What Is The Happiest Place In The Great Gatsby

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 culture of the wealthy Americans represented in The Great Gatsby was defined mainly by consumerism and excessive material wealth. Wherever given the opportunity, Jay Gatsby went over the top, as shown in his flamboyant style of dress and his huge mansion where he throws lavish parties. This is actually not all that different from Fitzgerald’s life. After his first work was published to great fanfare, Fitzgerald was the talk of the town. As was the case with Gatzby, many of those around him did not – and never would – actually know Fitzgerald. They wished merely to be close to someone famous. Fitzgerald shunned all the attention, eventually moving to France. It was there that he looked at the supposed American Dream from a different perspective. To Fitzgerald, it was clear that the sudden wealth that many Americans began to acquire caused leisure and idleness to replace traditional ethics like hard work as qualities that were admired. (Decker, 28) Certainly the Buchanans and Gatsby cared little about hard work once they had achieved their material goals.

The Jazz Age, in which The Great Gatsby is set, was an era when the American economy boomed and materialism predominated. Stories of people who had won immense wealth were common in the media at that time. Undoubtedly, in the 1920's many Americans adopted a corrupted and materialistic version of the American Dream. Since Fitzgerald did not directly address the specific issue of the American Dream within The Great Gatsby, we must assume some aspects of Fitzgerald's feelings on the issue from his writing. Within The Great Gatsby, it appears as if Fitzgerald

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.

Congratulations! You just won the lottery and are the winner of one point five million dollars! Now, will you choose to put that away and save your wealth, or begin the glamourous life of materialistic items such as houses, clothes and the finest machinery and automobiles? Fitzgerald sets up three distinct social classes in the novel portraying the world as the precarious place it really is. By creating social classes - old money, new money and no money- Fitzgerald's message he is conveying is elitism running throughout society, the power the wealthy possess and how wealth ultimately effects happiness.

Similarly, in the 1920s flourishing American economy of flashy cars and ostentatious mansions and extravagant parties and overpriced attire, there are those who believe money is the key to glee. Gatsby, born into a family of “unsuccessful farm people” trades in his “torn green jersey” for a “shirt of sheer linen” and dedicates his life to amassing the fortune he believes will help him accomplish his dream (Fitzgerald 5.92 & 6.98). Deceit becomes his best friend as corruption murders his once innocent dream and meretricious promises replace his morals. He, to rise to the top and near his dream, cheats the poor, the people that are so much like his own family.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an exploration of the American dream in modern society, in which money and prosperity are significant factors and it may not be as simple as you think; and the movie Citizen Kane is another example of the complex issues relating to the American dream. First, we will explore the American dream, in which it is to make a great deal of money because it provides for a comfortable living, and characters in the novel reflect upon this very ideal. Second, achieving the American dream of wealth is perceived to bring happiness, but that is not always the case as will examine the dream relating to the characters in the novel. Third, we will explore the

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.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the finest American authors of the twentieth century wrote The Great Gatsby during the Jazz Age to critique the distortion of the American dream, and his work has lasted long past his lifetime. Fitzgerald discusses the nature of love and wealth and stresses the importance of defining a person beyond their external position. In his novel, letter to his daughter, and the screenplay adapted from the novel, it is clear that F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes exposition, narration, and imagery to illustrate how people in the 1920s did not understand the meaning of true love and worried about superficial characteristics, thus resulting in the corruption of the American dream from the pursuit of true love and equality to the pursuit of wealth and discrimination; however, he moralizes that human beings are capable of emotional growth and of escaping the illusion of wealth.

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

F. Scott’s Fitzgerald thought that the American Dream would never go away in the past, present, and future. It has not even touch going in the negative today. A lot of rich people had the problem of morals, they did not like to follow rules. These rich people wanted to do what they want, they wanted freedom in all aspects. The main difference between the classes of ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ people are morals. F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s book “The Great Gatsby” was separated in classes. The rich and wealthy, and the poor an dissatisfied. These classes had different morals, examples are Nick, and Daisy.

The Great Gatsby is often considered to be the great American novel. However, this notion must be challenged because the ideas that F. Scott Fitzgerald presents in his classic masterpiece clash with the distinctly “American” ideologies that citizens of this great country have been spoon-fed since birth. Ideas such as capitalism, the American Dream, and self-actualization are presented in one form or another and then systematically dismantled to show just how fragile they really are. In his famous novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the despondency of class struggle and other Marxist ideologies through literary devices such as setting, imagery, and character development. Ultimately, Fitzgerald offers a negative critique on how social

Fitzgerald's dominant theme in The Great Gatsby focuses on the corruption of the American Dream. By analyzing high society during the 1920s through the eyes of narrator Nick Carraway, the author reveals that the American Dream has transformed from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power. In support of this message, Fitzgerald highlights the original aspects as well as the new aspects of the American Dream in

After World War I, America offered the potential for boundless financial and social opportunities for those willing to work hard—an American Dream. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low on the economic or social level, and working hard towards prosperity and or wealth and fame. Establishing fame, becoming wealthy, having lavish luxuries, and a happy family would come to symbolize this dream. For some, however, striving for and realizing that dream ruined them, as many acquired wealth only to pursue pleasure. Even though the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby appear to relish the freedom of the 1920s, their lives demonstrate the emptiness that results when wealth and pleasure become ends in themselves. Specifically, the empty lives of three characters from this novel— George Wilson, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan—show that chasing hollow dreams results only in misery.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is a one of the best stories written during a chaotic period in our nation’s history, The Jazz Age. The Twenties were a time of social experiments, self-indulgence, and dissatisfaction for majority of Americans. Fitzgerald depicts all these characteristics throughout the novel with his interesting themes, settings, and characters. The most elaborate and symbolic character Fitzgerald presents to his readers is Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby as a vehicle to explore the idea of The American Dream, which was a key element in shaping American society and it’s citizens. Fitzgerald does not sugar-coat his definition of the