The Junk Dream “In Sleeping City” by Wanda Coleman encapsulates the traditional version of female success that prevailed in early postwar America. Like most women of the time, Coleman's narrator was convinced that she would fulfill the aspirations of being the obedient and supportive wife of a socially mobile perfect husband and of raising a family in a moderately affluent style because that she lived in America, which gave every indication that this was an inevitable and desirable outcome. Similarly, the women in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963) engage in a conflict that Joan embodies between individualism and conformity with the traditional version of female success. In Thelma & Louise (1991), this dialectic becomes even more apparent as the women on the run literally escape the patriarchal version of success, which still exists despite some male sympathy. Ultimately, the texts demonstrate women's dissatisfaction with the traditional version of female success and the men and institutions that insist on it, as the women in each text strive to achieve the freedom and independence to flourish in an impossible and intangible dream written by them and not for them, whatever that may be. Furthermore, Coleman's Sleep City is a state that corresponds to suicide, which The Bell Jar and Thelma & Louise also employ to secure this freedom. Therefore, these texts collectively reject the traditional version of female success, considering it not only unobtainable, but also undesirable due to the inherent lack of freedom for women to dictate their own lives. The narrator of “In the City of Sleep” makes her desire to achieve the traditional version of female success quite clear. She wants to marry her handsome boyfriend after he returns...... middle of paper ...... Mouth, 2004. PrintKhouri, Callie. Thelma and Louise. The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2004. PrintPlath, Sylvia. The bell. The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2004. PrintWorks cited Coleman, Wanda. “In the city of sleep.” The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2004. PrintKhouri, Callie. Thelma and Louise. The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2004. PrintPlath, Sylvia. The bell. The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. Ed. Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2004. Print