George Saunders and contemporary life in the United States Coming from an “unconventional” background, George Saunders is easily able to identify with the circumstances he is going through the daily worker (Wylie). However, Saunders has the advantage of spreading his ideas and concerns about life in the United States through his news and stories. Due to neoliberalism and capitalism and their correlation with the enormous wealth gap in the United States, Saunders focuses his protagonists' point of view from the perspective of the proletariat, allowing the reader to see that the life of consumerism has had an impact on our society. Saunders does not use conventional methods to describe this reality. Instead, Saunders emphasizes the "absence" of certain human moral characteristics in order to prevent the reader from looking in a hero's mirror - to lay the foundation for a world where our morality is loses to our inherent materialistic need for money (Wylie).Throughout Saunders' stories: "Pastoralia", "Brad Carrigan, American", "Jon" and "In Persuasion Nation"; are themes of violence, addiction and destiny. With these themes, Saunders talks about how money and power are reflected in the unconscious state of mind of everyone: from the highest-ranking people down to the "people at the bottom." Saunders points out that it is with this type of mindset that America is in decline not only economically, but also as a moral people. I try to "stay positive/think positive", but maybe money is the reason we sink so low into idleness, impatience, selfishness and so on (Saunders). In neoliberalism, people who are at the bottom stay at the bottom. It doesn't matter how hard they work or how much they work. Although this idea interacts between all the themes, what holds at the bottom is this state of dep...... middle of paper ...... to play in this world so that the words of the polar bears appear irrational. You can relate this to the fact that some working class people are happy with the jobs they have and don't really aspire to get more due to the economic situation they find themselves in. Say it's hard to find jobs these days where more and more educated people are being hired, so those without a degree just work where they are and don't want to advocate for more because of the risk of losing their jobs. Some people are simply resigned to their “destiny.” Saunders uses different themes of violence, fate, and dependence to reflect contemporary life in the United States under neoliberalism and capitalism. It highlights the "absence" of compassionate and essential humanistic traits in order to highlight the decline of these aspects of humanity due to our selfish desires for materialistic goods..