The American Nightmare: When The Dream Turns Sour

As the other two posts about The 42nd Parallel have so far focused on either the Newsreel or The Camera Eye sections of the text, I thought I would explore how Dos Passos best makes use of his standard prose chapters to uncover the supposed horrific truths behind what he considers to be the dangerous, often misunderstood American Dream. This is by far the most conventional form of literature he employs in his stab at depicting the heart of American life/culture, but it is also where we are connected to the personal accounts of real people (seemingly) that are regarded with indifference, if not open hostility, in their desperate, futile attempts to earn an honest living. His entire life savings varies day by day, anywhere from hundreds of dollars sitting in the bank, to the few dimes and quarters left clinking in his pockets. McCreary’s entire existence is seemingly reverted to this sense of animal brutality, where he is made to wander aimlessly around the wild jungles of American skyscrapers, where no work comes without cost, and where even the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter aren’t ever guaranteed like his famous Newsreels may claim. Dos Passos clearly wants the text to perfectly recreate the America that he knows from nearly one hundred years ago for the modern reader, but it’s also clear that he wants to do this honestly, even if his honest account spits in the face of everyone’s blind idealism of the growing nation.

Specifically, I wanted to explore how how Mac’s brief partnership with Ike Hall after leaving the company of Doc Bingham is meant to reveal everything wrong with the young working class in his day. Throughout their coexistence, neither worker pays even the faintest attention to anything but their basest desires. Instead of planning ahead and saving for their futures like responsible adults, they always act impulsively and resort to seeing where the wind takes them to find success in life. Fresh out of a job, Mac spends the only money he has, a dollar and a half, on a lunch to split between himself and this virtual stranger. The two have a chat, and they fall into the similar ideas of Karl Marx and socialism and making easy livings off the empty promises of the upper class, with Ike saying regrettably, “God damn it, if only people realized how easy it would be” (49). This seems highly appealing to them at the moment, as they have no money and no plan, and when confronted with choosing where they want to go to make a living, thus making or breaking the outcome of their entire future careers, they carelessly hitch a ride on a train to steal their way across the West coast to chance it on a whim. Their vague ideals and inflated pride are enough to keep them ambling along for a month or so, barely surviving off of bad jobs as they dart from place to place. They stick together, but only just, as they don’t trust themselves to make it on their own. Plans change, opportunities go horribly awry. Then they decide to treat themselves to some drinks after Ike’s reasoned argument, “What the Hell” (52). But the worst of it comes when the two count their change earned up from taking odd jobs here and there, they find that they’ve saved up about $8.75 between them, and Mac subsequently declares, “Golly, we’re rich” (53). This is how we know that neither of them have learned from their mistakes. They’re each too quick to congratulate themselves, to think that what they did was a major accomplishment, and neither of them have gained the necessary respect for money that they need to truly thrive in the workforce. Though in their current conditions, neither Mac nor Ike seem very likely to get the chance, as they repeatedly risk it all again and again on chance opportunities that may or may not pay off. Even when they meet up with Gladys and Olive after one of their ventures finally pays off later on, the boys head back to their place and spend some of their new loot on some drinks for the ladies. “Things happen fast,” the boys quickly lose awareness of their surroundings, and when they wake up “with (their) head like a split millstone,” they find the women gone and their wallets full of fresh cash stolen (59). Mac and Ike are exactly where they found themselves at the beginning of the chapter – nearly broke, and without any dependable supply of work. Here Dos Passos appears to be critiquing the big ideas of the American working class and showing them for what they truly are: young, immature, and way, way in over their heads. By the end of it, their partnership is split up as one of their crazy plans finally hits a bump in the road (literally) and Mac tumbles to the ground and Ike leaves him behind, stowing away on a midnight train going anywhere.

As a character, Mac seems to be a largely passive protagonist, never making any ideas for himself and blindly following the ill-conceived master plans that everyone else comes up with, and Dos Passos seems to be using his own story as a cautionary tale for the dangers that could come out of such disillusioned practices in the growing, cutthroat American economy.