nger any place for him to build, and thus the walls of the city--walls to which he would like to add--become prison walls for him, holding him down. The walls of the city similarly enclose other characters in the novel. The city has both energetic life and a deadening sense of enclosure, offering and taking away opportunities at one and the same time. Bud indicates this as he makes his way toward the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge:
When he got to the tangle of girders of the elevated railroads of the Brooklyn side, he turned back along the southern driveway. Dont matter where I go, cant go nowhere now (Dos Passos 124).
Dos Passos believes strongly in individual liberty, and many encounters i the novel show this in a public way. Ellen achieves personal success as an actress, but in so doing she compromise something in herself and finds the materialistic side of success to be empty and demeaning. Yet, the American dream has real power and draws character after character through life, and as they meet in public places, they play this out, each seeking to exp
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