Incompatible Ideals In The Great Gatsby

He meets his rich next door neighbor, Jay Gatsby who he meets at one of his parties held every Saturday in the hope that someone who he loves crazily comes to attend and meet him. On purpose, Gatsby has bought his house right across from the bay where he can see the green light to his love’s house.

The American Dream is often stated to be the foundation of many ideals in the United States society. Some believe that the dream is made for only monetary gain, while others maintain that the dream is part of a higher national vision. The term American Dream was coined in Epic of America by James Truslow Adams, where it was defined as being part of the great national vision of America (Source 1). It is defined as an opportunity to gain the highest happiness and riches. However, as stated by Adams, “what is better and what is richer?” (Source 8). It is due to the possible interpretations of this dream that it has slightly changed from its original meaning into a mixture that heavily favors monetary gain.

However, Gatsby’s life is ultimately taken away due to his burning desire for hope. His naivety in re-creating the ‘love’ he had with Daisy causes him to become a victim of his own wrong doing, the lies and the wealth all catch up to him in the end.

Daisy Buchanan transforms from a childhood sweetheart to merely the idea of a childhood sweetheart. Gatsby ceases viewing Daisy as a person and more of an object that he must obtain. He has become so alienated from his old self, he does not understand his own obsession. He sacrifices his values to attain Daisy, but his sacrifices bring him farther from his true goal. In the end, he dies alone without a second thought from

To accomplish his one main goal, Gatsby would do anything to make money, so he did it illegally. Gatsby is a very rich man, but he did not earn his money the way that most of America did. “[Gatsby] differs from the other newly rich members of society in that he did not earn his money in an honorable way.” Gatsby made his money out of illegal bonds and bootlegging. Bootlegging is when one illegally sells alcohol under-the-counter, at a time where alcohol is banned. His main goal left in life is to win back Daisy Buchanan, and to accomplish that he needed money. All that he could do was to get into illegal business, which at that time in his life, was the only easy way to get wealthy fast. Gatsby could not wait any longer to reunite with the girl he had thought about every day since he had left to fight in World War I.

His lack of personal growth is evident in his ambitions and dreams. His selfless devotion towards Daisy shows us that, despite his age, he is still an idealistic, romantic teenager at heart. Daisy is his ‘raison d’etre’, his motivation, the reason why he accumulates such wealth, lives where he does, throws his great parties and buys ‘beautiful shirts’. Everything he ever did since they met was to please her and win her over. However, from the point where Gatsby finally meets her again, we see that it was all a delusion, akin to the ‘American Dream’. Gatsby has believed for his entire life that with enough money, you can do amazing things - bring back the past and keep moments frozen in time. This kind of romantic idealism and selfless devotion for love gives the reader a sense of sympathy for Gatsby. Even though he is in illegal business, that whole side of him

The American Dream is an idea in which hope is relied on for success. It’s the ideal that with hope and determination, success, wealth, and happiness are the favorable outcome. It’s to my belief that the American Dream is not complete without contentment. The United States has held the promise of unlimited possibilities; however, the strict definition of “promise” does not apply to it.

Throughout different era’s and periods of time the American dream has slightly varied, but the ultimate end goal remains the same; based on independence, a need for freedom, and the ability and desire to achieve greatness in one’s lifetime

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is the compelling story of the lengths one man goes to in order to try and win back the love of his youth. In order to do so, the titular figure of the novel, Jay Gatsby, reinvents himself from the hardscrabble soldier of his younger years into an enigma of a millionaire; during his time living at West Egg, Gatsby is revered by all, but known by none. Despite the lavish lifestyle which has made him ever so well known for, Gatsby is never able to win back Daisy, the girl who has for so long represented the culmination of all of his desires. In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s desperate struggle to ingratiate himself into Daisy’s life to illustrate how one can never overcome the socio-economic barriers placed upon them at birth.

The American Dream is different for everyone, though it is most commonly associated with success, freedom, and happiness. The concept of the American Dream seems to have dwindled from where it was in the past few generations. It has gone from success, freedom, and happiness to having lots of money and the nicest possessions. In today’s society, we all hope and strive for this dream, but how many actually achieve the American Dream? Is it a reasonable goal that Americans should strive for, or is it a myth that only leads to self-destruction? According to Horatio Alger and Toni Cade Bambara, they both believe the concept that the American Dream

In the novel, Gatsby is determined to be wealthy after he was first rejected by Daisy in his youth for being poor. Gatsby pursues this life of riches and achieves it through his strong work ethic. During this pursuit of wealth, Gatsby tries to completely eliminate his past and make himself into a new person by creating elaborate lies, such as claiming he was “educated at Oxford”, and even changing his name from “James Gatz” because that name was associated with poverty (Fitzgerald 65, 98). Even though Gatsby did successfully create a new persona based on materialism, he is left unsatisfied because the main motivator behind this achievement was Daisy whom he still does not have.

The American Dream is the perception that if one works hard enough to obtain their goal or a sum of wealth, then they will be able to achieve anything (Adams 1).

His entire existence served as a means to reacquire Daisy’s love. In addition to using his wealth to throw endless rowdy parties for Daisy, "’Gatsby bought [his] house so that Daisy would be just across the bay’" (Fitzgerald 78). Gatsby determined his visions of the future on his past; he made every decision with Daisy in mind, yearning for their reunion and life together. Furthermore, as a result of Gatsby’s nostalgic fantasies of Daisy, his judgement of her in the present distorted when they reunited.

The image of an American Dream is that anything can happen. The idea that anyone can be successful or pursue success. Satisfaction and happiness can be only be attained through the quality of their own life. Americans were raised in a society that tells them they can be anything they want as an adult. In a disproportionate American society, success is largely based off of power and financial stability. The dream, the illusion, is something that hopes to ease the pain of the dry reality that money has taken over one’s happiness. The need to be financially stable has caused society to work in professional positions that will never satisfy them, that leave them unhappy and unsatisfied.

Gatsby’s aspirations are destroyed when he comes to the realization that certain dreams can never be converted into reality. When Gatsby and Daisy re-meet for the first time in years, he still refuses to see how self-absorbed, shallow, and greedy she truly is. As more events occur, he becomes aware of her intentions and can finally see how blinded he was by her charm and beauty so many years ago. Even though Gatsby has come to this