Essay Three: Visual Analysis

Essay Three: Visual Analysis

Required Text: Colombo, Gary, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle, eds. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing, 10th edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2016.

As Rereading America notes,
The American Dream—our sense of the United States as a land of unique opportunities and individual achievement—is at the very heart of our cultural narrative; it would seem to be a defining, unshakable premise about who we are as a people and as a nation[…]Unfortunately, our dreams can easily turn into nightmares. Every American who hopes to “make it” also knows the fear of failure, because the myth of success inevitably implies comparison between the haves and the have-nots, the achievers and the drones, the stars and the anonymous crowd. It’s also hard to square the myth with some brutal contemporary realities, including entrenched poverty, wage stagnation, a shrinking middle class, the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of billionaires, and even modern forms of slavery (347-348).

In this essay, you will tell the story of the American Dream, discussing the ways that it has changed, been challenged, been complicated, and/or at times, perhaps even been disproven. You will support your discussion with information from the sources, as well as with at least three images that illustrate some aspect of the American dream. These images should not just “sit there” in your essay without commentary; rather, you should provide a close description/analysis of each, both describing who or what is in the image and explaining what you believe it illustrates about the American dream. You might consider using historical images, journalistic images, advertisements, images from popular culture, and/or even personal photographs. The images should support your overall analysis of the role of the American Dream in American culture/life.

Your essay will be a minimum of four pages, typed, double-spaced in Times New Roman font, plus a Works Cited page (you should cite your images in addition to any other sources you use to support your argument). Your essay should follow proper MLA format.