Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue, is a telling tale of immigration, love, and the sacrifice needed to achieve typical American freedoms conveyed through situational irony when sadly the perception of America doesn’t match the actuality. Despite many immigrants high regard for their nationality and homeland, much greater is the opportunity in America, or so it is thought. Irony also comes from imagining a life in America based solely on stories from outsiders in far away places, because those who have never been don’t know the truth about the real American experience.
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The situational irony demonstrated throughout the plot is made evident by juxtaposing those living in wealth, and those in poverty. People tend to want what they do not have and the Edwards boys are enticed by the meager life of the Jonga’s in Harlem and vice versa. It is that mere fascination with the unknown social class that unravels the premise of this book. Mbue describes the conditions of the Jonga’s apartment as having a “worn-out brown carpet” and a “fan in the corner struggling to do the job of an AC,” yet the Edwards boys acted as if “it were just a different kind of beautiful apartment in a different kind of nice neighborhood” (163). Contrastingly, the Edward’s SUMMER home is a “two-story warm gray stone-and-wood-shingled house with meticulously manicured boxwood spheres” (113). Each is mesmerized with what the other has. Coming to America, many like the Jonga’s hope to achieve a status similar to that of the Edwards, but by creating characters in opposite classes, comparing them, and showing how many mistake the life they will have in America, irony exposes the REAL “American Dream."
The “American Dream” could also be referred to as the “American Downfall” when expectations aren’t always met and hope turns to disappointment. The New York Times describes the book as an “immigrant experience — providing not simply the jolt of being in a new place but also the jolt of taking on a new identity because of that place,” or maybe even taking on a new understanding of a once far away place that becomes too close.