Many Americans believe in their traditional values and their political ideals. These values and ideas are expressed in American dream, the optimistic narrative of American life. In this optimistic narrative, America is portrayed as a country in which one's dreams and desires can be fulfilled, and a successful man is considered a hero. But the Great Depression makes American people suspicious of this optimistic dream. In the Depression era, each political group in American society possess its system of narration in which each group expresses its opinion and suppress other voices. The traditional and conservative group praises the success ethic based on American dream. But Odets thinks this ethic is a false dream or a national fantasy, so he wants to replace it with radical ideas. Radical ideas were often ignored in America, but the Great Depression makes them a valuable part of American life. Odets' hope is that radicalism will save American people from the cruelties of American capitalism. American dream, the rosy promise of American capitalism, no longer exists in the Depression era. So he deals with this failure of American Dream in Paradise Lost through the downfall of one middle-class family. He thinks the family is the place where the failure of American Dream is well expressed, so his social issue centers around a middle class family. He suggests radical narrative as an alternative to the traditional one.