The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream, a long standing ideal embodies the hope that one can achieve financial success, political power, and everlasting love through dedication and hard work. During the Roaring 20s, people in America put up facades to mask who they truly were. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald conveys that the American Dream is simply an illusion, that is idealist and unreal. In the novel, Gatsby, a wealthy socialite pursues his dream, Daisy. In the process of pursuing Daisy, Gatsby betrays his morals and destroys himself. Through the eyes of the narrator, Nick,

“She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me!” (Fitzgerald 123). People saw Gatsby as the epiphany of the American Dream. But what actually was the “American Dream”? The American Dream was people who craved money and wealth, both of which Gatsby had attained. Money would allow them to obtain everything they could ever dream of, solve all their problems, most importantly, give them a social status, and with money and status came happiness. “I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall” (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby was constantly throwing huge parties with everyone around town showing up uninvited, when in reality, he did it all for one person, Daisy. Gatsby contained the best possessions money could buy, a mansion, clothes, books, cars, etc. “As soon as I arrived, I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements” (Fitzgerald 42). Gatsby hired people to throw elaborate parties for him, he sat back and hoped that

The stress on materialism and mentioning money and material things wherever it is possible is a characteristic trait of people representing the time period of Fitzgerald’s “American dream”. Fitzgerald reveals how Gatsby almost fulfills the dream having all of its requirements: position, money and his unique perception of the world that “attracted” people. "So he invented the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end ."(29) He forms a new man, Jay Gatsby, and becomes successful in living his life. Yet, the last of the requirements: “ ideal love” was never achieved, and therefore the collapse of the “American Dream” started. Which love cannot be achieved with money, status, for Gatsby failed to realize. The reason he strived for all of this money was to achieve his dream; Gatsby knew that Daisy wanted to marry a rich man thus he considered this way to be the only way to unite him with his true love. The understanding of the dream by the characters in the book is misinterpreted, and that is the primary reason they fail to realize the true message of the dream.

       In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the principle character, Jay Gatsby makes an exhaustive effort in his quest for the American Dream. The novel is Fitzgerald's vessel of commentary and criticism of the American Dream. “Fitzgerald defines this Dream, he depicts its’ beauty and irresistible lure”(Bewley 113). Through Gatsby's downfall, Fitzgerald expresses the futility and agony of the pursuit of the dream.

The American Dream was the vision that brought many people to America to start a new life in a strange and foreign land. This vision or dream is a common discussion topic by modern writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on Long Island in the summer of 1922. On the surface, it seems that the novel is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman, but the masterpiece major theme is about the American dream. The author writes about a man who takes the dream too far and becomes unable to distinguish his false life of riches from reality.

As the phenomenal politician Bernie Sanders once said, “For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.” In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by Scott Fitzgerald, the “American Dream” plays a crucial role in the plot. Gatsby devotes his life to accomplish his American Dream which consists of wealth and Daisy’s love. But is the American Dream actually what it seems to be? Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald utilizes the symbolic value of the Valley of Ashes, East Egg, and the significance of the color yellow to constantly establish that opulence and the American Dream is deceiving as it leads to moral and societal corruption.

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.

​Gatsby’s American dream roots upon the fallacious assumption that material possessions are compatible with happiness, youth and beauty. For example, his romantic perspective of life towards Daisy justifies his inability to achieve his dream. Gatsby describes her voice as “full of money –

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.

The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a story of misguided love between a man and a woman. Fitzgerald takes his reader through the turbulence and trials of Jay Gatsby’s life and of his pining for the girl he met five years prior. The main theme of the novel, however, is not solely about the love shared between Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. The main purpose is to show the decline and decay of the American Dream in the 1920’s. The American Dream is the goal or idea which suggests that all people can succeed through hard work, and that all have the potential to live happy, successful lives. While on the surface, Gatsby

Gatsby believed that in order to fulfill his own concept of the American Dream he needed to win Daisy’s love, and to do that he would need to “establish himself as Somebody.” Although he loves Daisy, he also sees her as more of a goal – a step toward the perfect life promised by the American Dream. In a way, Gatsby views Daisy much the way

The definition of the American Dream is something that is defined by a person, and in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s case the American Dream is defined as unreal. Fitzgerald’s lived in the roaring twenties and the time of the party and fun, and the time that caused the stock market crash and depression. The pessimistic thought process of Fitzgerald rubs off on his novel, The Great Gatsby, a story entangled with love triangles, drama, and death. In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald’s poor life leads to his belief that the American Dream is not achievable, as seen through the literary devices of Characterization of Jay Gatsby, Nick carraway, and Myrtle Wilson.

The notion of the ‘American Dream’ is one of the repeated aspects portrayed in this book, since Gatsby’s entire life is dedicated to achieving this. The ‘American Dream’ comprises of grand opulence, social equality, wealth; more specifically, a big house with a big garden, the newest model cars, the most fashionable attire, and a traditional four-peopled ‘happy’ family. To Fitzgerald, the ‘American Dream’ itself is a positive, admirable pursuit. We can see this when Fitzgerald uses personification, “flowers”, to background positive connotations behind the idea of the ‘American Dream’. In regard to Gatsby, he achieves the wealth aspect of this ‘dream’, “he had come a long way to this blue lawn”; however, he was yet to be satisfied because he did not have Daisy. Ever since the very beginning of the story, Gatsby always associated Daisy with magnificent affluence, the white house, and the grand quality of being rich. Gatsby wanted everything ever since he was first introduced to the higher status. But Gatsby felt incomplete and unfulfilled even after getting everything he dreamt of, so he sourced this emptiness as not having Daisy, where in reality, “he neither understood or desired” the motives he thought he once had.

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 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.