Ponnamperuma, P2026-01-072025-10-10978-624-6010-10-22783 – 8862https://rda.sliit.lk/handle/123456789/4425The American myth promotes the idea that everybody has access to all opportunities in the US if they are willing to work hard for it. The immigrants in the US passionately hold on to that belief. Based on Charles Bukowski’s ‘Ham on Rye’ and Chimamanda Adichie’s ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’, which both capture the contemporary situation with immigrants entrapped in the American dream from a postmodernist point of view, this paper attempts to investigate the reality behind the American myth as exposed by these two authors. The characters in both narratives arrive in the US under a grand deception about the American myth. They are first fascinated by the beauty of America. The methodology uses a qualitative research design where the two narratives are subjected to a ‘textual analysis’ from the dimensions of unemployment, poverty, and disillusionment, in a setting where the immigrants are bluntly marginalized and alienated. The findings reveal how Charles Bukowski provides an insight into the influence of the American myth on an immigrant family during the Great Depression and how Chimamanda Adichie depicted its impact on an immigrant working woman froma developing country who flies to the US in order to pursue her dreams. They reveal the patterns followed by the American myth during its journey under the contemporary postmodernist influence.enAmerican mythContemporaryImmigrantsNarrativesPostmodernArticlehttps://doi.org/10.54389/OVBN5619