The Theme Of 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 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.

The American Dream, something we all dream to prosper, however differs from each one of us. Whether it be to obtain riches or love, or simply live happy, we all aspire to cross that finish line at the end of day. The universal theme of the American Dream is presented throughout The Great Gatsby, and is shown throughout many of the characters in which many are emptied, because of their lust for money. For instance, in the novel The Great Gatsby the main character Gatsby shows downfall for the American Dream, because of his ambition, and corruption. The character expresses his downfall through his traits of ambition, and resilience in obtaining his materialistic riches, and most important living happy ever after with his “nice” girl Daisy, the one who got away.

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.

Fitzgerald uses the murder of Myrtle Wilson to symbolize the death of the American Dream. Myrtle is a character who lives in the valley of ashes, a place between West Egg and New York City covered in “gray land” and “spasms of bleak dust” (23). The valley of ashes is where all of the city’s waste ends up and the people that live there are poor and low class. Myrtle was not content with her life in the valley and her socioeconomic status. Her husband was a car repair man and Myrtle was embarrassed by his lack of wealth. The day after their wedding she “lay down and cried” after figuring out that George had borrowed someone’s suit for the wedding, and she knew then she had “made a mistake” marrying him (35). Myrtle wanted to escape this life of poverty and social inferiority, and she imagined she could do so by having an affair with one of the richest men in New York, Tom Buchanan. This, however, did not get her very far because she was later run over and killed by Daisy, who was driving Gatsby’s car when Myrtle “rushed out” of the garage “waving her hands and shouting” (137), thinking it was Tom driving the car coming back for her. George had Myrtle physically trapped in the house, symbolizing how she was trapped in her class and social status. When she saw that expensive, fancy car, she saw it as an opportunity to run off with Tom, representing how she thought she could escape her life of poverty. Myrtle’s death symbolizes the death of the American Dream because she is someone who tried to achieve it and move up in life but was ultimately killed because of it.

Myrtle illustrates this as she wants nothing more than to be of a higher social status. Her affair with Tom allows her to have a taste of what a life of wealth is, and she undergoes a change when surrounded by the finer things life with Tom offers. Myrtle’s persona is altered when she slips into something as simple as a new dress, illustrating that her “intense vitality that had been so remarkable” when she is living her regular life is “converted into impressive hauteur” (Fitzgerald 56). As she is so desperate to escape the impoverished life she is accustomed to, Myrtle does her best to play the part of a posh woman when around Tom. Myrtle seems awkward and disrespectful when she is acting like she belongs in Tom’s world, which makes it apparent that she will never fit in the way she wishes to. Her dream blinds her to her own foolishness, and Myrtle begins to believe that Tom truly loves her. Her infatuation causes her to become delusional and believe Tom will leave Daisy for her. In reality, this would never happen as Myrtle is from a very low social and financial status. Tom is using Myrtle, and he illustrates how disposable she is to him when he “[breaks] her nose with his open hand” (Fitzgerald 127). Myrtle is willing to take the abuse that she is presented with if it means that she will be able to live a life of wealth. Her obsession with materialistic items and money

Jay Gatsby is a vastly wealthy individual whose past gets him involved in an affair and an accidental killing. Gatsby was once a poor boy who fell in love with a sweetheart by the name of Daisy. They were passionate about each other until Gatsby went off to fight in World War I. Gatsby had Daisy promise that she would wait on him and that he would return to her so they could get married. However, Daisy is impatient and she finds another man, named Tom Buchanan, whom she marries. Gatsby later returns and is devastated after learning of this news. Gatsby and Daisy flirt with

The Great Gatsby is a novel by Scott Fitzgerald that took place in the 1920’s also known as the Jazz age. It is a well-rounded novel based upon the life of a wealthy man known as jay Gatsby seen through the eyes of the narrator Nick Carraway. The main theme of this novel is the pursuit if the American dream, but through this pursuit the corruption of the American Dream was formed. Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson are all trying to achieve the American Dream through corruption.

Character Values In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the story takes place in the 1920s. During the 1920s probation caused many people to have private parties. Many of the characters have values that have to do with finding someone or something they need. Also some of the characters values change by the end of the story.

Daisy is Jay Gatsby’s idea of the American dream and for Gatsby he is a strong believer that the past could be repeated and recreated. Gatsby believed that Daisy would reject him if she knew of his poverty, so he decided to lie to everyone about his past and recreate himself into a different person. When Gatsby first gets into a conversation with Nick he states “I am the son of

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven 't had the advantages that you 've had" (Fitzgerald 1). If the characters in this novel would have noted this, they would have realized all the great things they possessed and several lives would have been spared. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low on an economic or social level, and working hard towards prosperity, wealth and fame. By having money, a car, a big house, nice clothes and a happy family symbolizes the American Dream. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel that shows what happened to the American Dream in the 1920’s, a time period where the dreams of many became corrupted for countless

Characters in the book have all been corrupted and destroyed by the American Dream. Myrtle is having an affair with Tom. By having the affair it harms her marriage with George. Myrtle sees the American Dream as being perfect, wealthy, and well respected. This shows why she's having an affair with Tom, is because he is rich and well respected.

In the 1920’s the American Dream in “The Great Gatsby” was based on possessions, wealth, and the amount of materialistic things a person may have had. On the other hand, the 1920’s provided another side of what was portrayed as the American Dream. This side included a state of discovery, self-determination, and happiness. Each portrayal has similarities and differences that relate to one another. Through “The Great Gatsby” and other sources we will see these comparisons and how they play a role in the individual perception of the American Dream.

Daisy’s dream is to marry the richest man she can. Daisy did this because she was very materialistic like a lot of people were back then and she liked Tom more than Gatsby because she wanted the name of “old” money not Gatsby’s “new” money. “ ‘Her voice full of money’” (99). A big turning point in the book is when Daisy said she would go with Gatsby, but instead she chooses tom for his money. Daisy before this had been talking with Gatsby all about leaving Tom and getting together with Gatsby, but at the last second she decided not to.

He is one of the only secure characters in the novel due to his wealth, class and power which leads him to live a happy, carefree life ‘we drifted here and here restfully where people played polo and were rich’. However this security was only delivered by Daisy as he uses her for her money so his dream is nearly shattered when Daisy decided to leave him for a ‘bootlegger’, Gatsby.