Firstly, it can be said that the problem defined by Joyce Carol Oates’ poem entitled “Dreaming America”, looks to encompass the American Dream and how this dream ultimately differentiates from each generation on to the next. More specifically, it suggests that the older generation longs for the abundance of nature, the quiet country life and the simplicity of the world in which they knew before. While the younger generations such as our own perhaps, takes over with drastic new developments and technology that slowly but surely look to destroy all elements of simplicity and the natural state of things as we have previously known it. “Where did the country go? - cry the travelers, soaring past. Where did the country go? - ask the strangers”.
With verses like “We disappear. We return”, and “When the cornfields were bulldozed. When the fields were paved over”, it looks as though the poem paints a picture of loss, great loss. More specifically in the sense that those of the previous generations who were born and raised in this casual countryside laid-back America, have witnessed everything that they’ve ever know their entire lives fall to pieces by means of destruction right before their eyes. Whereas the poem paints a picture of gain for the younger generations as they look to the constant realms of modernization and revision of America that will ultimately make it an effective, updated, easier, and more valuable state to live in. “The teenagers never ask. Where horses grazed in a dream that had no history, tonight a thirteen-year-old girl stands dreaming”.
The narrative looks to critique the American Society as if they are never fully content
with their countries overall development and fabrication over time. It seems that in today’s world, no one is ever fully satisfied with what they have. With constantly booming technologies, forms of development, social implementations, society is always looking to make things even more advanced than its predecessor. However, not always with good intentions but with means of greed, competition, and lack of appreciation for what we truly have that matters in this world.
It can be said that Oates also looks to portray a sort of representation, or reality for that matter, of our contemporary America. More so it is generally through social and historical circumstances through dialogue within her literature in which Oates explores the American society and as it is by means of contrast to as it was. Dreaming America most definitely favors Oates’ generation and those before her, while regardfully critiquing that of ours and of those shortly after thus present generation. She looks to have a very strict positive attitude towards her ancestral-societal predecessors, whom seemingly obtained a more critical grasp on the concept of the American Dream and its apparent true identity ultimately in the realm of simplicity, character, and unperturbed.
“Tonight a thirteen-year-old girl stands dreaming; we drive past, in a hurry. We disappear. We return”. This final statement within the poem takes on a somewhat overwhelming or melancholy weight amongst it. It seems as though Oates suggests that the young generation will continue to, and always have intentions to dream in life, yet our progression and progress in sequence will never own up to that of our generational-predecessors. Indeed, one will always have the personal freedom to dream as an American. However, it is always society’s endless infatuation for advancement and vivacious development that allows society to accomplish, almost effortlessly and facile; but at a terrible cost. Natural implementations can only be pushed so far and it can be chiefly said that sometimes, it is crucial to just let nature take its course.
