The American Dream AMRITA SINGH “They’ve all come to look for America.” (Simon ǭ Garfunkel) “America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.” (Allen Ginsberg) When James Truslow Adams used the term “American Dream” explicitly in his 1931 book Epic of America , published at the time of the Great Depression following the economic crash of 1929, his intention was to lif the spirits of the nation by reminding the people that the values which defned the American dream were ingrained in the American consciousness. He wrote, “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be beter and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” (404Ȯ405). For Adams, the “dream” was not about the past but rather a sustained confdence in futurity, not “... a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to atain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position” (411Ȯ412). Adams goes back to the ideas that defned the building of the American nation, the ideals of 1 Revisiting American Literature.indb 277 26-Jul-18 7:01:32 AM