The heart of the American dream, for many, involves freedom, a value historically represented through New York's famous amusement park, Coney Island. Millions of spectators visited the park as a place of leisure to escape from social prescriptions as well as daily routine. In reality, the park represented the rapid emergence of consumption through manipulative cooperation with industrial society. Like Coney Island, America's hegemonic structure actually lies behind its attraction to autonomy. Forced migrants and immigrants soon realized that America's quaint aesthetic left little or no room for them. According to the American dream, everyone has a fair chance to become rich if they are motivated and hardworking. This facade, describing the country as the port of freedom, promotes nostalgia for an America that only exists for the "other" after confronting the dynamics of hegemonic American society or conforming to its culture. mass economic. This complex reality is illustrated in particular through two facets of American popular culture: the transformation of an Eastern European family in Ragtime and the point of view of an African-American poet, Langston Hughes, through “Let America Be America Again.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The beginning of Hughes's "Let America Be America Again" complicated the idea that America is the land of the free through two perspectives. The first three stanzas resonate with a voice of privilege and ignorance, as opposed to a scholarly voice (parenthetically) that worships with personal experience. The first narrator longs for America to become “America Again” (Hughes). This desire in itself suggests two things, one about the country and one about the narrator: that the country has undergone an ideological change and that the narrator is a conservative who is unhappy about it. The voice goes on to describe the America they want back. Perhaps reminiscent of the early settlements of the New World, the description specifically calls for "the pioneer of the plain [to seek] a home where he himself is free" (Hughes). Such a reference evokes the beginnings of American prosperity, which came at the cost of disenfranchisement of Native Americans. As the parenthetical voice suggests, “America was never America” to everyone (Hughes). While one group freed itself from the “connivance of kings” and the “plans of tyrants,” the other was displaced. Hughes conveys two perspectives that paint two distinct portraits of America (Hughes). The dominant voice describes an America where “opportunity is real, life is free, and equality is in the air” (Hughes). If it weren't for that parenthetical voice insisting that America never offered them equality or freedom, the other perspective might well dominate and purify the public. Through punctuation and position, Hughes gives a sense of authority to the voice of the stanza; in comparison, parenthetical voice is limited and dependent. The use of parentheses in this case makes it clear that a different perspective is present but also that this voice is less meaningful. If performed, the back-and-forth could sound like a monologue - focused on one main character - while the other voice barely whispers in the background. Indeed, the reader might be tempted to skip the insertions altogether. On the other hand, stanzas are the obligatory vehicles of poetry, and the voice of stanzas confers authority and superiority over parenthetical sentences. Punctuation allowsthis distinction, just like the position where the voice in parentheses, almost muffled, is always placed after the dominant perspective. This placement suggests that the parenthetical voice is only a response to its counterpart and would not exist without the stanza voice. In the America implicitly described by the first three stanzas, disenfranchised Americans are inferior and dependent on the "pioneer" (Hughes). The rise of the voice now without parentheses as the narrator taunts the first narrator's illustration of America by revealing the ideals of exploitation as a means of privilege. The narrator begins by demonstrating that the "me" in the parenthetical intervals of the past is made up of several interconnected tribes, including poor whites, blacks, Native Americans, immigrants, farmers, and workers. These people are excluded from the American dream, yet they built it. The narrator admits that they too had a dream which spread quickly after having "beared the scars of slavery", having been "driven from the earth", having been "deceived and cast aside" or having been opposed to the to each other (Hughes). Together, as the narrator points out, these overworked individuals made this dream possible for the privileged; they “made America the land it has become” (Hughes). From American popular culture to industrial society, “every brick and stone” should be attributed to “the people” (Hughes). After building the very fabric of America, the narrator says, "we the people must redeem the land...and make America again" (Hughes). By bringing together the often separated minority groups, the narrator has constructed a counter-hegemonic structure and in the process hints at hegemonic influence as a means of gaining freedom and breaking the chains of exploitation. Like Hughes, Mameh, Tateh and The Little Girl in EL Doctorow's Ragtime challenges notions of freedom within the American dream. Upon their arrival, the family encountered authoritative figures (immigration agents and judicial police) who threatened their hopes for freedom (Doctorow 14-15). The agents pushed them through a mechanical procedure into a “human warehouse” where the immigrants were labeled, showered, and arranged on benches (Doctorow 14). Their early interactions in America commodified them in ways that would soon become all too familiar. Even the narrator of chapter three limits these individuals to a people who “casually killed each other,” “raped their own,” “stank of fish and garlic,” and “had no honor” (Doctorow 14). The family moved to New York's Lower East Side with jobs and dreams of prosperity. From morning to night, Little Girl and Mameh sew knee-length pants, earning a total of seventy cents per dozen. The father, for his part, “earned his living on the streets” as a silhouette artist (Doctorow 15). With their combined income, the family can only afford to live in an unsanitary apartment the size of a closet. The family is clearly in poverty, but this defeats their efforts. Like so many other immigrants, America exploits them by profiting from their labor and giving them only pocket money. Simultaneously, this mechanical system commodifies individuals and deprives them of freedom. Any attempt by the family to advance only sets them back, proving their limits and further cementing their role as a commodity in America. The girl's entry into school meant a loss of income for the already poor family. Education is a means to self-improvement; it’s a commitment that should result in long-term success. Rather than seeing things this way, “the crisis” has plunged..