Thornton Wilder's Our Townaddresses expectations of normalcy in terms of a historically oriented American Dream. What modern day cultural texts do the...

's play
makes one small town the iconic Everytown, USA. With the Stage Manager to guide us, we see the
characters experience and sometimes overlook their daily hopes and fears. Through Emily, caught
in a limbo of the newly departed, we are forced to think about fleeting mortality.

In considering modern interpretations of these and other themes as related to a
normalized American Dream, you will have to decide which aspects resonate with you. Perhaps an
aspect of American life that resembles or draws on your own heritage? Many works by writers who
are immigrants or whose parents were consider the changing meanings. Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa
Lahiri, and Chang Rae Lee all come to mind.

"Modern" drama of the
mid-late-twentieth century frequently deployed the theme. Edward Albee wrote a play titled
"The American Dream." Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun
takes its title from a Langston Hughes poem that asks, "what happens to a dream
deferred?"

Think as well about how our norms...