The Great Gatsby Unattainable Essay

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,

“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars”. This quote said by Garrison Keillor, metaphorically exemplifies the true meaning of hollowness and shallowness. Hollowness and shallowness were a major part of people’s characteristics in the 1920’s ‘easy money’ era because of the great economic boom. During this era, people earned their money by corruption with smuggling alcohol during prohibition. In addition, people earned their money by people unknowingly investing in major stocks. A few people earned their money with hard work; it was mostly made easily for them. Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the shallowness and hollowness of the upper class is persistently shown. Hollowness and

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a story about a wealthy man named Gatsby. Gatsby lives a luxuriant life in West Egg of New York. Gatsby’s wealth has an unknown secret because nobody seems to know where his wealth emerged from. Despite of having so much fortune, Gatsby’s true American dream has not been achieved. In the great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald develops Gatsby as a failed American dream to show the impossibility of the American dream in the 1920’s.

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.

“Is Tom most responsible for Gatsby’s death? Daisy? Myrtle? Gatsby himself? Give reasons why or why not each character is implicated in the murder.”

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 American Dream is fundamentally the idea that anyone in America can accomplish through hard work and can achieve success and happiness. It has been expanded on through the years and now incorporates ideas of attaining freedom, wealth and power. In the 1920s when 'The Great Gatsby' was written the Jazz Age was taking hold and the American Dream became more about material possessions being used to show a person's wealth and status and to indicate that they have been successful in life. The materialism of this period of time in America corrupted the American Dream by the intense focus on gaining wealth and power and

For Jay Gatsby and many others, the American Dream is about gaining wealth and material possessions in an attempt to find happiness. Through his novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows how the American Dream is only the concept of perfection, something that can never be acquired, but always can be reached for.

The novel The Great Gatsby is a story that takes place in the 1920’s. The story

The Great Gatsby is set in post WWI America and at the time, the American dream was for any hardworking person to be able to achieve success and happiness regardless of their background or social class. This was a time of great change and revolution with the roaring twenties and rising middle class.

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel that was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The American Dream is the main theme of this novel; this is what Gatsby’s life depends on. The underlying cause for everything that happens in the novel is an idea, an idea towards which everyone strives and dreams of. This unattainable, destructive, and hindrance dream, as Fitzgerald calls it, is the American Dream. What exactly is The American Dream some might ask?

For generations many have immigrated to this great nation know, as the United states of America, all seeking for their share of the American dream. The American dream is the philosophy that anyone can become successful through hard work and perseverance. The 1920’s embodies this concept like no other decade in American history. It is also during this time frame that one sees the perversion of this dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests in his novel, The Great Gatsby that there is a right and wrong way to obtain the American dream. Throughout the novel, Gatsby is symbolic for the materialistic nature of the American dream and its corruption in the 20th century.

The American dream in The Great Gatsby written by Scott Fitzgerald, About fighting for what we want. American Dream makes us strong and brave to do things we would not do. American dream can be clothes, money, luxury, and love. In the novel the American Dream is what we picture but if we dig deep inside there are crushed dreams and conquered but failed. American dream is not what we all pictured in the Great Gatsby but they make us believe how great is life is. The Great Gatsby is about high class society where does not mean that all American Dreams come true but there are always a bad ending to their American Dreams.

In the book, “The Great Gatsby” the American Dream is represented by how anyone can rise to the top with enough hard work as shown through the character Jay Gatsby, although it can be difficult to be pleased. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby as a metaphor which he is saying that the American Dream isn’t what it seems, it is just a dream. The American Dream is the ideal that every citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. The Declaration of Independence is a representation of the American Dream.

America is known as the land of the free; where opportunity and prosperity are around every corner. Merriam-Webster’s definition of American Dream is “a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S. especially by working hard and becoming successful.” Anyone, regardless of circumstance or socioeconomic status, with enough hard work and determination can achieve the American Dream. The Great Gatsby can be portrayed as a critique of excessive materialism in America during the 1920s. Fitzgerald continues to portray this time as an era of the degeneration of moral values and the skewed idea of the American dream. The downfall of the American society, as well as the American Dream, can be seen in the novel’s main characters: Jay Gatsby and Daisy and Tom Buchanan.