Currents (Dec 2024)
“There ought to be a place for people without ambition”: the American Dream as a divisive force in Charles Bukowski’s Factotum
Abstract
The paper examines the perception of the American Dream in American society during the Second World War as presented in Charles Bukowki’s Factotum (1975). The article defines the notion of the American Dream in the 1940s and discusses it as a divisive force in the American society. The research identifies different perspectives on the Dream held by members of various social classes, with particular emphasis on the views presented by the main protagonist, Henry Chinaski. The Dream, which was a once unifying factor, seems to have been a source of deepening fissures in the picture of a coherent American population. Factotum presents an idiosyncratic story of negotiating the meaning of the American Dream in the mind of a troubled individual. Influenced by the pervasive belief in the Dream in the 1940s US, he tries to reconcile his inner beliefs with the surrounding reality, in an attempt to find his place in the community. This seems to be an impossible quest: the American Dream is presented to be an oppressive factor that eventually forces him to resign himself to the demi world of American outcasts.
