Page "Horatio Alger, Jr." Paragraph 36

Geck observes that Alger's themes have been transformed in modern America from their original meanings into a Male Cinderella myth, and are an Americanization of the traditional Jack tales.

Each story has its clever hero, its " fairy godmother ", and obstacles and hindrances to the hero's rise.

" However ", he writes, " he true Americanization of this fairy tale occurs in its subversion of this claiming of nobility ; rather, the Alger hero achieves the American Dream in its nascent form, he gains a position of middle-class respectability that promises to lead wherever his motivation may take him ".

The reader may speculate what Cinderella achieved as Queen and what an Alger hero attained once his middle class status was stabilized and " t is this commonality that fixes Horatio Alger firmly in the ranks of modern adaptors of the Cinderella myth ".