Deconstructing America: reading John Steinback

Abstract

The first chapter of the thesis The Path to Doom America from Idea to Reality takes the journey of America from its conception as an idea to its reality The country that came into existence as a colony of Great Britain and became a refuge of the exploited and the persecuted on one hand and of the outlaws on other hand soon transformed into a giant machine of exploitation persecution and lawlessness It is surprising to see how the noble ideas of equality liberty and democracy and pursuit of happiness degenerated into callous profiteering Individuals insensitive to the needs and happiness of others and arrogance based on a sense of racial superiority even before they take root in the virgin soil of the Newfoundland The effects of this degenerate ideology are felt not only by the Non White races within America and the less privileged countries of the third world but even by the Whites within America The concepts of equality freedom democracy and pursuit of happiness were manufactured and have been exploited by the American ruling class The first one to experience the crawling effects of the Great American Dream were original inhabitants of America the Red Indians and later Blacks who were uprooted from their home and hearth and taken to America as slaves