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An essay on the american dream
Critical essays on the american dream
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The dawn of the 20th century was met with an unprecedented catastrophe: an international technological war. Such a horrible conflict perhaps threatened the roots of the American Dream! Yet, most do not realize how pivotal the following years were. Post war prosperity caused a fabulous age for America: the “roaring twenties”. But it also was an era where materialism took the nation by storm, rooting itself into daily life. Wealth became a measure of success and a facade for social status. This “Marxist materialism” threatened the traditional American Dream of self-reliance and individuality far even more than the war a decade before. As it morphed into materialistic visions (owning a beautiful house and car), victims of the change blindly chased the new aspiration; one such victim was Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. As his self-earned luxury and riches clashed with love, crippling consequences and disasters occur. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby delves into an era of materialism, exploring how capitalism can become the face of social life and ultimately cloud the American Dream. The philosophy of the American Dream has been with Americans for centurie; James Truslow Adams says that, regardless of social class, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” (Adams). Although this vision has never fully encompassed the entirety of America, it has been generally a positive ambition that all Americans should look past their circumstances and rely on only themselves to succeed at life. However, American capitalism and Marxist ideas have contradicted the traditional dream. Materialism is a simple concept, but its definition has been skewed over time. At ... ... middle of paper ... ...on materialism and social class. While novel is widely considered a zeitgeist of the time period, it is also a warning for the American Dream. Although the Dream is not Marxist materialism, it is certainly not traditional individualism and freedom. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby poses a question: what is the American Dream? Works Cited Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1931. Empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com, 2009. Web. 01 May 2014. Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925 Fromm, Erich. "Marx's Concept of Man." Marx's Concept of Man. Marxists.org, 1961. Web. 02 May 2014. K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas. "Meaning of Colors in Color Psychology." Empowered By Color.
In ‘The Great Gatsby’ Fitzgerald criticises the increase of consumerism in the 1920s and the abandonment of the original American Dream , highlighting that the increased focus on wealth and the social class associated with it has negative effects on relationships and the poorest sections of society. The concept of wealth being used as a measure of success and worth is also explored by Plath in ‘The Bell Jar’. Similarly, she draws attention to the superficial nature of this material American Dream which has extended into the 1960s, but highlights that gender determines people’s worth in society as well as class. Fitzgerald uses setting to criticise society’s loss of morality and the growth of consumerism after the Great War. The rise of the stock market in the 1920s enabled business to prosper in America.
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has indisputably been one of the most influential and insightful pieces on the corruption and idealism of the American Dream. The American Dream, 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,’ was a dominant ideal in American society, stemming from an opportunist pioneer mentality. In his book ‘The American Tradition in Literature’, Bradley Sculley praised The Great Gatsby for being ‘perhaps the most striking fictional analysis of the age of gang barons and the social conditions that produced them.’ Over the years, greed and selfishness changed the basic essence of the American Dream, forming firmly integrated social classes and the uncontainable thirst for money and status. The ‘Roaring Twenties’ was a time of ‘sustained increase in national wealth’ , which consequently led to an increase in materialism and a decrease in morality. Moreover, the
Francis Scott Fitzgerald portrays the American Dream, originally a set of goals that included freedom, settlement, and an honest life with the possibility of upward social and economic mobility earned through hard work, as corrupted and debased by the egotistic materialism of the 1920s, an era which Fitzgerald characterizes chiefly by its greed and lavish hedonism, in his celebrated novel The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald, in The Great Gatsby, seeks to discredit the supposed purity of the American Dream and belief that anyone can attain it through hard work. Instead, he argues that the dream is a mere delusion, altered so significantly from its original form that its pursuers aspire for and achieve nothing more than the hoarding of hollow material goods and empty pleasure. Fitzgerald criticizes the American Dream through his characterizations of Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, and the people who attend Gatsby’s extravagant parties uninvited.
The 1920’s were a decade of renaissance characterized by the establishment of the "American Dream" -- the belief that anyone can, and should, achieve material success. F. Scott Fitzgerald's most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, contains themes and morals that continue to be relevant today. In his novel, Fitzgerald criticizes the American Dream by describing its negative characteristics: class struggles between the rich and the poor, the superficiality of the rich, and the false relationship between money and happiness. Furthermore, the main character also serves as a metaphor for the inevitable downfall of American Dream.
The American Dream is a concept that has been wielded in American Literature since its beginnings. The ‘American Dream’ ideal follows the life of an ordinary man wanting to achieve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The original goal of the American dream was to pursue freedom and a greater good, but throughout time the goals have shifted to accumulating wealth, high social status, etc. As such, deplorable moral and social values have evolved from a materialistic pursuit of happiness. In “Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity”, Roland Marchand describes a man that he believed to be the prime example of a 1920’s man. Marchand writes, “Not only did he flourish in the fast-paced, modern urban milieu of skyscrapers, taxicabs, and pleasure- seeking crowds, but he proclaimed himself an expert on the latest crazes in fashion, contemporary lingo, and popular pastimes.” (Marchand) This description shows material success as the model for the American Dream. In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald reveals the characterization of his characters through the use of symbols and motifs to emphasize the corruption of the American Dream.
