who was and still is a big role model and a big inspiration to lots of people around the entire world. Michael Jackson was born 29. August 1958 in Gary, Indiana and lived there with his poor family. Michael Jackson and his 4 brothers had a band called The Jackson 5 which got very popular and in some point their talent gave them the opportunity to sign with Motown Records. Finally Michael Jackson went solo in 1979 with his single off the wall which became very popular very quickly and after that he just kept surprising and succeeding with almost everything he did. If we go a little further back in time we will find a very great example of a man who achieved the American dream, a man who took the fight up against racism, a man called Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King lived in a time of racism. He grew up with people who saw him as an animal people who talked down to him and kept him outside simply because of his skin colour. Later on when he got married and started his own family, he had the dream that life should be better than it was. He marched protests and held speeches, speaking about his dream of freedom and equality. His most famous speech was the “I have a dream speech…”. In this speech he spoke about how every single person in the world is equal and that it doesn’t matter whether you were white, or black, or any other colour of skin. After all the protests and all the hard work he finally achieved his dream of freedom and equality. Over the years the idea of what the American dream is has changed very much. The first Americans dreamt about money and wealth, later on we have Martin Luther King who dreamt about equality and freedom, and finally we have today’s Americans who dreams about becoming singers, rich, famous etc. In the end every single dream has one thing in common you have to work really hard before you can achieve it.