Brooks Weller
Delaney and Kira live a very healthy and luxurious lifestyle, which can be compared directly to our hometown in Marin County. Separated from the buzz and “danger” of the big city, Delaney and Kyra reside in the upper hills of Arroyo Blanco: “It was a private community, comprising a golf course, ten tennis courts, a community center and some two hundred and fifty homes ...”(30). Similarly, many of us are extremely privileged and live in one of the many small communities that make up Marin County, an enclave also full of tennis courts, swimming pools, and golf courses. Delaney and Kyra are very environmentally aware, too, and support recycling and the preservation of wildlife and their environments, “You can’t be heedless of your environment. You can’t. Just last week he’d found half a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken out back of the Dagolian place - waxy red-and-white-striped cardboard with a portrait of the grinning chicken-killer himself smiling large - and he’d stood up at the bimonthly meeting of the property owners’ association to say something about it” (39). Again, many people throughout Marin County share this impulse or obligation to protect our environment, and spend much effort in recycling and keeping our towns and cities clean. But because Delaney and Kyra live a life free from the struggles of starvation and the search for jobs, they have the luxury of concentrating their attention on the environment and other subjects less threatening to their daily lives, much like the people in Marin County.
Over the past few hundred years, millions of people across the world have come to America in search of the American Dream. While many people across the U.S. share the same ideas of what the American Dream is, Boyle shows that the American Dream can mean very different things according to contrasting groups of people like immigrants Cándido and América, and upper-middle class citizens Delaney and Kyra. To Cándido and América, the American Dream is be able to afford an apartment building to live in with children and a car, “A house, a yard, maybe a TV and a car too - nothing fancy, no palaces like the gringos built - just four walls and a roof”(29). Contrasting to what América said, Delaney and Kyra already have that, and much more. Instead, Kyra’s idea of the American Dream is getting an even bigger house on Da Ros property, with a immense amount of space, “The more time she spent in it, cushioned from the hot, dry, hard-driving world, the more she began to feel it was hers -- really hers, and not just in some metaphorical sense. How could these people even begin to appreciate it the way she did? How could anyone?”(107). Boyle compares and illustrates the similarities in these two groups’ views of what the American Dream is, to have a job and a good place to live. However, Boyle also shows the desperately contrasting views of what the American Dream means through examining two completely opposite groups on the socio-economic scale. He proves that the American Dream by no means has one definition and meaning, but instead varies among all types of people in the U.S.
With regard to your conclusion on Boyle’s emphasis on the American Dream, I agree with the statement that he shows “the desperately contrasting views of what the American Dream means through examining two completely opposite groups on the socio-economic scale.” However one has to recognize the point where chasing an American dream ends, and fueling capitalism, greed, and consumerism begins; where one simply continues to want more and more despite having enough already. With Candido and America, who have very little and are forced to live on “a spit of sand” in between “the wreckage of a car” and “a sheer wall of stone, thirty feet high,” (86) they are chasing some place to call their own: an American home. In contrast, Delaney and Kyra are attempting to upgrade their American dream and supersize their already luxurious mansion by seeking a larger, and more extravagant estate. There is an argument to be made about the blurred vision of the American dream, but there also has to be a point where searching for it, turns to enhancing it.
ReplyDeleteHey brooks! Nice CCQC's! I also did my CCQC about how Marin has many parallels to Arroyo Blanco Estates. Another similarity I noticed was how in Marin we are more open and their is less of a patriarchy then somewhere like the southern states. Also we have the time and money to be more health conscious. For example Kyra, the breadwinner of the family, “washes down her 12 separate vitamin and mineral supplements…” (31) before driving away in her new Lexus, resonating the forward thinking, healthy oriented vibe that many areas Marin encompass. We even have specialized herbal doctors and many people are very into spiritual healing and more natural medicines compared to the life Candido lives where even after America has her baby, Socorro, they cannot afford to take her to any doctor whatsoever. It is nice to have the luxury to choose if we want to see the doctor, what kind of doctor, and that we have a car to get there in. Sometimes the way we live in Marin seems excessive, especially after reading this book and seeing the harsh other side of life.
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