Discussion 10: U.S.A John Dos Passos

As one dips in and out of this book, they read insightful biographies of the lives of famous individuals from the early 21st century, from the rich to the poor, the business man to the worker. The many underlying themes of the book tell it like it is; the underlying tragedy of success and how drink destroys the great and the small alike and how everyone takes advantage of the working man. These mini biographies underlie the truth of the struggle to get to success as well as the struggle after, from the thought that there is no good or evil, hero’s or villains but just people. The fictional style is simplistic as you will find quite a powerful story is told. People are only human after all and to get the good out of life we must open ourselves up to the bad. We all as individuals have some form of tragedy in our lives, its how we deal with it that make us strong. The only down whirl of success is where is the happiness at the end of a long haul to get there. It would seem from dipping into this book that even though people get the success they wanted they are still not happy, take Henry Ford’s story as an example. He helped create a world of automobiles but as his life went on he changed his opinion on the automobiles and hide away from it all. If there is no light at the end of the tunnel what is there to drive us to success as surely it’s the greener pastures on the other side that get us through our day on the road to our success.