Social class in the U.S.

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How Class Ascendancy is presented in American Novel?

Social stratification:
Social stratification can be described as the “layering of society” that has got different kinds and types of systems. Typically, there are three important systems.

1. Estate system
The central characteristic of the estate system of stratification is that it is based in land and in loyalty to an entity that controls, distributes the land -- usually the monarchy. In this kind of system of inequality there are three estates: the landed gentry/nobility, the serfs or peasantry, and the clergy.

2.Caste systems
The principal distinction between a cast and estate system has to do with the part played by religion in the separation of groups. Both caste and estate systems were based in agriculture and the ownership of property. However, the caste system made distinctions among groups of people in terms of their standing sanctioned by religion.

3.Class systems
Class systems seem to be more a product of the industrial revolution. Classes arise from the industrial productive system. Marx is in fact one of the first to describe such a system, but does not go a long way toward defining what the classes are except to note there are two principal classes: owners and workers.
So in class system stratification in according to social class which itself is based on occupation, education, income and wealth.
What makes class system different from the other ones is the fact that it is somewhat more open than either the estate or caste system. People can move up (or down) with some degree of ease.

Class Ascendancy:
Class ascendancy is defined as moving from a lower level to an upper level. That is what is so much developed in American dream that refers to the idea that one's prosperity depends upon one's own abilities and hard work, not on a rigid class structure. So American dream gives opportunity and freedom to all people to reach their goals without the pressures imposed by class.

Class Ascendancy in American novel:
This idea has always been considered as the essence of American dream and consequently has been a central theme in American literature.

For example in The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is a self-made, self-invented millionaire who has the ability to transform his dreams into reality. Fitzgerald has put his country’s most significant obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings in this character. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--". That is what makes it a tale about the American dream that an individual can achieve success regardless of family history, race, or religion simply by working hard enough.

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1937) is another example in which George's and Lennie, migrant workers are constantly moving from one place to another in hoping to improve their life. They are in search of their dream, being able to own a home, have a job, and have a family to enjoy it with. So their dream matches American dream which is more obviously represented when George tries to calm Lennie down by reminding her of a story about the large farm they're going to buy one day and how they will live there and enjoy nature and work and live together forever, whenever they get into trouble. Throughout the story they never give up their dreams of improving their life to an upper level, exactly what is defined in class ascendancy.

In his next work, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck focuses on one family, The Joads, former tenant farmers in Oklahoma who were forced out by the larger companies who wanted their land back during the Great Depression. So with dreams of luscious grapes and peaches in abundance waiting to be picked, they start their journey to California. Despite poverty, homelessness, death, and despair, the Joads refuse to give up their dignity, decency and spirit. They struggle to exist and do not give up their dream that their life can be better.

In spite of a lot of other works that symbolize the corruption of American dream, this theme continues to be represented in more modern novels such as The House on Mango Street (1991) by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza Cordero is a girl from Hispanic quarter of Chicago who doesn’t like to belong to her neighborhood. She likes to have a better home, a better life, and greater opportunities. She uses poems and stories to escape reality and express her thoughts and feelings about her oppressive environment. So she is a girl refers to her own power and invents her dreams to change her life, the dreams that appropriately fall into American dream.

In addition to above mentioned novels, there are a lot more examples that develop the American idea of possibility of class ascendancy in the so-called land of opportunities, providing equal chances for everyone. However, there are novels that concentrate on social gap and inequality such as Dreiser’s American tragedy and Sister Carrie, Cran’s Maggie: A Girl of All Streets, etc.
For sure reading these novels and putting them together can give us a valuable understanding of the role of social class in the U.S.