St. Jean De Crevecoeur

7 Pages 1645 Words

Throughout the course of America there have been many perceptions as to what exactly the American Dream is and how to go about achieving that dream. St. Jean de Crevecoeur had his own perception of what the American Dream is and how to achieve that dream. Crevecoeur was one of the first American authors to ask what really makes an American. In his story entitled, What is an American? He shows in his view what an American is and what the American dream is all about. Crevecoeur’s perceptions of what the American Dream is and how people go about achieving it is a unique and accurate representation of what the American dream was to people of this time.
One of Crevecoeur’s main beliefs that displayed what he thought of the American Dream was the fact that Americans came to this country from Europe, a place which was crowded and suppressed, unfair and showed no future advancements if one was not born to a rich family. Crevecoeur states, “If he travels through our rural districts he views not the hostile castle, and the haughty mansion, contrasted with the clay-built hut and miserable cabin, where cattle and men help to keep each other warm, and dwell in meanness, smoke, and indigence…” (255) “It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess every thing and of a herd of people who have nothing.”(255) By giving such a vivid description of what Europe must have seemed like for the average man passing through he shows just how free and open this new world is when he states, Crevecoeur states, “Here he beholds fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields, an immense country filled with decent houses, good roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where an hundred years ago all was wild, woody and uncultivated!”(255) This would lead the reader to believe that his perceptions on the American Dream had much to do about occupying a once vacant area and you yourself being able to change the architecture of t...