I Dream of Eugeney

If money and comfort did not do it for Dexter Green, what if he had had a wife and children? Is family the true American Dream?

*O'Neill enters stage right. His dark eyes peer out from under noble eyebrows with a sense of melancholy. With hair slicked back and a professional dark suit, he exudes an air of gloomy knowledge. A bottle of whiskey can be seen in his pocket.*

Mary and Tyrone were also Dream seekers. They thought that their love and marriage would happily carry them through into their old age. I would argue that love is the current key to the American Dream, although it is arguable whether this key is just as illusory as wealth and beauty were for Dexter. Mary even echoes Dexter: "What is it I'm looking for? I know it's something I lost" (1415). Staring "dreamily" into nowhere, she goes on to talk about wanting to become a nun in "the winter of her senior year," and how she got distracted by falling in love and getting married. If her winter dream had come true, would she have been happy? Are personal dreams like hers of more substance than the general (but more enticing) American Dream? Had Mary stayed on her own path, perhaps she wouldn't have been enticed into the desert by the American mirage.