America, Land of Possibilities

This book allows us to understand the American social novel as a narrative of the quest for social justice through individual and collective transformation of society. This change must be brought about by ideas but also by people. Therefore, within the narratives studied, consciences are shaped and developed that are intended to move the masses toward a critical and systemic appreciation of their economic and social condition. These consciousnesses are those of Julian West in Looking Backward, of Jurgis in The Jungle and of Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. The expression of a social consciousness that is formed on an individual and collective scale is a fundamental characteristic of the American social novel. Through biased prose, the authors construct this consciousness, which eventually turns into a political consciousness that is sometimes assumed, as in Bel/Amy and Sinclair, and sometimes ambivalent and diffuse, as in Steinbeck. It is through the discourse and the atypical trajectory of the characters carrying this consciousness that the authors criticize, deconstruct and subvert the much-sung myth of the American dream.