In the novel The Great Gatsby there are many references about the american dream from F. Scott Fitzgerald's life. “What we have to bear in mind is that this story is an attack on that American dream which critics have so often imagined Fitzgerald was engaged in celebrating throughout his writings” (Bewley). F. Scott Fitzgerald is an amazing example of the good a...
"The American Dream is that dream of a nation in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with options for everyone to achieve their dream,” . Fitzgerald demonstrates in the “Great Gatsby” how a dream can become destroyed by one’s focus on only wanting wealth, power, and expensive things. Gatsby’s dream “is a naïve dream based on the fallacious assumption that material possessions are synonymous with happiness,harmony, and beauty” (“Fahey”). In the “Great Gatsby” Nick says “Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry”. The race after the American Dream is a primary theme that was seen throughout “The Great Gatsby”, wrote by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and how he represented this theme through his characters and all that they did.
Many of us strive to live the American dream. Everyone has a different American dream, such as, to make money, to have better lives, or to simply have a career. Determined poor people will attempt to do anything in their power to attain their dream. Others are born with money and can effortlessly become anything they want. You might hear about the American dream every day, but it is not always accomplished. If the dream is somehow not succeeded humanity could be in agony for the rest of their lives. “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald 101). The character Gatsby cannot get over his love of Daisy no matter how poorly she treats him. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby the author conveys the theme about the American dream and defines the understanding of social class.
Through the use of symbolism and critique, F. Scott Fitzgerald is able to elucidate the lifestyles and dreams of variously natured people of the 1920s in his novel, The Great Gatsby. He uses specific characters to signify diverse groups of people, each with their own version of the “American Dream.” Mostly all of the poor dream of transforming from “rags to riches”, while some members of the upper class use other people as their motivators. In any case, no matter how obsessed someone may be about their “American Dream”, Fitzgerald reasons that they are all implausible to attain.
“The American dream is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking and hard work, not by chance. Both native-born Americans and American immigrants pursue and can achieve the American dream” (Investopedia 2014). This deceiving passage sends hopeful words to the population of the United States as if pursuing the dream can give anyone a contented life from hard work, as their stepping stones to success. In the 1920’s the corruption of the American Dream is incorporated in most of the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it portrays where dreams are driven by wealth, power, betrayal and shame to moral values. After World War I, commercial growth climaxed resulting the boasted financial gain to most civilians that
In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives the reader a glimpse into the life of the high class during the 1920’s through the eyes of a man named Nick Carraway. Through the narrator's dealings with high society, Fitzgerald demonstrates how modern values have transformed the American dream's ideas into a scheme for materialistic power and he reveals how the world of high society lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support his message, Fitzgerald presents the original aspects of the American dream along with its modern face to show that the wanted dream is now lost forever to the American people. Jay Gatsby had a dream and did everything he could to achieve it, however in the end he failed to. This reveals that the American dream is not always a reality that can be obtained.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, indicates that the American Dream is flawed because it is founded on materialism and the selfish pursuit of happiness rather than hard work and independence, which is evident in Gatsby's desperate chase for Daisy. First of all, throughout Gatsby's whole life, he is always in a dream state, which is evident by the creation of the life and persona of Jay Gatsby. His original dream with his new identity is not to win over the heart of the golden girl known as Daisy Buchanan, but as she approaches him, “he knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God...At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the
With new modernist American literature, Americans lose faith in their traditional beliefs and values, including the American dream. Many novels used the concept of the American dream to make people question whether the dream still existed in the mist of the First World War and the Great Depression. In describing the American dream, one is led to believe that the individual is led to self-triumph, and their life will progressively get better and better in America. In Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, the American dream is perceived originally by the thought of discovery and the pursuit of happiness. Money, parties, and relaxed social views came with ease to the American people in the 1920s. However, Fitzgerald demonstrates how the American soldiers re...
The ideal of the ‘American Dream’ has hardly changed over the past century. The dream is a unique American phenomenon. It represents a nebulous concept that is exemplified by a number of American values. Many deem wealth and success to be the means to this paradigm. When stability, security and family values also become part of the suburban lifestyle, the American Dream comes close to becoming reality. Nick Carraway, the candid narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby analyzes the legitimacy of this principle through the inevitable downfall of Jay Gatsby. The novel takes place during the ‘roaring twenties’ in two sophisticated, affluent Long Island neighborhoods. The people in these neighborhoods epitomize the superficiality and arrogance that distorts the American Dream. Fitzgerald utilizes this environment and its people to examine the negative attributes of the American Dream.
Nowadays, teenagers wear different kind of well-known brand clothes and accessory to shows their states and wealth. Throughout these influence among teenager, materialism idea spreads out. F.Scott Fitzgerald is a boy which has a rich literacy mind. However, he interrupted the Princeton University Degree and enlist to US Army(). His one of the best sell book “The Great Gatsby” is attributing from his own love story and the materialism idea that people obtain in Jazz ages(). During World War One, he first meets his wife Zelda while he stations in Montgomery, Alabama but she turn down the engagement because of Fitzgerald’s low income. His hard work and afford on his first novel, “The Side of Paradise” , which publishes in 1919, lead him to a success.