“The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it's possible to achieve the American dream,” - Tommy Hilfiger. There is nothing more American than the theory we hold called The American Dream. In the book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the false idea of the American Dream through the life of Jay Gatsby. The American Dream Theory holds that the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity are available to any American as long as they put in the hard work and dedication.
The American Dream disregards the societal class you were born into and offers every American the chance to rise in the ranks regardless of where they come from or who they were born into. We can think back on examples of the American Dream with men like Fredrick Douglass, a slave turned writer who did everything in his effort to not only become literate but escape slavery and become a voice for abolition and a best- selling author, Thomas Edison, who only had 3 months of formal schooling and through work and homeschool put aside his hearing disability and went on to invent groundbreaking technologies such as the phonograph, the kinetoscope, and most famously the light bulb.
These men, and many others, are the poster children for the American Dream ideology. They prove that this ideal we hold is true and within our reach regardless of where we come from. Although many want to believe that the United States is a place to
start fresh and work towards a lavish career, few believe that this ideology that we focus so much of our time on is false and not true in the face of the big picture.
The Roaring Twenties can be called by some as the most prosperous time in America, although we know now that the decisions ma...
... middle of paper ...
... and Fitzgerald's World of Ideas. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 1997. Print.
"Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.
"The Great Gatsby. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2013.
"Hoover, Bob. "'The Great Gatsby' Still Challenges Myth of American Dream." Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 10 May 2013. Web. 06 Apr. 2014. "McKay, Brett. "25 of the Greatest Self-Made Men in American History." The Art of
Manliness RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.
"Rothman, Joshua. "The Serious Superficiality of The Great Gatsby." The New Yorker.
The New Yorker, 13 May 2013. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.
"Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Great Gatsby Society and Class Quotes Page 1."
Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 05 Apr. 2014.
"Smith, Hedrick. Who Stole the American Dream? New York: Random House, 2012. Print.
The American Dream, as referred by all, speaks of the great nation – America - which upholds the notion of “equality, liberty and fraternity” and, that all men are created equal by the Creator and hence, are given equal rights for equal opportunity at success. The American Dream glorifies the nation of America as the highest Super-power in the wor...
Web. The Web. The Web. 16 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
The American dream is a set of ideals embedded in American society which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work, but is contradicted by the different treatment low income students may encounter. This idea was first officially presented in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, where it stated, “that all men are created equal, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are li...
Web. The Web. The Web. 23 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Web. The Web. The Web. 19 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Web. The Web. The Web. 23 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. "Chapter 7." The Great Gatsby. New York, NY:
Web. The Web. The Web. 20 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1995.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print. The.
Web. The Web. The Web. 06 Mar. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. SOLOTAROFF, PAUL.
Web. The Web. The Web. 08 Mar. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Web. The Web. The Web. 08 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
From families looking to flee harsh living conditions in their native country to American citizens wishing to escape impoverished conditions through hard work and determination, the “American Dream” is a concept that people throughout the world have aspired to achieve for hundreds of years. Regardless of birthplace or socioeconomic status, the “American Dream” promises success, prosperity and upward mobility to any citizen with ambition and work ethic. Hundreds of millions of American citizens as well as immigrants have flourished in the United States throughout the course of history in a society with a thriving middle-class. However, in recent years, this dream has become increasingly difficult to achieve for those who are not already wealthy.
Samuels, Charles T. "The Greatness of ‘Gatsby'." Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: The Novel, The Critics, The Background. Ed. Henry D. Piper. Charles Schribner's Sons, New York: 1970.