Intention

The intention of Tara Westover's essay "I Am Not Proof of the American Dream" is to persuade her readers that is too difficult for poor people to access education in the United States. Westover aims to show a more nuanced perspective of upward mobility in the USA that is often dependent on factors beyond just hard work, and is therefore inaccessible to many people. In her essay, she challenges the notion that the American Dream is universally attainable, and shares her personal experiences as evidence of how the idea that hard work and resilience alone lead to success can be limiting and exclusionary.

Westover argues that the American dream is often presented as an ideal in which hard work and individual initiative are rewarded with success and upward mobility. However, she cont...