The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream in the 1920’s revolved around the accumulation of wealth. Jay Gatsby believes he can buy happiness, which to him, consists of having Daisy to himself. He believes he can do this by achieving a level of respect in East Egg; known for new money. His goal was to make fortune to please Daisy.

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.

Gatsby and the American Dream Have you ever wondered who could ever live the American dream? In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is the main character and in love with something he does not have, but lives a dream to others. He has all the money he needs to throw parties and have fancy things. Gatsby is considered to be living the American Dream. In the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald shows how Gatsby represents and lives the American dream. In the book The Great Gatsby, it shows how Gatsby lives the American Dream.

It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it” (George Carlin). George Carlin, criticizes the dream of prosperity, a promise to any individual for happiness and material success, if they try hard enough, Carlin realizes the reality of the unobtainable dream. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald offers an insight to the lavish life of the 1920’s, or as he coined, The Jazz Age. The novel follows the character of Nick Carraway as he learns the tragedy of an excessive lifestyle that is lived by Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald is able to see past all the luxury and grandeur to expose the unhappiness and misery that tells the reader that money does not bring true joy. The novel describes

The 1920’s was a decade of striving for prosperity and the American dream. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s historical fiction novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby builds his way up to wealth and does everything he can to attain his goal, but is ultimately unable to attain it. Through his decision to set up The Great Gatsby as a frame story, Fitzgerald conveys the theme that the American dream is not necessary attainable, no matter how much one sacrifices or works towards it.

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.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a fictional novel about a young man’s life , narrated by his closest friend Nick. This young extravagantly wealthy man known as Mr.Gatsby, lived in the 1920’s and represented the american dream in many different ways. In F. Scott Fitzgerald “The Great Gatsby” Tom and Daisy were born into this weathiness. Gatsby on the other hand had to work for his money by going to the army. In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald wanted to display the elusiveness of the American Dream and how more money makes the society during this time period lose their morality.

The Great Gatsby is written in the 1920’s. The WWI has just passed, and people are migrating to The United States as Fitzgerald states: “I participate in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War” (3). People are coming from other regions seeking the American Dream, the dream that advertises individuals will become rich if they work hard, regardless of their background. Gatsby overcomes poverty and moves to the West Egg leaving everything behind to try to regain the love of Daisy. Fitzgerald describes:

One of the most influential writers of the early 20th century was a man named F. Scott Fitzgerald. The biggest topic that he wrote about was the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses many different aspects of writing to get his opinion across, such as the outcome of stories like The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams”. He also uses the setting and to explain his beliefs. Based of his work, Fitzgerald believes the American dream is not only unrealistic, but also unattainable.

Gatsby’s American dream is to win Daisy's heart, she is important for what she represents wealth and acceptance into the old wealth of East Egg. Gatsby becomes consumed by his dream and spends little to no effort on anything else throughout the novel. Gatsby effort to win Daisy back shows the journey for the American dream, thus the American experience. However, when Gatsby dies it shows Fitzgerald’s thoughts on the American dream. At the end of the novel, Daisy has returned to Tom and Gatsby is dead, this shows the futility of such a pursuit, and Nicks comments that Gatsby “represented everything for which [he] has unaffected scorn” (2). It is obvious that Fitzgerald has a pessimistic view of such an uncontrollable dream.

The American dream is that anyone can start from nothing and turn themselves into something, with the ability achieving their wildest desires. Gatsby’s dream is corrupted by the lies and deception of Daisy. Daisy is the thing that drives Gatsby to strive for; Her voice is full of money, as Gatsby would describe it. Her voice was "full of money-that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song in it" (Fitzgerald 120). Gatsby became so enchanted by Daisy that he bases all of his actions on trying to win her over. However, Gatsby is late to realize that deception is the only thing that her voice will promise. There is not really any compassion in Daisy, just as none exists in money. As she mostly cares about the money and power an individual possess, she will be quick to turn on you if something goes south even if it is a miniscule issue.

In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American dream was shown and presented to be attainable. Both current times and back then in the early 1920’s the American dream was and still is represented as living happily and stress free with their current job, house, and or loved one. The cost for living in such conditions to whoever is working for it is the choice of going through the worst situations to completely achieve their goals. Whether it’s working 10 hours a day every day or throwing all your money on a mansion and parties just to get close to the love of your life.In The Great Gatsby the American dream is most definitely attainable but at the cost of the high chance of losing the opportunity.

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.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, which took place during the summer of 1922 in New York, the narrator Nick Carroway travels east in hopes of becoming an independent individual, however, while he is there he enters the world of the elite where he gradually uncovers the truth about the lacking morals of the rich and famous. At the beginning point of Nick’s time in New York, he purchases a petite house in the core of an exceedingly rich neighborhood, West Egg, as a start of pursuing The American Dream of becoming financially successful. There Nick befriends a group of highly wealthy people where their persistent immoral behaviors expose that the success, the people, and the ideal that The American Dream represents is ironically

Parties, cars, glamorous mansions, drama, intrigue, and more. All of these are major components of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. The characters in the novel are just as extravagant as their surroundings. But all of this is more than just an entertaining story with a flamboyant background. Fitzgerald uses the characters and settings of The Great Gatsby to portray the American dream by their actions and their backgrounds. It is suggested that the American dream is unattainable and unrealistic through the social status and different outcomes of the characters in The Great Gatsby.