What Is The American Dream In The Great Gatsby's Life

The American Dream, the hope that every single citizen of the United States has the equal right and opportunity to gain prosperity and success through hard work, integrity, and honest means. In the narrative The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he symbolizes the dying American Dream at the turn of the Century through the characters and plot of his novel. The book takes place in the 1920’s which was an era full of young, and innovative people taking every advantage of the American Dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald shows this through setting, plot, and in particular one major character, Jay Gatsby.

“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 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.

In the 1920’s, American citizens were pursuing their dreams. Between desires of wealth and fame, many of these aspirations are outlandish. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows us the consequences of chasing these unique American dreams. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald clearly communicates to the reader that people are failing to accomplish their dreams. The characters of Nick, Gatsby, Tom and Daisy all have ideas for a perfect life; however, none of them are able to obtain it. Fitzgerald shows the pursuit of the American dream as deceitful because it leads to poverty, depression, moral and social decay through highly unrealistic standards.

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 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.

For much of its existence, the Human race’s goal has been to obtain the most money so that they may gloat about everything they have and make a place for themselves at the top of the social ladder. In 1920’s, wealth was the fundamental way of claiming your place in the world. This was shown by the characters of The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This book features the battles to create a happy life for yourself and all the mess in between. Undeterred by heritage, race, and class you can obtain the American Dream through perseverance and commitment to your work.

As humans, we crave love and affection from others, and in order to live the “American Dream” money is a necessity. It was the infectious love of money that brought Nick, a wealthy veteran who wanted more out of life, to the Eggs. More importantly, the love that Gatsby had for Daisy motivated him to live the life of the rich and prove it. The characters were influenced by the love of money, or money bringing love. Love and lust could be completely changed when money was thrown in, and for the characters in the book, there was never enough.

During the 1920’s, most Americans cared about their wealth and social standing. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays the characters striving for happiness, love, and wealth, in which none of the characters can have all of the options in the life they have. He does this to explain his own struggle with his American dream by never having a lot of money, never being a very successful writer, and losing his golden girl. Fitzgerald portrays his pessimistic view on the struggle of fulfilling the American dream by portraying different types of people trying to achieve their own dreams with the obstacles of social status, and the influence of reputation getting in the way of their individual dreams.

The lyrics “ Will you still love me when I’m not longer beautiful? ”(11). To me is the theme of The Great Gatsby novel. Everyone lives in such a grand life with all the riches, the perfect American Dream. The American Dream is one of the main themes in The Great Gatsby. No one actually truly loves each other for personality just off of looks and wealth. Daisy being the main character, this quote describes her the most. The quote shows that she does not actually care about love, more about her looks as she gets older. In the Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, the song played “ Young and Beautiful” has taken an extremely romantic and passionate depressed tone towards the idea of love and beauty. Lana Del Ray sings in very low tones, quietly and passionate to display how seriously Daisy feels about how she looks rather than her personality or love itself. Since she is very insecure about how she looks, she spends a lot of the time being self conscious about her personality and covers her ability to socialize with her good looks.

Wealth, parties, and connections, were three things that were important to anyone looking to be anyone in East New York’s high society in the Roaring 20s. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured all three with his literary voice. He made impressions everywhere with the supreme achievement of his third novel, The Great Gatsby. This novel is a tale of people’s exciting lives in the 1920’s. Fitzgerald uses the Great Gatsby to illustrate the American identity during the early twentieth century. Fitzgerald uses symbolism and narrative techniques to illustrate the materialistic chase of the American dream by upper-class society in the 20's.

The Great Gatsby (1925) is a highly symbolic novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald on 1920 's America, an era of great prosperity and material excess. Its theme mainly deals with the disintegration of the American Dream due to decayed social and moral values. The American Dream is a set of ideals in which freedom includes the right for prosperity, success, and social upward mobility for all Americans which can be achieved through hard work and dedication. Fitzgerald uses the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg as a symbolism to show us that the corruption in our generation 's moral values will lead to the destruction of the American Dream.

The disillusionment of the American Dream is a frequent but important written theme in the American literature. Fitzgerald’s famous book The Great Gatsby is one of the most important representative works that reflects this theme. F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known for his novels and short stories which chronicle the excesses of America's Jazz Age during the 1920s. His classic twentieth-century story of Jay Gatsby examines and critiques Gatsby's particular vision of the 1920's American Dream. The Great Gatsby can be seen as a far-reaching book that has revealed many serious and hidden social problems at that time. As one of the most popular and financially successful

When the sounding of America occured, the definition of the American Dream was a possible way to better one’s circumstances; however, Fitzgerald shows through his novel The Great Gatsby that the definition and attainableness of the American Dream has changed: it became an unachievable dream that focused on making it big. Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby focused on the American Dream and mainly reflected how Fitzgerald himself felt about it. It showed how the 1920’s changed the dream and turned it into a fantasy rather than a reality. Fitzgerald’s opinion of the American Dream was that it was an unattainable dream that left behind the notion of hard work and embraced improving one’s life; however, there are parts of Fitzgerald’s work that support the concept of an obtainable dream and the importance of hard work.

Gatsby refuses to not meet his aspirations and will fulfill his dream by any means necessary. Although Gatsby’s intentions and motivation to become successful are pure, the way he obtains his status is extremely foul and criminal. Gatsby participates in organized crime, trades stolen securities, and bootlegs illegal alcohol. Instead of Gatsby using his wit and intelligence in an honest hard working way, he participates in corrupt acts, which will guarantee him his wealth and status. It is this aspect of Gatsby’s life where Fitzgerald expresses the decline of The American Dream. He tries to show his readers the demoralization of our society and how greed and power are a form of empty success that a lot of Americans buy in to.