The American Dream In The Great Gatsby And Of Mice And Men

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 author Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby as a novel that talks about and covers American issues in the 1920s. He shows in the novel the carelessness and selfishness of everybody at the same time by portraying all of them in the location of west and east egg. Fitzgerald talks about a couple different topics throughout the novel. One of those is," the Attainment of a dream may be less satisfying than the pursuit of it" and the second one is"the American Dream is corrupted by the desire for wealth". He uses those themes to show how americans lived at a different time.

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.

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby spent years trying to achieve his dream, but he made a bad decision and lost his chance. Gatsby met Daisy a couple years before (Fitzgerald 74). He would hide his social class from her because he was afraid she wouldn’t like him. He never forgot her, even when he went to fight in the war. He has been formulating a plan to get Daisy back. He comes back and got a house across the lake from Daisy, hoping to be with her some day. He did a lot of bad business to get all of his wealth, but the money wasn’t enough. He wanted to be with Daisy. He eventually gets to meet up with Daisy because of Nick’s help, and Gatsby gets closer to being able to live a life with Daisy. One day, everyone (Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick, and Jordan) is in town, renting a hotel room to deal with the heat. Tom figures out that Daisy and Gatsby have something going on. Tom gets mad and everyone starts to head home. On the way back, Gatsby lets Daisy drive his car, which was his bad decision (Fitzgerald 143). Daisy hits Myrtle,

Lennie and George’s version of the American Dream relies on their ability to own land. Lennie gives the George the ability to conjure up some innocence to keep pursuing the Dream. They are innocent, yet they can't gain any wealth or possessions, a dream that ends with shattered dreams and lost of innocence. On the other hand, Gatsby’s version of the American Dream relies solely on the ability to relive the past with Daisy. Yet, he can’t reach it, as Nick explains, “he stretched out his arms toward the dark water...distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away”(Fitzgerald Chapter 1). Gatsby tries his hardest to gain the love of Daisy. The American Dream should be achieved by the power of want alone, yet Gatsby never comes close. He lacks the innocence and instead he complies massive wealth in hopes of somehow finding his fulfillment. In Angela Hickey’s analysis Of Mice and Men, she states, “[Curly and Curly’s wife]both have the mental capacity to attain the dream, but lack the innocent belief that is needed to make it come true”(3). Unlike the characters of The Great Gatsby, the characters in Of Mice and Men have no starting wealth. George and Lennie also still retain the innocence that materialism often corrupts. Lennie, in essence, is the innocence that kept the Dream alive for both him and George. Yet it is hard to determine whether Daisy and

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.

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces the character, Gatsby, to show how The American Dream failed him so devastatingly. Gatsby had the dream to be reunited with Daisy and repeat the past again. Daisy and Gatsby were once in love in October of 1917. Daisy was eighteen and Queen Bee of high society, while Gatsby was a young officer who was head-over-heels in love with her. However, Gatsby had to leave for war, leaving Daisy behind. Even

Could the American Dream be a reality? Many people see the American Dream possible with hard work. These people stay optimistic while others, even with hard work, find the American Dream unachievable. Three works of literature that endure the failures of the American Dream are The Crucible, The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men.

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.

The American dream: the idea that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work and determination. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, both Jay Gatsby and Myrtle try to reach their American dreams; however, their final state reflects a significant statement on such a dream. Tom and Daisy do not need to reach this dream since they have always been in possession of their American dream. This creates a stark contrast between the ideals of Gatsby and Daisy. In the final passage of the novel, the nature of the dream is further defined. Fitzgerald uses his novel to show a pessimistic and futile view of the American dream, yet he believes that striving for the dream is a large part of the American experience.

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 American Dream. The idea of fulfilling your life’s dreams, whether to marry, to retire, to buy a house or to fall in love, is a theme commonly shared in both Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Of Mice & Men, best friends George and Lennie travel from ranch to ranch in the hope of finally earning enough money to buy a house of their own. Yet due to Lennie’s mental disability, difficult situations for him lead to the end of their dream and the end of his life. Alternatively, in The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby has a life of money and parties – his world is seemingly complete, but the purpose of his social events are to try and catch the eye of his dream girl; Daisy. However, this too ends in defeat, and death. Steinbeck and Fitzgerald constantly portray the dream as unyielding and corrupt, as they are remote and leave the people involved disheartened and remorseful. Both novels are set in analogous times, and both in America, but the lives of the characters are very dissimilar – in The Great Gatsby, they live in New York, a city full of wealth thanks to Wall Street and the thousands of shops as well as the post-war parties of the roaring twenties, whereas in Of Mice & Men they live in an agricultural area with less money and less opportunities, in the dust-bowl of America,

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