Emerald City

Most people argon pursuing a dream. The American Dream is the bringing close togetherl of freedom and opportunity of achieving success and wealth the view that every individual can rise from rags to riches with a forgetful grit, imagination and hard work. A dream could just as salubrious be about personal fulfilment. We top executive non even pack the success and glamour if we meet these personal dreams. Nevertheless we pursue opportunities in desire and expectation of living a better wait on, a life more glamorous and prosperous than our present. In Emerald city by Jennifer Egan, the principal(prenominal) character Rory, an ambitious guy from Chicago, is seeking the American Dream.He has move to New York in hope of reaching the glitter and success he expects the city to offer. Rory has built up expectations and ideas about New York through tuition novels and envisioned the glamorous New York life he cap faculty be living even before arriving in the big city. In the st art-off of the story Rory appears rather vain and irrational. He strives towards jibting into his aver idea of the New York jet set, therefore he changes his behaviour But no matter how much Rory ate, he stayed exactly the same. He took up skunk instead, although it burned his throat1.He is pret endinging to be just aboutone he is non, accept this change of behaviour will make him made Fake it trough you make it. To emphasize this, Egan uses the Elmers glue as a atom smasher to get Rory to reflect on his artificial life the glue might look more appealing, besides it is useless and fake as milk2. In the same manner Rory is misusing himself he is not true to himself. Rory had found this distressing in a way he still didnt quite a understand3. On a subconscious level he might be aw atomic number 18 of this. Yet, it is not until the end of the story Rory realizes this.As one of the mankinds largest cities New York, The Big Apple, is the epitome of a metropolitan, emanatin g glory, immenseness, opportunities as well as temptations. The immensity and diversity of the city makes the individual face insignificant. Consequently you tend to get lost in the sea of people, disembodied spirit unimportant. New York represents instantlys civilization of people trying to fit in. Like Rory and Stacey, everybody is reflecting themselves in separate people in hope of creation recognized and acknowledged. In addition the role of New York has a great importanceregarding the relationship between Rory and Stacey. And it struck him that this was New York a place that glittered from a distance even when you reached it4. In this sudden revelation Rory realizes that New York constantly will be full of temptations and achievable success, and he understands that Stacey for him is the true gleam matter, he has been searching for. He searched the dark shopfronts for some occasion, some final thing at the core of everything else, but he found just his own reflection and Staceys5. The relationship between Rory and Stacey seems to be the only duncish matter in the story.Rory has the option of choosing one of the successful models. Nevertheless, he chooses Stacey a failing model whom he adored against all reason6. The teller is a third-person narrator limited to Rory. As a reviewer you are not acquainted with Staceys olfactory perceptionings for Rory. It is implied that Stacey and Rory do not prioritize getting to know each other deeply. They are both too cross in their search of fulfilling their individual dreams. Yet, this changes in the end where Stacey realizes and accepts that her dream in New York presumably never will come true.Rory supposed he had the agent to pound Stacey by telling her she was not good enough deliver the goods as a model it would take so little, he thought, to crush her7. But when he tells her this in the end she reveals an inner strength and ability to see new possibilities Rory held his breath, watching in alarm ed amazement as the slender wand of her body swayed against the yellow sky. She had no trouble equilibrate If it doesnt work, she said, then Ill see the public some other way8. Stacey is letting go of her dream, and she is able to see the world from a different angle.She may not know what will happen, but for the first time in the story she is showing heartfelt center towards Rory She took Rorys face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth hard, with the fierce, favorable urgency of person about to board a train9. This tells the reader that she does have feelings for Rory after all. The title Emerald city could be interpreted in several ways. The reflections in an emerald could represent how the people in New York are mirroring themselves in their unattainable conceptions of what it is like to be successful. That everybody is trying to be someone else, someone more successful.The title could moreover relate to the famous childrens novel The wonderful wizard of Oz, where ever yone who enters the beautiful capital Emerald City has to fail green-tinted eyeglasses in order to protect themselves from the glory of the city. The city is not a special city, but the glasses make the city look green, although the city is no greener than every other city. Emerald City would in this fable be New York, and clarify that New York is like any other big city. This would additionally explain why Rory disappointingly does not feel more successful than other people in New York.In Emerald City Rory and Stacey are pursuing their dreams of making it in New York. It is not until the end they realize that their hopes of succeeding is insignificant, as their dreams of a better life in fact are personal needs of acknowledgement and love. We are taught to believe that being successful will make us feel happier that is what todays society tells us. We rarely consider what could happen if our hopes of being successful do not live up to our expectations, if our life of chasing suc cess does not make us happy or if being successful does not make us feel any more special.