The Importance Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The term “The American Dream” was coined in 1931 by American writer James Truslow Adams and described America as a place of opportunity based on one’s ability and hard work. Although the term originated in 1931, the fundamental ideas of the American Dream debuted in 1920’s society and contrasted greatly with previous notions of a stagnant class structure. This was due to the booming post-WWI economy, which provided an increase in accessibility to leisure items and activities, allowing luxuries typically reserved for the upper class to be enjoyed by the masses. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, reflects these social and economic changes. The novel follows the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby, who achieved prosperity in spite of being born the son of a poor, North Dakota farmer. Though many believed in an emergence of class mobility in the 1920’s, the novel The Great Gatsby demonstrates the ultimate inaccessibility of the American Dream - a holistic realization of social and economic equality.

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 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.

shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel… Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. ‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds” (Fitzgerald 92). Daisy had married Tom and he was wealthy but when she went to Gatsby’s mansion, she realized the extent of his wealth. Gatsby and Daisy’s main focus in their lives was money. Money was all they really cared about. “Jay Gatsby’s quest, the wealthy Daisy, represents the emptiness of an American society focused on money, a sordid but accurate view of the American Dream” (Adamson 25). The American society is basically empty with a large focus on money rather than the significant things in life.

The American Dream: Is is fact or fiction? In the United States’ Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers set forth the idea of an American Dream by providing us with the recognizable phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. The green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock symbolizes Jay Gatsby’s “Pursuit of Happiness” in the novel, The Great Gatsby, set in the 1920s on Long Island, New York. The American Dream can be defined as “the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone. The American Dream is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work, not by chance” (Fontinelle, Amy). At the birth of our country in 1776, our founding fathers introduced the American Dream as a personal desire to pursue happiness; however, the pursuit of happiness was not intended to promote self-indulgence, rather to act as a catalyst to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit. As our country has changed, the idea of the American Dream, in some cases, has evolved into the pursuit of one’s own indulgences such as material gain regardless of the consequences.

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.

Living the American Dream can be very risky and can cause you to lose everything around you. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, we see from Nick’s eyes a horrific tragedy of Jay Gatsby achieving The American Dream then having it all fall down on him by his choices in life. Jay Gatsby comes to New York in search of his lost love, Daisy. Gatsby becomes wealthy to get Daisy’s love, but trying to create the past doesn’t always work. Gatsby lost his life trying to find something that wasn’t there. The Great Gatsby showed how the American Dream can be corrupted by the power of being wealthy, the power of society, and the power of love.

The "American Dream" is a frequently used term to reference to the opportunity to move up in social status, create a family, and live a comfortable life. Somewhere in the 1920s the “American Dream” got a new meaning, and that meaning for a lot of people was greed. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald shows the corrupt nature of the American Dream through some of its main characters. F Scott Fitzgerald shows the frailty of the American Dream with Jay Gatsby the protagonist of the story. Gatsby had a huge desire to succeed in everything, the root of this desire was to impress the love of his life, Daisy .

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.

Throughout all of time, white men have seen themselves as superior to other races, genders, sexualities and cultures. One way that this statement is supported is through the American Dream. The American Dream is set out to be the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” per the Declaration of Independence. This idea is completely achievable for white, rich men, on the other hand, it is not as easily achievable for a few other groups. The American Dream is a complex set up to try to keep minorities from becoming truly happy and equal.

The American dream for most people is having the opportunity to be successful. Nonetheless, there are many obstacles to overcome such as poverty, racial prejudices, lack of will power, and the unequal chances of opportunity. These obstacles are what prove that the American dream is more of a dream than a reality.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a novel about the chase for love and the American dream in which a man named Gatsby’s quest for a girl named Daisy turns out to be much like the pursuit of the American Dream. Both are made out to be better and more attainable than they are in reality and end up falling short of these expectations. Gatsby builds up his perception of Daisy much like the American dream is advocated for and supported by older generations. Instead of attaining what he thought was his ultimate conquest and realizing his ideal of true success, Gatsby ends up alone, dishonored and dead. If the American Dream is increasingly difficult to attain because it simply isn’t possible for the younger generation in the current economic,

The American Dream in The Great Gatsby In The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald the American dream is a big idea that revolves around many characters and the theme of the book. We see many characters who have already reached some of their dreams and some who have not met theirs yet throughout the book. One character that is chasing their dream for the whole book is Gatsby compared to Tom, who had achieved his dream when the novel started .

This passage, which is the last in the novel, is also the most significant. It focuses on the role of the past in the dreams of the future. It is a metaphor for Gatsby, his struggle, and the American Dream. Gatsby was a man forever moving forward, while remaining squarely focused on the past. He was an idealistic dreamer who reinvented himself, achieved financial wealth and social success, but failed to attain his overarching goal – Daisy’s love. He chased illusions and ignored reality, and ultimately it destroyed him. Gatsby’s optimism that he could transcend time and recreate the past in the present was shattered by Daisy’s rejection of him due to his dubious past. Gunned down for a crime he did not commit, and abandoned by his “friends” and business associates, the successful man who seemed to have everything, in reality, had nothing. Gatsby’s death exposed the ugly truth behind the glittering façade of the American Dream – it is a myth. The noble goals of equality, progress, and the pursuit of happiness have been corrupted by the emptiness and excesses of rampant materialism, hedonism, and moral decrepitude. The optimistic people who come to the new world with the hope of a better life and the belief that they can succeed if they try hard enough, are products of their past, and will continue to struggle in vain towards a goal that moves ever farther away.

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.