The American Dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the ideals of wealth and dreams are exhibited through the lives and experiences of Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby. Specifically, Gatsby tends to waste his wealth rather than investing for the future. He uses the “green light” to serve as a constant reminder of his dreams and life goals he wishes to pursue. Nick Carraway’s friendship with Gatsby enables him to partake in the wealth and luxuries of Gatsby's lifestyle. The American Dream is brought to fruition through Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle and extravagant parties. Furthermore, the motifs of wealth and dreams are perpetually shaping and influencing the characters’ decisions, experiences and outcomes over the course of the story.

“All the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that [others have] had” (Fitzgerald 5). In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the idea of the American Dream – the ideal life – the dream of every American to be rich, prosperous, famous, loved, all those amazing imaginations that one could have. In this novel though, Fitzgerald portrays this dream as reachable and possible for anyone, but he also shows that this dream is not as great as everyone thinks it is. Fitzgerald depicts this dream as a death wish that could ruin any person that tries to reach it. This is shown by the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, and the truth behind Gatsby’s wealth and claim to fame, and also by Gatsby’s love for Daisy and him eventually drowning in his love for her.

Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald the theme of The American Dream and Illusion versus Reality are interlinked and are also evident within the novel. This is seen through the protagonist Jay Gatsby, recently changed from James Gatz, who once lived with a poor lifestyle, strived for greatness and luxury in order to achieve The American dream, and is now living in West Egg. This is where people of new wealth go to live their lives. Gatsby’s tale of rags-to-riches can be seen as living The American Dream, however Gatsby always wants one thing in order to complete this desire; Daisy Buchanan. She is first introduced as an innocent and generous woman who is genuine in all the things she says and does. Gatsby was once

Fitzgerald’s novel, the Great Gatsby is one of the most meticulously written story of all time. This book incorporates different themes, yet the shadiness of the American Dream is the most significant one. The American Dream designates that one starting very low on their economic or social status and getting success and wealth trough their arduous work. Having a big house, a nice car and a happy family show the success of the American Dream. This dream is also shown by the concept of a self-made man, who struggles through life to get successful and wealthy. This dream does not only cause corruption but also destruction.

“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.

The American Dream is a worldwide known idiom and it emphasizes an ideal of a successful and happy lifestyle which is oftentimes symbolized by the phrase “from rags-to-riches”. It originated out of the ideal of equality, freedom and opportunity that is held to every American. In the last couple of decades the main idea of the American Dream has shifted to becoming a dream in which materialistic values are of a higher importance and status. The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 during the “Jazz Age”. Jay Gatsby is a parvenu who worked himself his way up. He is the main character and he has a quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan and he has a need for

Since American literature’s emergence, the American dream has become a conceptual ideal for many people throughout history. Although the dream has its own distinct aspects throughout different time periods, it predominantly focuses on the foundations of wealth, success and a desire for something greater. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fiction novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, is primarily known for the numerous lavish parties he throws each weekend at his ostentatious mansion in West Egg in an attempt to reunite with Daisy Buchanan, a woman he falls in love with prior to entering the war before the Roaring Twenties. However, he is seized with an impotent realization on the fact that his wealth cannot afford him the same privileges as others that are born into the upper echelon. Gatsby is completely blinded from his opulent possessions until he becomes oblivious of the fact that money cannot buy love or happiness. Throughout the story, the predilection for materialistic features causes many characters to lose sight of their aspirations, demonstrating how a dream can become easily corrupt by one’s focus on acquiring wealth and power.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald effectively portrays 1920’s America and its twisted, unsavory values. The novel has been called “the American masterwork,” by Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post, because of the novel’s characterization of the Jazz Age and all of it’s unsatisfactory glory. One critic has written, “The theme of Gatsby is the withering of the American dream.” Fitzgerald’s work validates this statement. The Great Gatsby wonderfully depicts the death of the American Dream through the loss of humility and rectitude. The American Dream is the ideal that anyone, regardless of race, class, or gender should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. The death of this dream is demonstrated in the novel through rich symbolism as Fitzgerald uses extended metaphors and personification to portray the corruption of the Jazz Age. The American Dream is demonstrated through the color yellow, which symbolizes not only wealth but death. The American Dream is also demonstrated through characters Myrtle Wilson, George Wilson, and Jay Gatsby, as well as their tragic endings while trying to achieve the dream. Tom and Daisy Buchanan achieve money without having to work and the carelessness that results from it.

Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a novel documenting the experiences Nick Carraway has in New York, is ultimately used to voice Fitzgerald’s perception of the American dream. Nick, voicing the message from Fitzgerald, affirms his confidence in the matter that the American Dream will always be unattainable. From the beginning of the novel, Gatsby is illustrated as a mysterious character who constantly changes his backstory in an attempt to appeal to the “old rich.” As Nick and Gatsby became acquainted, Nick abominated Gatsby as he ascertained that Gatsby’s methods to pursue wealth and Daisy were scandalous. In the end, Nick conceived a new perspective on life proceeding Gatsby’s death which is portrayed through his thought that, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.

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 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’; a thirst for wealth and success. Many want it, but few end up succeeding in achieving full success. Jay Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a fictitious version of someone who achieved success, and demonstrated his goals even from an early age. “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something.” (Fitzgerald, 116) Says Mr. Gatz, who was Jay Gatsby’s father. This quote demonstrates how Gatsby had always planned to become successful, even when he was at a young age. Another one of Gatsby’s ambitions is Daisy. Even though Daisy is married to Tom, he sets his hopes high as she is the love of his life. “He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.” (Fitzgerald, 91) This quote demonstrates how infatuated Gatsby is with Daisy. He set his hopes so high that he wanted to be with somebody who is ‘Old Money’, which is perceived as a higher class; and, the person that

The Roaring 20's was an era of decadence and endless possibility. The American Dream was something that everyone coveted. Essentially, The American Dream meant that anyone who had the talent and worked hard enough, could achieve it. Money, a loving spouse, and status all showed that a person had been successful in their life and were vital points to the American Dreams of the Characters in the Great Gatsby. Many of them strived in their own way to achieve “the dream”, however, twisted ideals of love, wealth, and class led to the eventual fall of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.