Fitzgerald's Exploration of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby
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 American Dream, but lets his protagonist voice these elements and its decline, challenging the reader to explore the true nature of America in the 1920s.
Jay Gatsby, like many average Americans, has a dream of becoming successful and noble. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby decides to pursue The American Dream as a young adult. Gatsby came from a poor social class, which forced him to work hard even though he would receive no high status in life. Gatsby knew this, but always remained very ambitious and refused to settle for a life of “janitor’s work”. It wasn’t until Jay was 17 years old when he found his real inspiration to become successful. Before World War I, Jay Gatsby met Daisy and fell instantly in love with her. Unfortunately for Ga...
According to the Merriam Webster online Dictionary, the word “family” means a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head. The Walls family fit under that characteristic but they were far from the average family. The Walls children had to endure numerous hardships in life which later on enabled them to become successful and productive members of society. Although some people might argue that the Walls children would have been better off if they were removed from their home and placed under foster care, actually it was in the children’s best interest to grow up with their parents even if this meant having to overcome difficult times because of their parent’s lack of parenting skills.
its abilities to bring people together and sometimes even make people happy. Although the jazz era ended almost a century ago, this time influenced by Louis Armstrong was a huge cultural shift that still remains in our society in which African-Americans are a vast part of our music industry amongst pop, rap, reggae, and more.
Imagine you are walking the streets of New Orleans. You are standing right where jazz was established in the United States of America. Jazz wasn’t just about music, it also affected the culture involving social, economic, artistic and jazz leaders.
It’s been ingrained into the fabric of society that to be truly happy in life, one needs to be wealthy. The characters in The Great Gatsby show this is not always the case, and that wealth is not always as important as one would believe. Society has always placed a significant importance on being rich, being wealthy. It makes one believe that being wealthy is the only true way to live a happy and fulfilling life. With this in mind, many readers are going to look at the characters in The Great Gatsby, such as Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, and fantasize about one day living the lifestyle that they live. While many characters in The Great Gatsby would appear from the outside to be living the American Dream, it what lies underneath this image of
In Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, all the characters are, in one way or another, attempting to become happier with their lives. The characters in the novel are divided into two groups: the rich upper class and the poorer lower class(West egg and East egg) though the main characters only try to make their lives better, the American dream they are all trying to achieve is eventually ruined by the harsh reality or life.
Now a days, many believe that jazz is not that important of music genre, but with our history, jazz plays a big role. “Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but it is a gift that America has given to the world.”, quoted by Ahmad Alaadeen. Jazz in the 1920’s opened the eyes of whites and invited them into African American culture; it evolved Americans to where we are today since it brought a change to the music scene, an acceptance of African Americans, and a change of lifestyles.
The American Dream has multiple meanings or definitions that have been developed and are passionately believed throughout the world. Throughout time these meanings have changed and adapted to modern culture.
William Wordsworth, like Blake, was linked with Romanticism. In fact, he was one of the very founders of Romanticism. He wrote poems are about nature, freedom and emotion. He was open about how he felt about life and what his life was like. Also, Wordsworth wrote poems about the events going on around him ? for instance the French Revolution. Mainly, Wordsworth wrote about nature, however, rarely used simple descriptions in his work. Instead, Wordsworth wrote complexly, for example in his poem ?Daffodils?.
In summation, when considering poetry looking at the complexities of it and considering their worth is imperative. “The World Is Too Much with Us” and “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” are both wonderful poems with deep, wonderful meanings and are sprinkled with literary devices that add depth and understanding to them. The poems of Wordsworth are beautiful sonnets that embody the Romantic era of poetry completely.
Xuding Wang writes in her essay, Feminine Self-Assertion in “The Story of an Hour”, a strong defense for Kate Chopin’s classic work, “The Story of an Hour”. Wang provides powerful proof that one of the pioneering feminist writers had a genuine desire to push the issue of feminine inequality. Even decades later, Xuding Wang fights for the same ground as Kate Chopin before her. She focuses on critic Lawrence I. Berkove, who challenges that Louise Mallard is delusional with her personal feelings of freedom once she discovers the news that her husband has passed away. The story opens with the line “Knowing Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble” (Chopin). [1] Chopin uses allegory to describe
William Wordsworth is a British poet who is associated with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. Wordsworth’s mother died when he was seven years old, and he was an orphan at 13. This experience shapes much of his later work. Despite Wordsworth’s losses, he did well at Hawkshead Grammar School, where he firmly established his love of poetry. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry.
One of the most famous poets in literary history is that of William Wordsworth. He lived between the years of 1770-1850. He was a very strong poet and many of his works have some degree of a pessimistic view to them. They could be understood after the hard life he led. He saw the French Revolution at its height and wrote several poems about it. He had an illegitimate daughter with a woman in France. When he returned back to England he married Mary Hutchinson, who gave him two sons and another daughter.
During the late 17th and early 18th centuries the style of poetry changed drastically. Poets shifted their focus away from the audience and concentrated on the internal self. This created the expressive, lyric poetry we now recognize as typical of Romanticism. William Wordsworth is one of the most famous of the Romantics, as well as author of "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free." Written in 1807 after a trip to France to visit his daughter, "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" focuses on Wordsworth's view of nature and childhood as essentially divine.
William Wordsworth was known as the poet of nature. He devoted his life to poetry and used his feeling for nature to express him self and how he evolved.
William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” is an ideal example of romantic poetry. As the web page “Wordsworth Tintern Abbey” notes, this recollection was added to the end of his book Lyrical Ballads, as a spontaneous poem that formed upon revisiting Wye Valley with his sister (Wordsworth Tintern Abbey). His writing style incorporated all of the romantic perceptions, such as nature, the ordinary, the individual, the imagination, and distance, which he used to his most creative extent to create distinctive recollections of nature and emotion, centered on striking descriptions of his individual reactions to these every day, ordinary things.