大学英语精品课程powerpoint presentation.ppt

The American Dream in American Literature
“美国梦”最初是清教移民对自由信仰、自由创造的渴望
和梦想,随后在那片新大陆上及向西部开拓的过程中,美国梦演变
为对幸福的追求,尤其是对成功的追求,包括事业、爱情、财富等。
南北战争后,随着工业化进程的深入和大都市的相继出现,美国梦
更是流行并具体化为对金钱的渴望和追求,它使人们相信:在美国
这块土地上,机会均等,只要努力奋斗,一个没有鞋子穿的穷孩子
完全可以成为百万富翁并获得幸福.
The American Dream:
New England: Plymouth(1620),
Massachusetts(1630)
The South: Jamestown in Virginia, 1617,
pany in London
mercial venture
Puritans for Religious freedom
For the Puritans:
to “build a city on a hill”
2. For the southerners:
to “find the vale(valley) of plenty”
Two Dimensions of American Dream
The American Dream:
A product of the frontier and the west. It believes
in the goodness of nature and man. It represents
the romantic enlargement of the possibilities of life.
As long as one work hard, he surely can e
essful and fulfill his wishes.
American individualism
( the importance of single man, initiative & independence)
Writer, printer, publisher,
scientist, and diplomat, he was
the most famous and respected private figure of his time. He
was the first great self-made
man in America.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
“First great man of letters”
---- David Hume
Autobiography
Benjamin Franklin embodied the Enlightenment
ideal of humane rationality. Practical yet idealistic,
hard-working and enormously essful, Franklin
recorded his early life in his famous Autobiography.
The most famous section describes his scientific
scheme of self-improvement.
Franklin lists 13 virtues: temperance, silence, order,
resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice,
moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and
humility. He elaborates on each with a maxim; for
example, the temperance maxim is "Eat not to Dullness.
Drink not to Elevation." A pragmatic scientist, Franklin
put the idea of perfectibility to the test, using himself
as the experimental subject.
I was dirty from my journey, my pockets were stuffed out
with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to
look for lodg