American Dream Great Gatsby

The idea of American Dream as presented by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby novel involves rising from poverty or rags to richness and wealthy. The American Dream exemplifies that elements such as race, gender, and ethnicity are valueless as they do not influence the ability of an individual to rise to power and richness. This American Dream makes the assumption that concepts such as xenophobia are non-existent in America a concept that is not true and shows vagueness of the American Dream. In his novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the Great Gatsby to demonstrate the overall idea of living the American dream. Gatsby leaves his small village of farmers and manages to work his way up the ladder although some of the money he uses to climb the ladder is associated with crime “He was a son of God and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty” (Fitzgerald 6.7). This phrase shows that Gatsby wasn’t meant for a life similar to that of his father but rather destined for greatness. However, his dream his short-lived and he doesn’t make it to the top as Daisy who is a symbol of his wealthy rejects her and a series of events transpire that result in his death before he could live his American Dream alongside everyone else who was working up the ladder to live the American Dream.

For generations many have immigrated to this great nation know, as the United states of America, all seeking for their share of the American dream. The American dream is the philosophy that anyone can become successful through hard work and perseverance. The 1920’s embodies this concept like no other decade in American history. It is also during this time frame that one sees the perversion of this dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests in his novel, The Great Gatsby that there is a right and wrong way to obtain the American dream. Throughout the novel, Gatsby is symbolic for the materialistic nature of the American dream and its corruption in the 20th century.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s in his novel The Great Gatsby commentates on the American Dream during the time in which he lived; central character Jay Gatsby was not born into the great wealth he is shown to have (Source A). The American Dream, to Fitzgerald, to the character he creates, and to every little boy or girl who dreams of a way up, is not having a wife, a dog, a child, and a sum of money; it is having the ability to acquire these things despite what you were born into. Those with little status and money living in the United States have always known they are free to pursue any venture, take any financial risk, work hard, and dream even harder. Just as Jay Gatsby was steadfast in his certainty that he would be prosperous in The Great Gatsby, Americans today know that with dedication and a good work ethic, there is nothing that can stop them from going after what they want. Hope and optimism is a reality of the American mindset because the path upwards is not covered and is not reserved for the wealthy; the American Dream is a reality in a sense that this path is in clear view, readily available for all those who wish to delight in what they can accomplish. Despite the

It’s a common misconception that money is equal to happiness, and Daisy is a sad, bored woman, afraid of the future. She is selfish and self centered, caring so much for the wealth that she believes will make her happy that in Chapter 7 her voice is said to be “full of money” (pg #). All the worse, when she kills Myrtle, she feels no remorse whatsoever, as she is incapable of caring for anyone but herself. Gatsby cannot see any of her bad qualities. He simply sees a beautiful young woman that he thinks he deserves. In chapter 8, Nick says that “It excited [Gatsby], too, that many men had already loved Daisy - it increased her value in his eyes.”(pg#). Gatsby is blinded by his desire for Daisy, fueled by the wants of other men, that he sees nothing bad about her. Daisy loved Tom and Gatsby equally and for the same reason: Their wealth. With Gatsby dead Daisy returns to Tom not even shaken by his death, and just as nick says they would do, they retreat from the chaos they cause into their money when they move away.

Dreams are a compelling force in people’s lives. They are what propel them forward each and every day in an effort to reach something better. The American Dream has been sought after by millions all over the world for hundreds of years. This country was founded on the belief that anyone could achieve their dreams. However, in the 1920s these hopes and aspirations began to splinter until they ultimately shattered. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism, setting, and theme to depict the unattainability of the American Dream.

In the past the American Dream was an inspiration to many, young and old. To live out the American Dream was what once was on the minds of many Americans. In The Great Gatsby, the American Dream was presented as a corrupted version of what used to be a pure and honest ideal way to live. The idea that the American Dream was about the wealth and the possessions one had been ingrained, somehow, into the minds of Americans during the 1920’s. As a result of the distortion of the American Dream, the characters of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby along with many others, lived life fully believing in the American Dream, becoming completely immersed in it and in the end suffered great tragedies.

