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False Hope In The Great Gatsby Analysis

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False Hope in the American Dream
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was written in 1925 and set in the thriving town of West Egg in Long Island, New York. This novel follows the story of Nick Carraway, a young man born in the midwest who has aspirations to be involved in the bond business on Wall Street. Nick lives in a smaller house right next door to the mansion owned by the infamous Jay Gatsby. Across the bay, Nick’s cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan live in a nice sized, colonial home. Jay Gatsby grew up on poor farmland in North Dakota. From the moment he met Daisy, he was in love, and he continually strives to have her back by his side. Gatsby is a man full of hope, similar to many other Americans in several other facets of life at this time including wealth, prosperity, and social status. Success in these facets of life, for some, is better known as the American Dream. That is one of the ideals that makes Gatsby so prominent, “from [his] foundational place as part of the literary canon to [his] ubiquity in popular culture. [His] most obvious tie is the American Dream, the broad notion about the United States that each of its people keeps at the center of [their] belief system” (Batchelor, Bob). Gatsby’s idea of the American Dream is what prompts many of his actions throughout the book. However, all of this hope in the American Dream falls short when Gatsby’s life does not go as planned. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby and created the character

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