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Horatio Alger HARLON L. DALTON The two preceding selections dramatize the American Dream barrage tide true: the conquest stories of the fictional Ragged shot and the real- liveness Cohn Powell represent the myth of single(a) success in America, as twain men rise above distress to reach their goals. This foot by Harlon L. Dalton questions that myth, calling it not only now fictional, still worsened mixerly destructive. Using Alger as his skin rash example, Dalton systematically explains how the rags-to-riches myth can conceal important social realities like range and degree. Dalton is a professor at Yale right School and originator of Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear between Blacks and Whites (1995), from which this selection is taken. Ah, Horatio Alger, whose be more(prenominal) than any other is associated with the real American hero. A writer of mediocre fiction, Alger had a law for commercial success that was simple and straightfo rward: his lead characters, adolescent boys born into poverty, forever managed to transcend their station in manner by dint of laboured work, persistence, initiative, and daring.[1] Nice story line. There is just one riddleit is a myth. Not just in the sense that it is fictional, but more fundamentally because the lesson Alger conveys is a false one.

To be sure, legion(predicate) myths atomic number 18 perfectly benign, and more than a few are salutary, but on eternal sleep Algers myth is socially destructive. The Horatio Alger myth conveys three raw material meanss: (1) each of us is judged just on h er or his suffer merits; (2) we each have a! fair opportunity to heighten those merits; and (3) ultimately, merit will out. severally of them is, to be charitable, problematic. The first message is a variant on the rugged individualism ethos . . . . In this form, it suggests that success in life has nothing to do with pedigree, race, class background, gender, national origin, sexual penchantin short, with anything beyond our individual control. Those variables may exist, but they undertake no...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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