The Undesirable Dream Wanda Coleman's “In the City of Sleep” encapsulates the traditional version of female success prevalent in post-World War I America. Like most women of the time, Coleman's narrator was confident that she would fulfill the aspirations of being the obedient and supportive wife of the perfect socially mobile husband and of raising a family in moderately affluent style because she lived in America, which gave every indication that this was an inevitable and desirable outcome. Similarly, the women of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963) are involved in a conflict that Joan personifies between individualism and conformity with the traditional version of female success. In Thelma & Louise (1991), that dialectic becomes even more evident when the runaway women literally escape the patriarchal version of success, which still exists despite some male sympathy. Ultimately, the lyrics trace women's dissatisfaction with the traditional version of female success and the men and institutions that insist on it, as the women in each text strive for freedom and independence to find fulfillment in a impossible and intangible dream written by them and not by them. for them, whatever it may be. Furthermore, Coleman's City of Sleep is a state that corresponds to suicide, which The Bell Jar and Thelma & Louise also employ to ensure that freedom. Thus, these texts collectively discard the traditional version of female success as not only unattainable but also undesirable due to its inherent lack of freedom for women to dictate their own lives. traditional version of female success quite clear. She wants to marry her handsome boyfriend after he returns...... middle of paper...... Mouth, 2004. PrintKhouri, Callie. Thelma and Luisa. The outlaw Bible of American literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thundermouth, 2004. PrintPlath, Sylvia. The bell jar. The outlaw Bible of American literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2004. PrintWorks cited Coleman, Wanda. "In the city of sleep." The outlaw Bible of American literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thundermouth, 2004. PrintKhouri, Callie. Thelma and Luisa. The outlaw Bible of American literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thundermouth, 2004. PrintPlath, Sylvia. The bell jar. The outlaw Bible of American literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Mouth of Thunder, 2004. Print