The American Dream The American Dream is a national ethic of the United States. The American Dream could be anything; it could mean achieving financial success, receiving a U.S. passport, gaining freedom, or gaining rights. Every American has a dream, and that dream is the American dream. In recent years the American Dream has become a very popular central theme in American literature and is featured in novels such as The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech . is considered the most important rhetoric in the world. King Jr. expresses the effect of injustice visible in the United States during the 1950s and exposes his opinion to the public. King Jr. states, “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.” Blacks were treated like animals throughout the Southern states. Martin Luther King Jr. gives his voice to the ongoing fight for black rights, this was his American dream. Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger, is a teenager who resists the idea of ​​becoming an adult. Holden wishes he wasn't forced to grow up and deal with situations that adults face. Holden says, “…I keep imagining all these little kids playing in this big rye field and everything. I have to catch everyone if they start falling off the cliff. I would just like to be the dream catcher and all…but that's the only thing I'd really like to be” (Salinger 173). Holden's American dream is to become a catcher in the rye, a person who protects or saves children from facing adult problems. Hold… at the center of the paper… or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, climbs the ladders of his concepts, emerges before his realizations” (Steinbeck Chapter 14). A man is willing to build anything to achieve something he wants. A man will do whatever he needs to do to satisfy his desires. The journey is treacherous and in California you try to find respect, equal pay and equality among people. The American Dream is a very diverse topic where anyone can want whatever they want. People might try to do anything to make that fantasy come true. American literature of all periods has within it the sense of the American dream and is established through the protagonist of the story. Maybe the American dream doesn't always come true at the end of the story, but a dream is a dream. The American dream awaits realization among all the American people.