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Surname 1
Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date American Dream That Anyone Who Works Hard Will Succeed in America The American dream which says anyone who works hard will succeed in America is
complicated because many people work hard but fail to be successful. People who work hard in
America have failed rather than succeed and this contradicts the statement. In Sister Carrie, the
story of two characters; Carrie Meeber and George Hurstwood shows that hard work may not
guarantee success and one may still fail even after working hard. In the text, Meeber moves from
her hometown to Chicago city in America in an attempt to build wealth and get successful. When
Meeber arrives in Chicago, she hopes to find employment and thinks that it is easy to get a job
because of the industrious nature of the city but gets turned away severally before securing a job.
Meeber gets a low paying job where she earns a small salary that cannot adequately cater
to her needs. Meeber admires fancy things like jewelry and expensive clothes and hopes to afford
them after working hard. She later finds out that even after working hard, her salary is too little
for her to afford the things she desires. Meeber who thought that working in an American city
will be interesting and easy finds out that the job is difficult as it leaves her exhausted and abused
by her fellow employees. Meeber finds out that the reality is different from the expectations and
that working hard in her current job will not help her achieve success (Dreiser). Meeber also
hates the weather because winter kicks in when she does not have enough money to buy warm
clothes and as a result, she gets sick. The illness makes Meeber lose her job and in the process of looking for a new job, she
meets Drouet, a person she had met as she was moving into Chicago. After letting Drouet know
her situation, Drouet loans her twenty dollars, and the next day, Drouet leads her to buy some
clothes and finds her a room to live in. By buying her clothes and helping her settle, Meeber
believes Drouet is a good person and starts trusting him and is referred to as a “nice, good-
hearted man” (Dreiser). Through Drouet, Meeber meets with Hurstwood and after finding out
that Drouet will not marry her, Meeber agrees to marry Hurstwood. When they meet, Hurstwood
is a middle-class person who has money and expensive fashion. Hurstwood helps Meeber begin
a career in acting and later, she rises to be successful. Hurstwood who has worked hard
throughout his life decides to steal from his employer and flee to New York after fearing the
impact of divorcing his wife (Dreiser). Hurstwood later got poor and when he tried finding a new
job, he was unsuccessful. In contrast, Meeber’s career rose and she was a very successful actor
who got rich and afforded the expensive things she had wished for. The Sister Carrie text proves that the American dream that anyone who works hard will
succeed in America is controversial because people who worked hard were not successful.
Meeber was not successful when she worked hard to get rich because she got a low-paying job
and worked under poor conditions. She only got successful when Hurstwood worked hard to
help her get into acting. If the dream was true, Meeber should have been successful in her first
days in America. Hurstwood’s failure also showed that working hard in America does not
guarantee success as he worked hard for long but failed within a short time. Hurstwood should
not have gotten poor because he had worked for so long and after working hard to find a new
job, he was unable to find one.
Surname 2
The “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” story also shows how the American dream which
says anyone who works hard will succeed in America is complicated. The story shows how
Jackson suffers in America and struggles to raise $1,000 to repossess her grandmother’s regalia
which was stolen fifty years before. Jackson is a homeless Indian who struggles to make ends
meet and get money to purchase her grandmother’s regalia which means culture to him. The
story showed how Indians were harassed by the white European colonialists that moved to the
US and took away property belonging to the Indians. The Indians had worked hard to obtain the
property that was unfairly taken away by the colonialists. Jackson went to a local shop and saw her grandmother’s regalia and after proving to the
shopkeeper that the regalia originally belonged to her grandmother, the shopkeeper agreed to
return the regalia to him only if he gave the shopkeeper $999. The shopkeeper gave Jackson a
day to find the money and regain the item which represented the lost Indian culture. When
Jackson told his friends what the shopkeeper demanded, they were willing to help but found the
amount too enormous to raise. Jackson’s friend told him that he would give him papers to sell if
he could be sure that they will help but raised a concern that the amount was too difficult to
achieve in a day. “And to be honest, I’d give you the papers to sell if I thought it would work.
But the record for the most papers sold in one day by one vendor is only three hundred and two”
(Alexie). This statement shows that hard work may not translate to success because even if
Jackson worked as hard as he could, he would not raise $1,000 in a day. The friend however agreed to donate newspapers to Jackson to sell and find money that
would help him raise money to repossess his grandmother’s valuable item. The friend gave
Jackson fifty newspapers and proceeded to sell them but after selling a few for only one hour,
Jackson threw the rest and proceeded to spend the money collected in a restaurant. “I sold five in
one hour, dumped the other forty-five in a garbage can, and walked into McDonald’s, ordered
four cheeseburgers for a dollar each, and slowly ate them” (Alexie). Jackson failed to collect the
required amount and lost hope. Maybe if Jackson worked hard, he would have been successful in
raising some money but he failed to put in the effort. In this case, Jackson may have failed to be
successful because he failed to work hard, and thus, the American dream that whoever works
hard gets successful in America may have been true. Jackson was also given some money by a
cop and ended up spending it poorly instead of saving and using it towards the repurchase of the
regalia. “He let me out of the car, handed me two fivers and a twenty, and shook my hand”
(Alexie). Jackson went back to the shop with only five dollars, the same amount he had the
previous day. The shopkeeper asked if Jackson had worked hard for that money and when
Jackson agreed, he was given the regalia for free. “Sister Carrie” and “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” shows how complicated the
American dream saying that anyone who works hard will succeed in America. In “Sister Carrie”,
Meber failed to succeed when she worked hard for success while in contrast, Hurstwood was
successful when he worked hard. Hurstwood later fell into poverty. In “What You Pawn I Will
Redeem”, Indians’ property was taken away by the Europeans and thus, their hard work didn’t
lead them to succeed. Jackson also failed to elevate himself from poverty and get $1,000 to
repurchase her grandmother’s regalia. Jackson’s state of poverty can, however, be explained by
his lack of hard work as he failed to sell papers given by his friend. When Jackson told the
shopkeeper that he had worked hard for the five dollars, he was given the regalia for free
implying that hard work paid off. In both stories, hard work brings success in some situations
and failure in others. The inconsistencies prove the saying that whoever works hard in America
succeeds is complicated.
Surname 3
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. "What you pawn I will redeem."
NEW YORKER-NEW YORKER MAGAZINE
INCORPORATED-
(2003): 168-177.
Dreiser, Theodore. "Sister Carrie."
Sister Carrie
. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
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