Destruction Of The "American Dream":a Study Of Nathanael West’s Novels

Nathaniel West is a writer with unique personality in modern American literature. He wrote mainly in the1930s, but rose to fame after his death in the1950s. His highly experimental artistic style and techniques have an important influence on such postmodern fictions as contemporary black humor, and naturally, have attracted a lot of critical attention. The themes of his works are relatively less studied. Based on a close reading of the texts, the thesis makes a systematic study of the themes of West’s works, and succeeds in tracing a common theme of these works—the subversion and destruction of the "American Dream" of different kinds.The "American Dream" reflected in West’s works includes the American dream in the traditional sense, but is not equal to it. What coincides with the traditional American dream is the dream of getting rich through hard work in "Alger story"."The star dream" and "the salvation dream" in the subsequent analysis are West’s true portrayal of what the people pursued or wished to realize in the American society. The dream of getting rich, the star dream and the salvation dream depicted by West represent the process of the American people who were dismembered and destroyed both physically and mentally in search of fame, fortune and spiritual satisfaction in the great depression in the1930s in America. The destruction of these dreams indicates that the disillusionment of American dream is everywhere, and then the mass disillusionment arouses public anger, and eventually leads to violence and destruction of all. West’s works not only describe the lack of material, but also the spiritual poverty and disease which cannot be captured by a camera. The view of wasteland is presented everywhere in West’s novels.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces West and his major works, gives a brief survey of the current situation of West study both at home and abroad, and explains the focus and structure of the thesis. Chapter Two mainly discusses A Cool Million which subverts Alger Hero Dream and satirizes the traditional American values. Chapter Three focuses on the novel The Day of Locust which is about people cheated by illusory prosperity of Hollywood dream and the apocalyptic ending of the novel. Chapter Four is concerned with the novel Miss Lonelyhearts which illustrates American people’s spiritual disillusionment and reveals the protagonist’s failure to realize spiritual satisfaction through savior dream. Chapter Five is the conclusion which summarizes its previous analysis and restates its viewpoint. It also points out that the three kinds of American dream in West’s novels cover all the dreams of Americans at that time; therefore, the subversion of these dreams is the ultimate subversion of the "American Dream".