The American Dream

It is obvious that West's The Day of the Locust is criticizing the so called 'American dream' and how ridiculous it is. I am curious about what other people think about it. Do you feel that West did a good job of portraying the American dream?
I really did not enjoy reading the book. In my opinion, it felt pretty shallow, unrealistic, and somewhat uninteresting, but maybe that is actually what West wanted the reader to think of the novel. Since West was able to effectively make the reader (at least he got me to) feel shallow and annoyed by the outrageous behavior of the characters pursuing the American dream, I would consider that a success for West. He definitely succeeded in getting his point across that the American dream is most definitely a ridiculous fake dream. When he uses the fake dead horse at the bottom of the pool to reflect the fakeness of their lives, I thought that was a little bit over the top. It was almost too fake to the point where it was annoying.

I am undecided on whether his method of exposing the realities of the fake lifestyle were too exaggerated, or if he needed to use outlandish events to expose the stupidity of the American dream. I thought West did a good job with the cock fight scene. He used something that is actually something that happens in society (unlike the fake dead horse in the pool, which was over the top in my opinion), and used it to show the craziness of the American dream. The brutality of the cock fight reflects the ruthlessness of the lifestyle as well as show the selfish indulgences of the lifestyle. An example of this is the way the character just buys a rooster only because he wants to watch a fight. He doesn't care that he is wasting his money for just a few moments of entertainment, he simply wants to be entertained.
I think that Faye's character was what West did the best with. It wasn't necessarily her character that I thought was effective, but more so the role she played in the novel. I found her personality traits to be annoying and over the top. Her overconfidence about becoming a star was too intense and felt unrealistic to me. Despite her annoying character, West used her very well all throughout the novel. I see her as the perfect symbol of the American dream. All the guys are basically drooling over her, just like society yearns to live the American dream. She is a really attractive girl, but other than her physical appearance she has no depth to her character. The American dream is very similar in nature. It is shallow and unfulfilling where there is nothing more than material possessions and no deep rooted relationships or happiness. Also the American dream can fall apart and be gone forever just like anything in this world. This is reflected when Faye is gone in a heartbeat. After the night of the party and sleeping with Miguel she moves out from Homer's and is not seen the rest of the novel.
In my opinion, on the large scale the book was good. West was able to effectively represent the American dream and my different aspects off it, but the details he used were annoying and over the top. But I do find it annoying when people are in pursuit of the American dream, so maybe West intended for the reader to be annoyed.

I feel like this blog is bland without any form of artwork to go along with it, so here is a related song. This is a song called An American Dream by the band August Burns Red. It is raising the point that we the ones to blame for fueling the flame of the lifestyle of indulgence and are becoming suffocated with such a lifestyle.