Research Paper on:
American Dream's Failure in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Great Gatsby," "Sister Carrie" and "The Grapes of Wrath" , For - July 2001 -- for more information on using this  paper properly! Ever since a group of rebellious English colonists took on the British Army and won, there has been a sense that in America, anything is possible.  The concept of the American Dream is as much a part of the cultural tapestry as the Liberty Bell or the Statue of Liberty. Since its earliest beginnings, America  has always encouraged the notion that a persons opportunities, i.e., wealth, are only limited by the size of his ambition. There is also the sense that with this prosperity  comes happiness. However, this is only one part of the picture. Three classic American novels, F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, Theodore Dreisers Sister Carrie and John Steinbecks  The Grapes of Wrath, explored the elusiveness of the American Dream and its inevitable downside. The prosperity America enjoyed following World War I made the American Dream more attractive  than ever before. During the Jazz Age, it seemed like there was enough of the dream to go around, and everyone was freely grabbing a piece of it.  This sense of optimistic euphoria was forever captured in F. Scott Fitzgeralds 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. Its featured characters were attracted to the powerful allure of money and  the social clout it wielded, including Midwestern narrator Nick Carraway, his cousin Daisy Fay, her socially-connected husband (and Nicks old college buddy) Tom Buchanan, and their toddler, Pammy. The  Buchanans were young, beautiful, and wealthy, the embodiment of American Dream. Despite an undercurrent of marital discord, both were unwilling to give up the preferred social standing to which