When you were a child, did you hear the word “success” or the phrase “the American Dream” and immediately think of fancy cars, wealth, and having a big house? Jay Gatsby, the main character in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a prime example of how the American Dream can be destroyed by modern ideals- that the once attainable dream is now lost on the American people. The novel introduces the original aspects of the American Dream along with the modernistic view of the American Dream (to show how the once touchable dream is now unrecoverable in the American people). Fitzgerald presents the main qualities of the old American dream; perseverance, hope, and the idea of success against all odds in The Great Gatsby through the character Jay Gatsby. The idea of succeeding against all odds is shown through the life of James

The 1920s witnessed the death of the American Dream, a message immortalized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Initially, the American Dream represented the outcome of American ideals, that everyone has the freedom and opportunity to achieve their dreams provided they perform honest hard work. During the 1920s, the United States experienced massive economic prosperity making the American Dream seem alive and strong. However, in Fitzgerald’s eyes, the new American culture build around that massive prosperity corrupted and destroyed the American Dream in a time of great indulgence due to great prosperity. To that extent, The Great Gatsby employs setting and character development to define the American Dream, condemn its bastardization, and depict its demise during the Jazz Age.

The American Dream promises a life better, richer, and exciting according to one’s own ability and talents. The reality proves the fallacy of this dream, while a population of victims arises as the American Dream decays. In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the decline of the American Dream, shown through the characters Gatsby, Myrtle, and George Wilson, proves to be corrupted by extreme materialism, as well as a loss of hope.

Though many people believe that the ‘American Dream’ is possible to accomplish through hard work, author F. Scott Fitzgerald show the opposite in his writings. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel in which a series of characters are unable to access the true extent of the ‘American Dream’. “The Great Gatsby” is a story told through a man named Nick Carraway as he has newly moved to New York. He thinks everything will go good for him in this new setting, but he soon realizes that this is not the case. The story shows how many people try to reach the ‘American Dream’, including Nick, but none of them are really able to do so.

The American dream is an ideology, a vision that’s form varies from individual to individual, based upon one’s own experiences. Although the one thing that remains constant in every single definition is that this ideology, just as the name states, is only a dream. It is meant to merely drive people to unlock their hidden potential and become their best self, for the sole purpose of living one’s out one’s own definition of success. In “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American Dream is Jay Gatsby’s inspiration and his opportunity, however, as the book progresses it becomes more evident that not all people share the same opportunity.

An interpretation of the American Dream claims that all Americans have equal opportunity for success. During the Jazz Age, a time of great change to this ideology, the significance of wealth transformed the dream into a blind pursuit of money, as opposed to happiness. From a Marxist perspective, this belief is clearly a repressive ideology that only benefits a select few while others suffer. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the American Dream quickly becomes a nightmare of capitalism and classicism, based on the different classes of society each character represents. This can be further examined through the Buchanans, the Wilsons and Jay Gatsby.

Affair, scandal, and drama come across the novel of The Great Gatsby. Written by a man who has had his fair of dramatics in his life, Scott Fitzgerald. The Main Character, Jay Gatsby his living his life as a falsification of this so-called “ American Dream”. He has the money and the charm to have all of the lives glorifications, other than one little bump in the road. The American dream is all about living fancy, shiny objects and success through hard work. Jay Gatsby had surpassed his poor lifestyle and try to fit in with the “old money” folks. All due to one significant lady, Daisy Fay. Daisy, an old lover from Chicago stole the heart of a young Jay Gatsby. To him, it was love, for her not so much. Jay has always wanted to live a luxurious

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby has been criticized, cited, and known as one of the greatest works of American Literature. With numerous themes and focuses, one of the most valuable is represented in the American Dream and how F. Scott Fitzgerald analyzes his idea of this concept. The American Dream is a concept centering on successes in many terms, such as wealth and social standing. These successes are achieved through hard work and can be obtained through a society with no barriers. However, the American Dream has a broad range of ideas, such as a quest for wealth or settling down and having a family. In The Great Gatsby, the American Dream is active throughout the wealth, parties and the obsession with being a part of a higher class. Through this, F. Scott Fitzgerald develops his personal opinion of the ideals of the American Dream through the morals of individuals fighting to be on top and a society built on corruption.

The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, embodies many themes as the story progresses. Some of these themes are social classes, wealth, and most importantly the American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American Dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. Through the use of characters and symbols, F. Scott Fitzgerald implies the American Dream may not really exist and that everyone in the U.S. aims for survival of the fittest, rather than equality.