How the issue of the American Dream is presented

Your essay must focus on how the issue of the American Dream is presented in J.D. Vance’s introduction to his book Hillbilly Elegy. A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The American Dream is a concept according to which all Americans have an equal opportunity to achieve success in life through hard work, no matter what background they come from. In other words, it is an ideal according to which upward mobility is available to everyone – that people can move from their starting socio-economic status to a higher one.

J.D. Vance uses the introduction to his book to take on a concerned and personal approach to the issue of the American Dream. Vance is honest about the fact that he has a subjective approach to the issue of the American Dream which is based on what he knows about the community he grew up in: “So this book is not just a personal memoir but a family one – a history of opportunity and upward mobility viewed through the eyes of a group of hillbillies from Appalachia” (ll. 110-111). In particular, he talks about “the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent” (36-37) who have a long histor...