Summary
Mommy pokes her head back in and tells Grandma that they can't find any of the things. "I told you. I hid everything," Grandma replies. Mommy and Grandma continue to fight. When Mommy invites Mrs. Barker into the kitchen, Mrs. Barker points out that Mommy is being rude. Mommy vanishes back into the kitchen, and Mrs. Barker thanks Grandma for talking to her. "Don't tell Mommy or Daddy that I gave you that hint, will you?" Grandma says, and Mrs. Barker agrees. Mrs. Barker bids Grandma farewell and goes into the kitchen.
Suddenly, the doorbell rings again. It's the Young Man, and Grandma compliments him on his youth and his good looks. "You ought to be in the movies, boy," she says to him, to which he replies, "I know." When the Young Man confesses to know how handsome he is, Grandma suggests that he is, himself, "the American Dream." Mommy calls into the room to ask who came by, but when Grandma says it's the American Dream, she dismisses it as nonsense.
Grandma asks the Young Man what he's doing there, if he's not the van man, and he tells her that he's looking for work. "I'll do almost anything for money," he says. Hearing this, Grandma tells the Young Man that she has a lot of money, and that she won some money by sneaking out of the house and winning a baking contest. In the contest, she used a fake name, "Uncle Henry," and won $25,000 for making Day-Old Cake. "Money talks," says the Young Man.
Suddenly, Grandma notes that the Young Man looks familiar. "Well, I've done some modeling," he says, but that isn't how she knows him. The Young Man then tells her more about why he's open to do almost anything for money. He tells her, "...I have no talents at all, except what you see...my person; my body, my face. In every other way I am incomplete, and I must therefore...compensate."
Grandma is confused, so the Young Man tells her about his life. His mother died when he was born, and he never knew his father. But he did have an identical twin; "we had a kinship such as you cannot imagine."
Analysis
Grandma's story about the "bumble" is told obliquely, as though she is referring to people very similar to Mommy, Daddy, and Mrs. Barker, but not actually talking about them. The audience must deduce from her story that she is talking about the real Mommy, Daddy, and Mrs. Barker, but even by the end of the story, Mrs. Barker is still confused. It is as though she can only remember it if it is told to her as fact. She says of Grandma's story, "I'll have to relate it to certain things that I know, and … draw … conclusions." While Mrs. Barker can recall all of the events to which Grandma is referring, because Grandma is not saying that they explicitly happened to Mommy and Daddy, she is drawing a blank.
This botched communication and the blurred line between truth and fiction in Grandma's story highlight the theme of memory and repression in The American Dream. While it is easy for the characters to hurt one another, to be competitive with one another, and to make sweeping generalizations in conversation, they all have a hard time accessing a shared past with one another because they have repressed so much in favor of a more idealized or superficial image of reality. Grandma tries to break through this repressive impulse and selective memory by telling the story, but it doesn't quite work.
This section marks the arrival of a second mysterious visitor and the first invocation of the play's title. Soon after Grandma tells Mrs. Barker her shocking story, the Young Man arrives, a kind of ideal of American male beauty, wholesomeness, and charm who comes to the apartment looking for a job. Grandma, at once confusing and wise, labels the Young Man as "the American Dream." She tells him, "All those other people, they don't know what they're talking about. You...you are the American Dream."
Like the other characters in the play, the Young Man is less a specific and psychologically realistic character than an archetype, a representation of a concept, a projection or an idea. He is the quintessential "Young Man" and he knows it; in a very self-aware moment, he says of his own face, "It's quite good, isn't it? Clean-cut. Midwest farm boy type, almost insultingly good-looking in a typically American way. Good profile, straight nose, honest eyes, wonderful smile." Who would ever say this of themselves? And yet, in The American Dream, unexpected truths come from unexpected people. It is almost as if Albee himself is saying this through the mouth of the character he's describing.
The Young Man is not only a representation of male youth, but also a metaphor for the "American Dream," a national ideology of equality, opportunity, liberty, and democracy. The Young Man's wholesomeness, attractiveness, and likability suggest that the "American Dream" itself is an attractive and appealing proposition. However, as we get to know the Young Man more, we see the ways that his embodiment of the "American Dream" leaves something to be desired. He is, as he tells Grandma, "incomplete" and talent-less, searching for work wherever he can get it, and tragically unable to love or feel as a result of being torn away from his twin. Thus, Albee posits that "the American Dream" as a concept is at once appealing, comforting, and beautiful—yet unattainable, and ultimately hollow.
