Similarities Between Catcher In The Rye And The Great Gatsby

The failure of the American Dream The novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is about the American Dream. The American Dream is the ideal that every U.S. citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success through hard work. The failure of the American Dream is represented by Myrtle Wilson, Daisy Buchanan, and Jay Gatsby. Myrtle Wilson's dream is to have an opulent, happy life.

“‘I think he [Gatsby] half expected her [Daisy] to wander into one of his parties, some night,…” (Chapter 4). Yet, no matter what Gatsby does, his American Dream is unattainable, because Daisy chooses her husband, Tom Buchanan, over Gatsby. “Her [Daisy] frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage, she had had, were definitely gone” (Chapter 7). The protagonist from The Great Gatsby desires something he cannot obtain, similar to the protagonist from The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield.

Alienation can be defined as a state of being cut off or separate from a person or group of people. There are many factors that cause people to become alienated: race, political views, social status, etc. The texts “The Great Gatsby”, “The Catcher in the Rye”, and the play “Death of a Salesman” all portray characters who are cut off from the rest society. Despite the character's best effort to fit in, they ultimately fail. The authors argue that one's ideology can cause them to be alienated.

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 American Dream, is an idea that all Americans are familiar with, no matter what age they are. It is the dream that everyone has an equal opportunity, to use hard work and integrity to achieve success. The American Dream is an integral aspect of Jay Gatsby’s life in the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novel follows Jay Gatsby, as told by Nick Carraway, through the trials and tribulations that correspond with newfound wealth and the quest to find true happiness in a cynical and testing environment. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald suggests that the American Dream has the power to corrupt individuals, through his depictions of wealth, materialism, and the consequences they inflict in the character’s lives.

In the The Great Gatsby and by F. Scott Fitzgerald and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry the idea of the American Dream is portrayed evidently within both timeless classics. An overarching dream between both novels is the desire of both the characters to be wealthy and to attain a respectable social standing. Both characters experience conflict in the pursuance of their dream. The American Dream is the idea that if you work hard enough and long enough, anything is possible. Although both characters chase the American Dream of upward social mobility Fitzgerald’s Gatsby does not achieve the American Dream in contrast to Hansberry’s Walter, who does achieve the American Dream due to the differences in the two character's acceptance by society or loved ones.

Most define the American Dream as an equal opportunity for all to achieve success through handwork and determination. Many define success as having or gaining wealth and power. This isn 't true for the novel The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald. Instead Fitzgerald represents the withering of the American Dream, in the novel the American Dream is presented more as a overpowering idea of aspirations far from reach, making it less of a dream and more of a distant thought. Throughout the novel Fitzgerald slowly deconstructs the image of the American Dream and builds upon the corrupting nature of wealth. Due to the corrupting nature of wealth we are able to identify the theme of the withering American Dream, which is being represented through

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.

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.

In the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘Of Mice and Men’ F Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck respectively explore the complex perspective of the true outcome of the American Dream. Although set within different eras of American society, the extensive failure of dreams throughout both texts shows how the American Dream is destined for annihilation despite the intention of hope and happiness. In its original form the American Dream encapsulated the ideal that ‘equality of opportunity is available to any American allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved’. ’The Great Gatsby’ follows its protagonist Jay Gatsby who sets his life around his desire of reuniting Daisy Buchanan, the lost love of his life, through the eyes of Nick

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.

The arduousness of a coming of age experience is shaped in both texts through the idea of alienation. Salinger portrays Holden as a complex alienated character, struggling to find identity in a society which values education and conformity. Similarly, Chbosky explores the struggles of the alienated protagonist Charlie, shaped by values of the 1990’s. Teenagers of 1950’s America faced barriers in achieving individuality, as hard work was the key to success, coloured people faced discrimination and a stigma surrounded homosexuality. Holden, lacking interest in education, rebels against traditional ideas and values of the 1950’s, where teens were expected to conform. He is highly judgmental of others, using alienation as a form of self-protection

In his novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), F Scott Fitzgerald uses psychological criticism to assert that the American dream, to achieve triumph and prosperity through determination and ambition, is beginning to deteriorate due to an oblivious boundary between reality and misconception, and that without it there is no purpose to strive for anything else. Fitzgerald uses a paradox to convey his message that as people of today’s society do everything in their will to achieve a life of their own desire, they are stopped by a hurdle of actuality, causing them to diminish their optimistic views and cease to obtain their dreams. This better supports the fate of the American dream by its original purpose to inspire aspiration and hope, being berated and

Both the authenticity and the purity of the American Dream have been put into question by various pieces of literature, such as the Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, or even the modern classic American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. With specific regard to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the death of the American Dream is seen through the eyes of Nick Carraway as he watches America’s morality and virtue disintegrate before him. The American Dream is supposed to represent the ideal that every U.S. citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. With that being said, the failure of the American Dream in the novel is epitomized by the lack of equality, moral values, and the ultimate demise of both Gatsby and the dreams for which he represented.

Fitzgerald depicts Gatsby as a likable and more idealistic character and a hopeless romantic pursuing Daisy even though; she has already picked Tom over him. While we do not see the inner thoughts and emotions from Gatsby as often as with Holden, due to Nick being the narrator, the center of the fragmented society and the novel is, without doubt, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby also is surrounded by people yet immersed in isolation, all his party guests are either not invited at all or merely acquaintances. Just as is his fake life he created for himself as, despite all his