The American Dream is the notion that working hard is enough to secure one’s place and the future of one’s children in the United States. The American Dream is a myth (a defining concept) in the sense that it shapes the way people think about class and the process of becoming American for people who are not presumed to be American (immigrants, racial minorities, and ethnic minorities, for example).

Especially during the early twentieth century, there was an assumption that individual effort would allow even immigrants like Feld to accrue enough money to secure the future of their children. Indeed, Feld is motivated to work himself to the point of having two heart attacks in order to afford Miriam the chance to go to college or at least secure the interest of Max, a man Feld imagines will be the perfect husband to vault Miriam into the middle class. Feld’s notion of material success as the sum of what success means is called into question when Max proves to be a boring, materialistic man who is unable to maintain Miriam’s interest, and again when Sobel manages to woo Miriam through books and the power of his words scribbled on the pages of those books.