"Give me liberty, or give me death!" (Henry 3) Arguably the most famous quote of this time period, Patrick Henry is saying that he would rather die than live under oppression. By going against what other thought should be a peaceful approach to the issue at hand, Henry went against the tide and gave an aggressive approach to the problem overseas. He did this so the people of America could feel as though someone was fighting for their dream to become their own nation.
Next, realism was a time period that showed The American Dream through nonconformity and independence in a new way. Realists were authors who tended to represent things as they were and not be subliminal with their motives, but rather be right out and active in their ideas. During this time period the idea of these themes stay the same, but the setting changes. From an early, pre-revolution standpoint arguing the independence of the colonists, to a point in American history where a certain people were not granted their rights even though that's what America stood for, Independence. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain shows the relationship between a young boy, Huckleberry Finn, and a runaway slave, Jim. This lays the basis for the adventures they incur, and the freedoms they both experience throughout the story and how they own earn their own independence. At the end of the book Huck says, "But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and civilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before." (Twain 293) At the end of the novel, most everything is resolved Jim is free and Huck will be adopted by Aunt Sally, but still distrusts society. Huck realizes that he wants the freedom that he experienced on the raft and that unsettled Western America gives him an opportunity to be himself, in a world not yet "civilized".