The American Dream is something that every American aspires to achieve, as it is called a "dream." The dream we so aspire to be is defined as: "of political and religious freedom, equal access to education, equal opportunity in the workplace, and ultimately, success and wealth" as stated in "The Blair Reader" (391). Also in "The Blair Reader," are a few essays that pertain to, and discuss the American Dream. Of these essays are: "Bharti Mukherjee's "American Dreamer," Lars Eighner's "On Dumpster Diving," Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration Of Independence," and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream." Each of these stories incorporates the American Dream in one of the four ways mentioned above, which are political and religious freedom, equal access to education, equal opportunity in the workplace, and success and wealth. In Bharti Mukherjee's "American Dreamer," Mukherjee incorporates the American Dream when she strives for political and religious freedom by marrying a Canadian man after she came to study in America, where as her native land of Bengal is very strict on marrying within the religion and being restricted to certain limitations of freedom. In Lars Eighner's "On Dumpster

In Lars Eighner's "On Dumpster Diving," Eighner expresses his American Dream in that he is trying to teach us how to be successful at scavenging dumpsters, taking what you actually need, to be happy with your work, and to be successful and wealthy in that sense. "I'm always very pleased, when I can turn up exactly the thing I've most wanted to find but in spite the element of chance, scavenging more than most other pursuits tends to

Jefferson states America's need for political and religious freedom by discussing why America needs to dissolve all ties with Great Britain. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream," King stresses on two aspects of the dream, which are equal access to education, and equal opportunity in the workplace.

yield returns in some proportion to the effort and intelligence brought to bear" (431). This quote reminds us that achieving the American Dream no matter what that dream may be, is worth the struggle. Success and wealth is the main focus of the essays, they both pertain differently to every person, but they still are part of the American Dream. Eighner's success and wealth was to find what he needed in dumpsters and make more of what other people could make nothing of. To Eighner, success also meant that you can't take everything that you might need one day in the future from one dumpster, but in contrary you must remind yourself that there will be more dumpsters later on, which is one of the important lessons of the dumpster world.

Diving," Eighner incorporates the American Dream in his essay by discussing how he scavenges from people that are actually living the American Dream, in the sense of success and wealth, and how he just eats and lives off of what they throw out and disregard. Thomas

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Approximate Word count = 1175
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)