Happiness In The Great Gatsby

Throughout history many societies have had upper, middle, and lower classes. The classes formed separate communities of diverse living and never crossed social barriers. In the book, The Great Gatsby, instead of streets and communities separating each class there was a sound. On West Egg, the rich received their money not from inheritance but from what they accomplished by themselves. They worked hard for their money and received no financial support from their families. These people gained in one of two ways; either they worked for it or relied on illegal means for survival. On the other hand, or island, East Egg natives represent the class of society that receive money from their

"No— Gatsby turned out all right in the end. It is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men."

Without using depth of thought, The Great Gatsby is essentially a love story of the impossible forbidden desire between a woman and a man. The primary theme of the novel, however, shows off a much larger, less romantic scope of the novel. Though most of its primary plot takes place over simply a few short months through 1922’s summer, and is set in a small area in relative proximity to Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a a view on the 1920’s in America, and uses a lot of varied symbolism with it, in particular the loss and dismemberment of the American dream in an era literally named after the amount of wealth and industry it produced in material excess. Fitzgerald is able to showcase the 1920s as an era of dying social and moral values, evidenced in its overwhelming pessimism, desire, and unfulfilling pursuit of pleasure. The carelessness of the parties and celebrations that led to wild jazz music, exemplified in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night, eventually was created, in the corruption of the American dream, as the rampant desire for wealth and pleasure surpassed more worthwhile ideals.

The Great Gatsby is a book that almost proves the phrase “Money can’t buy happiness”

Love and tragedy have been a tale as old as time and is definitely not going anywhere. No matter what year it is, people are always searching for happiness and sometimes go about their motives the wrong way and ends up in a disastrous fate. In Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" it is apparent that the goal was money and fame with loose morals. Wharton's "Ethan Frome" was before World War 1 and when America was still kept to the classic standards of house, family, and farm. Both main characters lived in completely different worlds, but the end goal was the same; love and happiness.The novels tell its readers that people are willing to push their limits and morals to achieve their idea of perfect love and perfect happiness without thinking

Loneliness can be concealed and be hidden through numerous different facades with various personality. It is hard to identify if someone is lonely as loneliness has many forms in distinct people. Isolation can lead to depression which then leads to suicide if it is not dealt with. Around 350 million people around the world have depression and around 50% of suicidal deaths have major depression (“Depression: Facts, Statistics & You”). In the book The Great Gatsby a character named Jay Gatsby has extravagant parties with hundreds of people. Gatsby knew many people but he didn’t truly know them. Gatsby encounters his demise in the end of the book and Gatsby’s desolation is inherently exhibited as nobody is present at Gatsby’s funeral. In the book Of Mice and Men two characters named Lennie and George are men who work on a ranch and consistently take care of each other. They are confidants with each other as they have been friends since childhood. In the end of Of Mice and Men, Lennie kills a woman and thus the whole ranch wants to lynch Lennie. George discovers Lennie and takes mercy on Lennie as the whole ranch wants to kill Lennie in an agonizing way. So George shoots Lennie in the back of the head. George feels true loneliness as his one true friend he knew most of his whole life is now gone forever. Steinbeck and Fitzgerald show characters who are isolated and lonely and show us friendship is important in everyone's lives.

The American Dream: Is is fact or fiction? In the United States’ Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers set forth the idea of an American Dream by providing us with the recognizable phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. The green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock symbolizes Jay Gatsby’s “Pursuit of Happiness” in the novel, The Great Gatsby, set in the 1920s on Long Island, New York. The American Dream can be defined as “the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone. The American Dream is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work, not by chance” (Fontinelle, Amy). At the birth of our country in 1776, our founding fathers introduced the American Dream as a personal desire to pursue happiness; however, the pursuit of happiness was not intended to promote self-indulgence, rather to act as a catalyst to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit. As our country has changed, the idea of the American Dream, in some cases, has evolved into the pursuit of one’s own indulgences such as material gain regardless of the consequences.

What makes people happy in most countries is when they gain more wealth. These values are still true today and as true in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, which is held in the 1920’s. Most Americans think that wealth and happiness are synonymous with each other. This belief will continue to fuel an economy and marketplace that persuades consumers into buying products that will provide them “happiness”. Wealth and human happiness have reached an equilibrium in the view of an enormously capitalistic society, contrary to the beliefs of social progressives who believe happiness comes from the heart. Gatsby’s generation of the 20's were the age of a market that was primarily fueled off of the neediness of the average consumer. The same values are present today because our need for flashy products stem from the free market economy in this country. Consumers believe that they need all the things that businesses are attempting to sell to them.

Even though The Great Gatsby was about money and fame Happiness still was not achieved. “I want to wait here till Daisy goes to bed. Good nights, old sport. He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked and left him standing there in the moonlight--watching over nothing.” This quote makes it clear that all of Gatsby’s wealth will not give him the one thing he wants most: Daisy. She remains with Tom, by choice, while Gatsby stands outside alone in the dark. His money will not buy his way into her life. The Great Gatsby Shows many ways in which money does not buy happiness.

When Gatsby and Daisy were reunited at Nick’s house, there were many mixed emotions when they were first together. As time passed on Gatsby becomes excited and wants to show Daisy around his house and the possibility of what she could have had if she had decided to stay with him five years ago. "He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasonable joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence" (91). This statement unveils his that he transformed through different emotions.

“The Great Gatsby” greatly represents the commonly used phrase “Money cannot buy happiness.” “The Great Gatsby” follows the life of Nick Carraway in New York. He’s originally from Minnesota. He lives a rich neighborhood where the people have recently acquired their money and don’t have a huge social status.

Happiness symbolises a form of content, a form of satisfaction that can lead to several types of actions. In the Great Gatsby, happiness is portrayed in unusual forms with different characters, however every single character had some form of a Dream in mind. Fitzgerald juxtaposes his influence of T.S Elliot’s use of Valley of the Ashes showing poverty, decay and lost spiritualism with the rich life style of West Egg as he shows the wealth, parties and liveliness in this Egg. The Egg represents the symbol of birth and life, as well as the fragility of society and mainly the fragility of Dreams.

I believe that the three texts that I have studied contained moments of optimism and pessimism which in turn have shaped my opinion of the general vision and viewpoint. This alludes to the feelings and emotions portrayed through the omniscient camera in "The King's Speech", the morally inclined narrator Nick Caraway in "The Great Gatsby" and the protagonist in the novel "Foster". I was very intrigued to find out more about these societies and the vision the author/director hoped to convey.

In the song “Can’t Buy Me Love” written by the Beatles, they claim that they can buy anything there friend desires but it sure can not buy them love (Genius, 1964). In the story, Fitzgerald shows us many examples of Jay Gatsby’s way of living in having a lot of money and he constantly tries to use that money to win Daisy away from Tom, her husband. Just like in the song Gatsby does not achieve the love of his old friend Daisy with money. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” a wealthy man, Gatsby makes strong efforts to win back the heart of his lover, Daisy Buchanan. F. Scott Fitzgerald also demonstrates through the characters of “The Great Gatsby” that money cannot buy one's happiness.

In the Great Gatsby there is always a recurring theme of hope vs. despair and over the course of the book the character's ambition drives there hope that the worst won't happen. The hope changes them to either be better or worse off than before and in some cases it causes despair. We see this in many of the main characters of the story, they have a hope for the future to be better.