It was often said that every person strives to achieve the American Dream, this, however, was not true for F. Scott Fitzgerald. His approach was to tear down this dream and expose the falsifications of the dream to the people so they no longer strive for a dream they could not have. Despite Fitzgerald’s upbringing with a supportive and wealthy family living the American Dream, one of his most popular themes is illustrates his disdain for the upper class. This leads to lack of support and rejection from readers who wanted nothing more than this perfect American Dream. Fitzgerald is one of the few male writers, amidst the many women modernist writers, to go against the American culture and create his own original style and message.
Background
In terms of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s background, he had a happy and positive upbringing. Fitzgerald’s parents supported his literary career and help him on his path to becoming a writer, this included sending him to Princeton. According to Alfred Kazin “Fitzgerald attended Princeton but soon left without a degree but left with the materials for two novels” (Kazin 1). This was the end of Fitzgerald’s educational career but sent him out on his journey, with all that he needed to know, for his literary career. In the words of Higgins, “ When Fitzgerald published for the first time in 1919, it was groundbreaking because he was one of the only major authors to write mainly of the upper class” (Higgins 2). Fitzgerald’s first publishings were
F. Scott Fitzgerald proposes that the American Dream is corrupt and also a mediocrity that anyone in America can rise from rags to riches as in the real
The American Dream, in essence, is but a faulty perception of the world. It attempts to find felicity in all that is gilt. And guilty is a society that bases happiness on something as worthless as gold; for what does the warm kiss of light on the skin and the taste of water cost man? It is this theme of misconceptions and blindness that recurs through Fitzgerald's work. It stares at us, scrutinizes us, like the gigantic, blue, spectacled and myopic eyes of Dr. Eckleburg. Fitzgerald gives us Dr. Eckleburg to accentuate America's blindness. America is not only blind, but also near-sighted; America lives for today, for pleasure and prodigality. She cannot
As Florence King once said, “People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that they're all asleep at the switch. This quote symbolizes the simple fact that the American Dream is impossible for someone to ever attain because people are to busy dreaming about what others have, that they fail to recognize what they themselves already have attained. The American author F. Scott Fitzgerald has had an unprecedented impact on America. His novels contain recurring themes that establish the facets of modern American society with which he avidly disagrees. His characters Jay Gatsby and Armory Blaine both portray men in American society who have through
Imagine living in a world where dreams that come to mind are highly reachable and come without a struggle, a place where fantasies come into play. Americans far and beyond believe the American Dream is something as simple as owning a home or starting a family, but for Jay Gatsby, that was simply not enough. As a man with implausible dreams, Gatsby thought differently when compared to others. His American Dream was not a job or a home, but rather a married woman who is known as Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby placed the sole focus of his life on Daisy, he became obsessed. Through a passage in The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald employs personification and diction to convey the idea that Gatsby was lost in the unique distortion of his own reality with Daisy.
Oftentimes society gets so caught up in achieving greatness that it is blinded to the obstacles of reality. The American Dream can sometimes be so unachievable yet so alluring that people cannot help but strive after it as if it were their destiny. Fitzgerald highlights this phenomenon in his novel The Great Gatsby through many characters and their pursuit of their own American Dreams. Fitzgerald uses figurative language and contrasting diction to show his cynical attitude about the pursuit of the American Dream and the blindness of those who believe in it.
The “Roaring Twenties”, was the post-war and prohibition era that contributed to the aspirations of achieving the American Dream. In this time period, the nation's wealth doubled leading to the prosperity of the economy. Within this dream, wealth is seen as a solution to life’s struggles. Materialistic items such as money, an automobile, a big house, and nice clothes symbolize the American Dream. This allows the idea of the great American Dream to be perceived as corruption due to materialistic desires. The American Dream was the pursuit of happiness, discovery, and individualism, but declines into corruption focused on wealth and social values. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the lower class character, George Wilson, to display the theme of the American Dream declining.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen as one of the greatest American writers, admired by his contemparies and by modern audiences of today. Fitzgerald was very much in tune with the early twentieth century American culture. He is credited with capturing the ‘Jazz Age’, which he described as “a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken”. Fitzgerald observed the culture around him with a critical eye. Despite being able to depict America like few others could, many see Fitzgerald’s writing as an indictment on its values.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most influential writers of modern day society. He holds this title because he wrote about things that drive people's everyday life. He wrote in two different periods that were very significant in the social development of America. These two periods of time symbolized not only the generation that he was writing about, but it also speaks to the present day generation.
It is evident that Fitzgerald admires the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’, for he uses beautiful imagery, “a fresh, green breast of the new world”, “trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house”, “a transitory enchanted moment man
The disillusionment of the American Dream is a frequent but important written theme in the American literature. Fitzgerald’s famous book The Great Gatsby is one of the most important representative works that reflects this theme. F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known for his novels and short stories which chronicle the excesses of America's Jazz Age during the 1920s. His classic twentieth-century story of Jay Gatsby examines and critiques Gatsby's particular vision of the 1920's American Dream. The Great Gatsby can be seen as a far-reaching book that has revealed many serious and hidden social problems at that time. As one of the most popular and financially successful
The statement made by Marius Bewley’s critical essay “Scott Fitzgerald: The Apprentice Fiction”, “Fitzgerald’s ultimate subject is the character of the American Dream in which, in their respective ways, his principle heroes are all trapped.”, can be justified through Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby and his short story “Winter Dreams”. In both pieces of literature, Fitzgerald explores and comments upon Americans and their pursuit of the American Dream through Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green’s pursuit of their “golden girls”.
One of the most influential writers of the early 20th century was a man named F. Scott Fitzgerald. The biggest topic that he wrote about was the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses many different aspects of writing to get his opinion across, such as the outcome of stories like The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams”. He also uses the setting and to explain his beliefs. Based of his work, Fitzgerald believes the American dream is not only unrealistic, but also unattainable.
In his best selling novels, The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise, drawing from his own experiences, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes about the journey to achieve his version of the American dream. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the American dream is a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S., especially by working hard and becoming successful. Fitzgerald’s version of the dream involves women, money, alcohol, and mental illness. These aspects are major influences in his writing, which results in his books mentioned above as he mirrors his own life experiences with the protagonists’ attempts to achieve his dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald was greatly influenced by women and it began when he was in college.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is in many ways one of the most notable writers of the twentieth century. His prodigious literary voice and style provides remarkable insight into the lifestyles of the rich and famous, as well as himself. Exploring themes such as disillusionment, coming of age, and the corruption of the American Dream, Fitzgerald based most of his subject matter on his own despicable, tragic life experiences. Although he was thought to be the trumpeter of the Jazz Age, he never directly identified himself with it and was adverse to many of its manifestations.
In several years and in many ways F. Scott Fitzgerald has been known to be one of the most notable writers during the 20th century. He provides insights which are very remarkable from his prodigious style and literary voice; some of the examples of the insights provided were into the various lifestyles, such as that of the famous and the rich and even his own lifestyle. In most cases when exploring on various themes such as coming of age, the corruption of the dream of America and disillusionment, F. Scott Fitzgerald often based the whole subject matter on some of the tragic and despicable experiences he had encountered. Even though most people thought that he was the trumpeter of the jazz age, there were never any