The American Dream Review

The play begins with Mommy and Daddy sitting in a living room discussing how "they" are late. Then Mommy goes on a long winded antidote that really highlights how inane the society we're living in functions. Enter Grandma: the most honest and truthful character of the play. She is carrying boxes, and appears very chrotchety and irritable. When grandma leaves for a moment Mommy talks about how nicely grandma wrapped those boxes, equating love to material value. This is a symbol of the new American dream. Mommy then goes on to talk about how she would never open the wrapped boxes of lunch Grandma made and instead ate the other cildren's lunches. This is one of the views of Mommy that gives us good insight into her personality and mind. It shows how shallow she was and how eager she was to take advantage of other people. As she said "I used to eat all the other little boys' and girls' food at school, because they thought my lunch box was empty" (Pg66). Then Mommy goes on to talk about how she has a right to live off of Daddy because she had sex with him, and how lucky he was to have her and so was Grandma. Grandma comes back in and said some rather rude things and gets yelled at, but finally "they" arrive. It turns out that "they" are a woman named Mrs. Barker. The fact that a single person is used in a plural form represents that Mrs. Barker stands for other people as well as herself. They make polite chitchat, and mock the societal norms of "make yourself at home". As Mommy says:"Are you sure you're comfortable? Won't you take off your dress?" (Pg79). Then comes and emasculating incident with Daddy, where Mommy humiliates him and causes him some stress. They make idle chitchat for a while, then Mrs. Barker starts to feel faint and Mommy and Daddy go looking for water and other bits. Grandma snickers when they say they can't find anything, and we are under the impression that Mommy and Daddy are unintelligent and cannot even find water. Once Grandma and Mrs. Barker are alone Grandma tells Mrs. Barker about a "bumble" Mommy and Daddy had, and how they punished it by destorying it's body parts one by one. Mrs. Barkers agress with the punishments, acting like it was quite natural and normal for a child's eyes to be gouged out because it prefer it's father to it's mother. Mrs. Barker then goes in search of Mommy and Daddy to get them a new "bumble", upon which a handsome young man enters the apartment. Grandma is told about how he had an indentical twin, and that it was destroyed in the same way the previous "bumble" was destpryed. It becomes apparent that Grandma symbolizes the old american dream, while the young man is the new. Grandma says so herself, when Mommy asks who's there she says "The American Dream! The American Dream! Damnit!" (Pg 109). Soon after, Grandma leaves, only to "reaapear" unknown to most of the other characters. The American Dream boy is adopted by Mommy and Daddy, and in the end only the New American Dream can see the old one. My apoligies for the spelling and aburptnuss of this piece. I wrote it on my ipod because my computer crashed an hour and a half before this was due.