American Dream

Introduction: 
Sound of Silence is one of most renowned movie soundtracks presented in "The Graduates." It had once become a grand hit of the year. This is a song about the counterculture that surfaced in 1960 s opposed to domaint culture and became critical of the Vietnam War, institutionalized racism and consumerism. Simon and Garfunkel impacted the counterculture moment launching a silent revolution. In 1965, they released their memorable song the Sound of Silence that recounts the ignorance of the people who blindly follow the rulers without realizing their real egoistic intentions.

Lyrics: 

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools”, said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls”
And whispered in the sounds of silence

Analysis: 

In the song, Sound of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel point out a continuous truth about the darkness and blindness. They vocalized the silence as a blind submission of the people who give in to their leaders without realizing the consequences and it can become a mass hysteria. Silence can grow like a cancer and more and more people are willfully give up the freedom and blindly follow their leaders. People believe each end every word uttered by their leaders and not logically analyzing it but hearing without listening.Young Americans were sent 12,000 miles away from their homes to fight Communism, which was showed as an impending threat, but never had been given sufficient reasons of doing so.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel had been outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War that was one of the big deceptions presented to the American People. Carrying the torch maintaining the world from falling under Communist, politicians launched wars one after another, at the expanse of hundreds of thousands of American young people. They were upset to see young people keeping silence and letting this situation to continue. And it was an shameful degradation of the American dream.