Tag Archives: American Dream

Bridges and the American Dream

By Robin Bates | Published: April 1, 2024

The Key Bridge disaster–and doubts about America’s response–brings to mind Hart Crane’s bridge poem, a hymn to America aspiring to greatness.

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Finding Strength in a Time of Covid

By Robin Bates | Published: December 14, 2020

Robinson Jeffers offers a poem that reminds us of spiritual resources available to us in these dark days.

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Knives Out and the American Dream

By Robin Bates | Published: January 13, 2020

The movie “Knives Out” is satisfying but leaves unquestioned the American Dream.

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Will Trump Turn Us into Goodman Brown?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2019

The disillusion of Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown may prove to be America’s in a post-Trump world.

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Happiness Based on Another’s Oppression

By Robin Bates | Published: April 3, 2018

To understand why the race card is so politically effective, reading Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

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Poems for Resisting Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: December 28, 2017

New York columnist Roger Cohen suggests two poems for resisting Trumpism: “if” and “Harlem.”

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Tolstoy on Resisting a Narcissist

By Robin Bates | Published: August 17, 2017

If Trump is like Napoleon in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” can he be defeated by popular resistance, as he is in Tolstoy’s novel?

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Trump Is Gatsby (But a Lot Meaner)

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2017

Donald Trump is Jay Gatsby, albeit a Gatsby with a mean streak. Nevertheless, the rise of the character helps us understand the success of our current president.

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The Wicked Witch, Disillusioned Dreamer

By Robin Bates | Published: July 1, 2015

Gregory Maguire’s novel “Wicked,” like versions of the Oz story before it, wrestles with the death of the American Dream.

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