The promise of fulfillment and success in America, which Bruce Springsteen's music explores as an unattainable ideal leading to suffering and disappointment.
"Here is a man whose core discography (E Street Shuffle - Born In the USA) is largely a continuous, painful, coming-to-terms with the realization that your shot at having the promises of the American Dream are gone and what's now from here to death is suffering and disappointment and loneliness."
"Don not realizing that the American Dream is a fraud after Betty divorces him, but instead doubling down and marrying his beautiful buck-teethed secretary is so funny and pathetic."