From Ragged Dick (Young Ho Yoon)

This story is about a young boy named Richard Hunter, also known as Ragged Dick, as he progresses his childhood. Dick struggles through the hardships of city life and trying to achieve the “American Dream”.
As a child, Dick is nothing more than a poor city boy who is trying to earn money on the streets of New York City. Although he works and struggles to remain an honest, hardworking boy, he is also faced with troubles. Through Dick’s shoe-shining work, he tends to meet lots of people. Each day is another learning experience for Dick. There are many times when Dick’s integrity and honesty are tested, but he never cheats anyone.
As time goes by, Dick eventually meets a boy named Frank, who is of a wealthy family, but is not at all familiar with New York City. Dick makes an intelligent proposal which is he offers to show Frank all around the city, and take him to all the famous places. Frank accepts his proposal and in exchange, his uncle buys a new suit for Dick and helps him clean himself up. This was the real turning point in Richard Hunter’s life because Frank’s family was able to help Dick. They did this by providing shelter and importantly to keep friendship.
From this point, Richard Hunter was no longer on the streets, and was determined to never look back. He was able to get a job, earn more money, and eventually succeed in achieving his dreams.
While reading the article, I really was able to put myself in the story, and live Dick’s life with him. Today, many people’s dream is to achieve success and this formally became known as “The American Dream”. Every person’s perception of success is extremely different and individual, that makes everyone’s dreams different. Maybe there are people who strive for big goals, and maybe there are others who want to take achieving happiness one day at a time.
I think that the word “success” alone can be thought to have a completely different meaning today than it did in the time of story. I think that in today’s world, people tend to set much higher goals and expectations for themselves, whereas, in Ragged Dick.
I think achieving success and happiness, it should be each to our own. When people set more realistic goals, it results in more happiness and comfort in their lifestyle. However, in today’s world, Americans have become so incredibly competitive and successful, that the standards have been significantly raised to the point where personal happiness is no longer good enough. I think that after reading a story like Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick, we subconsciously make ourselves to realize the important underlying message that he is trying to portray. To me, this message gave me optimistic thinking and no matter how bad our life is. It can always get better if we are honest, hardworking and determined.