American Dream

American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, which was first coined by James Truslow Adams in the 20 th century, meaning everyone should have the opportunity to reach what s/he desires according to his/her abilities and attempts. Although the concept of American Dream existed from the beginning days of the establishment of the United States, it has undergone significant changes throughout the country’s history. This study investigates the effect of the financialization of the economy (the increase of the importance and the size of the financial sector relative to the entire economy) in the 21 st century on the three key elements of the American Dream—homeownership, employment, and income—from George Bush’s presidency in 2001 to the end of Barack Obama's presidency in 2016. The theoretical framework of the study is the American Dream Theory and the financialization of capitalization, and its methodology consists of a qualitative historical analysis. The result of the study indicate that financialization of the economy in the 21 st century caused the American Dream to become more financialized: while presidents Bush and Obama promised to realize American Dream for all Americans, in practice, their administration policies were more in the interest of financial institutions and the rich, rather than low and middle-class Americans.

Adaptation studies gained a renewed focus on the understanding of the mutations contained in the area of film adaptation namely by drawing on theorists like Linda Hutcheon and Robert Stam. This being the case, studying the film adaptation is to work as a platform to detect the social, political and cultural changes of the history. Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a nationally definitive work for the American literature has been persistently adapted to films since the advent of cinema. Mostly these adaptations occur at specific historical times in American history like Taurog’s adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1931) that studies the existential reality of the novel during the 1860s. And as adaptation studies, in this perspective, expand the horizon for cultural materialists who investigate the historicity of the text, the type of thinking that is promoted in this study is how the film adaptation ideologically has challenged the core of this nationally definitive text of American literature to further probe into the social and historical issues of the time of adaptations.