Introduction
Many written works of art usually have a message that fits our societies’ familiar narratives of events. These works facilitate message passage by employing characters who signify the meaning of the intended information to audiences. Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn is a narrative that helps explain immigrants’ stories in the early 1950s in America. The novel uses Eilis’ journey to America and fits it to the American Dream. A step-by-step explanation of Eilis’ journey and after reaching America defines features of the American Dream. The novel presents Eilis as a character who needs to achieve her ambitions in life with equal opportunities like other ordinary individuals. Furthermore, the novel reveals Eilis’ loyalties shifts with people within her surroundings and his relationship with home.
Brooklyn Analysis
Irish immigrant Eilis is the primary figure interacting and navigating different landscapes far away from home in Enniscorthy and Brooklyn. The novel portrays Eilis’ stultifying impact of Enniscorthy through deliberate imbue of acquiescence and passivity. Characters are perceived with isolation and loneliness due to every character’s location and cultural change. For instance, Brooklyn depicts Eilis’ thrust out of her quaint life in her home country Ireland, into a bustling and alien world in New York City, Brooklyn. Toibin is an Ireland native writer, and he has once been a victim of immigration inconveniences. He, therefore, understands what it takes for immigrant groups to realize their identity in a foreign culture.
How Brooklyn fit in the American Dream
Brooklyn portrays the all-time most ambitious theme, the American Dream. The American Dream is the ideological perception of equality in opportunities available to every American. It creates room to allow every American to achieve the highest goals and aspirations. The American Dream is built on the theme of ambition and hard work that led to positive results. Toibin expresses the capability of Americans in shaping people’s ambitions. Immigrants started migrating into America immediately after World War II in a search for a better life. Eilis and Tony’s relationship is a good idea because it matches their characters and ambitions in life. It signifies the role of the American Dream when Eilis moves to America and ends up building a positive future outlook. She is a hardworking girl and determined to earn big and have Enniscorthy (26). She, therefore, depicts the American Dream through hard work, determination, and ambition in the land of free and home to the brave.
Character Emulation of the American Dream
The American Dream plays a role of motivation in Eilis and Tony’s ambitions and hard work. It is good for her personal development not in studies but also in her relationship with Tony that also have a beneficial effect on her fate and make her move on. Eilis works hard in studies by revising through her notes and gets awarded a degree (p.148). Thus, Eilis’ determination and hard work in her education fit into the American Dream by expanding her knowledge and desire to achieve the American Dream.
Tony loves Eilis with all his heart, he buys the land and acts decisively for it. Moreover, they have similar aspirations and ambitions. In this regard, it appears that Tony is a good one for Eilis. He also showcases hard work by working as a plumber. His work enables him to earn enough money that sustains their romance with Eilis. Tony shares his dream of setting up a big house with his family and Eilis without telling Eilis (p.174). This aspect shows the role played by the American dream to work hard and live a wonderful life in Tony’s relationship with Eilis. It is also a reminiscence of Changhoon to be “in all” and has more love towards Eilis. Even though Tony does not have a degree, his ambition in life is not cut. He possesses a similar purpose to the American Dream as Eilis, hoping to get rich. Thus, the American dream of each of these characters reinforces the Tony and Eilis’ relationship.
Eilis’ family choice to send her to America was appropriate because it served as a milestone in fulfilling the American Dream. Eilis going to America marked the initial difference in her life and from her country’s lifestyle. It changed her mindset about what people had always perceived of the Americans in the 1950s. Non-Americans had always believed that everyone in America was racist. She learned to relate well with people of different origins far away from her country. While Eilis lived with Catholic women, she could not focus on instances of racism and differences. For this reason, Eilis would not have overcome transformation and obstacles in life with a positive approach by staying in Ireland. The novel reveals the happening of unexpected things that are significant to transform us into individuals of our dreams. She would not have achieved all her goals in education if she had remained in Ireland. Therefore, Eilis’s character emulates the American Dream in determination to achieve the highest goals in life.
Eilis’ life differs as she lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Ireland. While in New York, Eilis is determined and works hard in her studies to score good grades. She thinks positively about people and does not focus on white women. Unlike in New York, Eilis was not determined while staying in Ireland. Life in New York was better than life in Ireland for various reasons. In New York, Eilis is seen as a determined person and loves changes and transformation into lifestyle of sisters and attitude (p.52). She transforms further in her state and resembles sister Rose in being happy rather than pleasing people.
On the other hand, change is experienced when Eilis chooses to marry Tony in secret before returning to Ireland. She wants to enhance secrecy because her loyalty has shifted from home and within people in her environment. There is an emotional and physical shift into the new American culture. Eilis truly wants to be with Tony, but she does it in secret because she is not adapted to please people around her (p.56). These options are significant in making sure that she strengthens her relationship with Tony. She give him the security that she will come back to him. These instances simplify the American Dream that allows social freedom and equality for every individual to live their own lives.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Toibin’s Brooklyn narrative best fits the American Dream’s current situation in America. The novel’s characters, such as Tony and Eilis, signify determination and hard work for positive output, as stated by the American Dream. Eilis and Tony are determined in everything they do and remain ambitious in their goals. Besides, they experience inevitable change from their hard work. Change is always inevitable in life at times when people get pressed with issues. It is a matter of staying at home and suffering and going out of her way to enjoy. Therefore, this change implies a positive result expected from the American Dream approach of ambitious minds. Tony is ambitious to buy land to build and live in romance with Eilis. Eilis shows determination and ambition in the American Dream through hard work in a school that earns her a degree. However, the American Dream seems to be shuttered by aspects of racism in Brooklyn, evident in America today. The novel fits well in American society because individuals such as Eilis and Tony try to eliminate racial stereotypes through determination, but some groups still cling to the vice.
Work Cited
Tóibín, Colm. Brooklyn: A Novel. Simon and Schuster, 2009.