Themes from American Literature

The American Dream and Heroes
A major theme in Don Delillo’s writing on a whole is the effects of technology on the American identity. This novel most specifically explores the idea of the fading of the real world and its replacement with artifices and façades. The American Dream in the roots of American literature represented a world of unbridled possibilities and potential that could be unlocked by one qualification, hard work. Technology has fundamentally changed that system. Manual labor and street smarts are no longer ingredients for success. Anyone with an intimate knowledge of computers can be a millionaire but long-toiling Americans receive almost no reward for their work. In the novel, Jack is the embodiment of the anti-American dream. He has been married four times and has children from various marriages. His family is dysfunctional and nowhere near the ideal American image. Jack is also a professor in Hitler studies. By today’s standards, Hitler studies are not a traditional American value. He does not work exceptionally hard and has little merit in any way. He is a generally unhappy man. By embodying the opposite of the American Dream, Jack becomes an anti-hero. Like Willy Loman in The Death of a Salesman, Jack is anything but a traditional American hero. These characters show a shift in American literature and a shift in the American social climate. Both Miller and Delillo recognize that the American dream is crumbling (due to economic depression or the undue influence of technology).