American Dream In The Great Gatsby Essay

Fitzgerald’s novel, the Great Gatsby is one of the most meticulously written story of all time. This book incorporates different themes, yet the shadiness of the American Dream is the most significant one. The American Dream designates that one starting very low on their economic or social status and getting success and wealth trough their arduous work. Having a big house, a nice car and a happy family show the success of the American Dream. This dream is also shown by the concept of a self-made man, who struggles through life to get successful and wealthy. This dream does not only cause corruption but also destruction.

“It is the elusive Gatsby, the cynical idealist, who embodies America in all of its messy glory.” Clearly as Adam Cohen asserts in his New York Times article “Jay Gatsby, Dreamer, Criminal, Jazz Age Rogue, Is a Man for Our Times”, this phenomenon is indeed true in that the American Dream is presented in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as an idea that has been depraved into a dream characterized by the constant shift in ethics and fraudulence centered around materialistic visions of opulence and wealth.

If the American Dream is the hope of attaining success, Jay Gatsby of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby by all appearances achieved the American Dream. If success is equal to materialism, then Gatsby was indeed successful. He used his display of wealth and possessions to gain the approval of his true love Daisy Buchanan. Some would argue, however, that this does not represent the American Dream accurately, but is a warning of how materialism can lead to the downfall of individuals and societies. “The Great Gatsby proves to be of both literary and philosophical significance as it explores deep questions of both the 1920s United States and human beings as a whole.” (tycary, from website Teen Ink) In post WWI 1920s America, society was changing rapidly from its traditional Mid-western values to a more “Eastern,” modern and open-minded society due to “new economic prosperity and technological advances that led to an age of rationalism.” (tycary, from website Teen Ink) Women had been forced out of the home and into the work-place during the war and gained voting rights as well. They were moving toward equality and this freedom allowed them to enjoy activities that were once enjoyed only by men. Prohibition, originating from strict conservatives in the Western US, failed to reduce the crime rate and instead instigated the rise of bootleggers and speak easies. The wealthy spent their time impressing their friends with elaborate parties of drinking, smoking and dancing.

The American dream can mean many different things and can be interpreted in different ways. To some people, the American dream is the belief that if a person works hard enough, he or she can be successful in America no matter what race, gender, or nationality. In the 1920’s, the concept of the American dream was very much the same, that an individual can achieve success in life regardless of family history or social status if he or she works hard enough. By having money, a car, a big house, expensive clothes, and a loving family symbolizes the American dream. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the 1920’s is a time period in which the American dream becomes corrupt and dangerous. For Jay Gatsby, a main character in the novel, his American dream is about gaining wealth and material possessions in order to find happiness. Through his decision to symbolize wealth, superficiality, irresponsibility, and foreshadowing, Fitzgerald conveys the the theme that the American dream is a perfect concept and is something that can never be accomplished, but can always be reached for.

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.

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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.

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.

The American Dream can mean different things depending on who is asked. Some will answer it is the freedom of religion, class or race, others will claim it is about the ability to choose where they want to work, what they want to wear, or what’s for breakfast the next day.

The Great Gatsby is a novel that illustrates the society in the 1920's and the associated beliefs, values and dreams of the American population at that time. These beliefs, values and dreams can be summed up be what is termed the "American Dream", a dream of money, wealth, prosperity and the happiness that supposedly came with the booming economy and get-rich-quick schemes that formed the essential underworld of American upper-class society. This underworld infiltrated the upper echelons and created such a moral decay within general society that paved the way for the ruining of dreams and dashing of hopes as they were placed confidently in the chance for opportunities that could be seized by one and all. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates the

     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.

In chapter four of The Great Gatsby, the character Gatsby takes the narrator Nick into Manhattan for some lunch. As they enter the city from the Queensboro Bridge, Nick remarks that, “Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge…. Even Gatsby can happen, without any particular wonder.” (69) By this point in the story we know that Gatsby is rich and that he throws elaborate parties at his home which is a “factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy.” (5) Later, in chapter six, we discover that Gatsby comes from humble beginnings in North Dakota and was actually named James Gatz; Jay Gatsby was a reinvention. This leads me to wonder why Nick would think that someone as complicated as Gatsby doesn’t carry any wonder in a

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.

out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was

The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, brings to thought many issues regarding the 20’s. The 20’s were a booming time for stocks, businesses, and the wealthy. Fitzgerald was a man of his time and in The Great Gatsby we notice the differences in the way men and women were treated and the different ways of acting and reacting. Jay Gatsby, our main protagonist is a wealthy bootlegger in the city of West Egg, living across the harbour from the girl he believes to be the love of his life, Daisy. Daisy is a dreamer. She married a man she does not love, but has an abundance of money, and dreams about what she could have been and could have had. Now, how does gender affect the viability of the american dream? The answer is that gender