Author(s)
Barbara Meilak, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
ORCID: 0009-0009-9932-0285
Journal: Polish Journal of English Studies
Issue: 11.1 (2025)
Date: 15/06/2025
Page: 102
Quote As: Barbara Meilak, The Myth of the American Dream in Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers, Polish Journal of English Studies 11.1 (2025): 102-112
Abstract
This article analyzes Imbolo Mbue’s debut novel, Behold the Dreamers (2017), in the context of the myth of the American Dream, i.e. the belief that in the United States of America success is possible for anyone regardless of their heritage or social class. The article analyzes the myth of the American Dream through a hybrid methodology of close reading and narrative analysis, sociological and economic data interpretation, and selected frameworks in cultural studies. The novel in tandem with the presented data suggest that although many believe they “will grow to fullest development” (Adams 1931, 333) in the US, the American Dream is “symbolic rather than substantive” (Wolak and Peterson 2020, 969). Faced with insurmountable difficulties, the protagonists of Behold the Dreamers find that this Dream is indeed a myth that can only be realized by mirroring the exploitation they themselves have endured and by leaving the US. At the end of the novel, the Jongas leave America, but America, with its Dream, has certainly not left them.
Keywords: Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers, the American Dream, immigrant fiction
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© by the author, licensee Polish Journal of English Studies. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Received: 24.10.2024; reviewed 26.02.2025; accepted 20.05.2025