The First Seven Years

The American Dream is the notion that working hard is enough to secure one’s place and the future of one’s children in the United States. The American Dream is a myth (a defining concept) in the sense that it shapes the way people think about class and the process of becoming American for people who are not presumed to be American (immigrants, racial minorities, and ethnic minorities, for example).

Especially during the early twentieth century, there was an assumption that individual effort would allow even immigrants like Feld to accrue enough money to secure the future of their children. Indeed, Feld is motivated to work himself to the point of having two heart attacks in order to afford Miriam the chance to go to college or at least secure the interest of Max, a man Feld imagines will be the perfect husband to vault Miriam into the middle class. Feld’s notion of material success as the sum of what success means is called into question when Max proves to be a boring, materialistic man who is unable to maintain Miriam’s interest, and again when Sobel manages to woo Miriam through books and the power of his words scribbled on the pages of those books. The implication of what happens to each of these characters is that there is something lacking in the American Dream when it comes to shoring up connections to others.

Feld is the character who most directly grapples with the meaning of hard work and success. Part of the challenge for Feld’s pursuit of the American Dream is that he has an inconsistent notion of what hard work is and how it should be rewarded. Feld initially identifies Max as a potential suitor for Miriam solely on the basis of his knowledge that Max is a “peddler’s son” who is not likely to follow in his father’s footsteps because he is a “college boy” (Paragraph 1) and thus likely to be upwardly mobile. Feld sees education as a status marker that can transcend Max’s working-class background, in other words. The men Miriam encounters in her workplace are not fit suitors in Feld’s mind because they are merely “loudmouthed salesmen and illiterate shipping clerks” (Paragraph 3). Max does slip momentarily in Feld’s estimation because he is studying to be an accountant instead of a “higher profession” (Paragraph 45) such as doctoring or lawyering, but Max gains this esteem back when Feld realizes that money men garner respect in America. For Feld, Max’s financial potential trumps what he learns of Max’s character.

One of the ironies of the story is that Feld initially fails to recognize the value of Sobel, a man whose ability to survive the Holocaust and work ethic show grit. Sobel is a hard worker, deeply committed to the pursuit of knowledge and self-improvement through reading, and he’s absolutely trustworthy. He is an ideal suitor and a known quantity, but Feld nevertheless overlooks him because Sobel is too much like Feld. Feld, in other words, wants his daughter to move up the class hierarchy by marrying a man who is different from her father. Feld is forced to surrender his status seeking on behalf of his daughter once he realizes that her potential happiness with a kindred spirit like Sobel is more important to her than her father’s dreams for her.