The Great Gatsby is a novel that illustrates the society in the 1920's and the associated beliefs, values and dreams of the American population at that time. These beliefs, values and dreams can be summed up be what is termed the "American Dream", a dream of money, wealth, prosperity and the happiness that supposedly came with the booming economy and get-rich-quick schemes that formed the essential underworld of American upper-class society. This underworld infiltrated the upper echelons and created such a moral decay within general society that paved the way for the ruining of dreams and dashing of hopes as they were placed confidently in the chance for opportunities that could be seized by one and all. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates the American Dream and the "foul dust" or the carelessness of a society that floats in the wake of this dream. By looking at each character and their situation and ambition it can be seen that the American Dream was not limited to one social class or type of person, that it was nation wide and was found within everyone. From the position as narrator the reader has access to the thoughts and feelings of Nick Carraway more than any other characters, but this same position also reduces the effectiveness of the reader as a judge of character because he is presented in a biased way compared to others. With that said, it can be seen that Nick suffers greatly from his experiences in New York. His regard for human decency is ruined and he leaves with his hopes dashed and a disgust at how the materialism that runs rampant throughout his social class is capable of ruining lives and dreams. Nick, as with all characters is a believer in the American Dream because even he moves East to work in the bond bu... ... middle of paper ... ...hen she talks about careless people, saying she "hates careless people" when she admits that she is one.) that contribute to the overall ethical decay within the American aristocracy. Fitzgerald shows that in the social classes that were represented in The Great Gatsby there is a running theme of how the American dream affects all of the characters, they each have their own aspirations for their own life but more often than not they revolve around money and the effects that wealth has on their style of life. Because of the tragic events within The Great Gatsby and the fact that the characters who are still alive at the end of the novel, bar Nick, are not drastically altered by their experience lend to the view that the 1920's and 1930's or the Jazz Age held a society of people who were ruled by materialism and trivial and depthless beliefs and values. -Cam
The American dream is defined as “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative”, yet many people in this day of age believe that this is no longer a plausible aspiration. Neverless, this demeanor is at the heart of the classic American tales of the highest and lowest points of the American spirit, making one question whether or not this fundamental dream is still worth pursuit. Though it is a path containing hardships and challenges, actively seeking to achieve what you desire is one of the most prominent life lessons throughout American literature, as evidenced through the Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Great Gatsby.
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream very elaborately and shows the idea of the American dream to be connected with the goal of achieving wealth. Fitzgerald does not praise wealth in the Great Gatsby but condemns it by drawing attention to the dreadful fall made by Gatsby. Fitzgerald finds the desire of wealth to be a corrupting impact on people. Throughout the novel, the characters with money contradict the idea of the American dream. They are portrayed to be very snobbish and unhappy people. The American dream in the novel is shown to be unachievable. For some time, the American dream has been focused upon material things that will gain people success.
The American Dream There is no set definition to be found anywhere of the true meaning of The American Dream. Any hope, dream, or goal pursued by anyone in the history of America is an American Dream. In modern times the accepted dream seems to be 2.5 children, a house with a white picket fence, and a perfect spouse. However, as it is shown throughout literature from the early days of America to contemporary times, the American Dream is not always so simple a concept. America was originally founded on the dream of freedom.
As what Marius Bewley argued, The Great Gatsby, written by American writer F. Scott. Fitzgerald in the1920's, demonstrates the corruption of the America dream and profoundly reveals the theme: the great and pitiful contrast between people's spiritual and material life during the Jazz Age. The American dream, which had been once looked up to and reached for, in the 1920s, became the nation's biggest irony. Bewley's argument was congruent to what Fitzgerald wrote in 1926, "The parties were bigger...the pace was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper." The American people during this time were unlike their ancestors. Actually, they looked down on them, and their traditional rules and faith, the original American dream. The Great Gatsby is a novel not only criticizing the corrupt American Dream, but also telling a calamitous life story of a wrong man for the 1920s.
The Great Gatsby is a story of the American Dream. The Great Gatsby is a view into the society of the 1920's masterfully created by Fitzgerald. In this society, the one and only Gatsby falls right into the middle. Gatsby is an exemplary example of one trying to live out the American Dream.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was a romantic character in both his fiction life and his real life and “…was perhaps the last notable writer to affirm the Romantic fantasy, descended from the Renaissance, of personal ambition and heroism, of life committed to, or thrown away for, some ideal of self"(Voegeli). The inspiration for The Great Gatsby came from the experience Fitzgerald had with a Jewish bootlegger and his symbolism for the book is “never more ingenious than in his depiction of the bankruptcy of the old agrarian myth” (Trask). The realization that America had been changed and transformed into a new world arose. America has become a new world with a new set of traditional beliefs. The beliefs were onset by the growing fields of industrialization and urbanization. America is now a place in which “a revolution in manners and morals was inevitable” (Trask). The trend of this new life style and tradition was reinforced by World War 1 and the writers critiqued the traditional faiths. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald paints a story about love and intrigue. He shows the possibility of movement between the different social classes during the Roaring Twenties in the United States. The American dream was the thought that people who had talent in the 'land of opportunity' could gain success if they followed a set of well-defined behavioral rules. During this time period, Americans believed that satisfaction would automatically follow success. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald raises many important political questions: "What does it mean to live well, and on what terms people can live together?” and it shows America's thoughts and answers to these essential questions (Voegeli). These questions are referring to the different social classes and be...
The freedom in self endowment has always been the fuel to the average American citizen and his drive toward success. In other words, Americans always strive to achieve the ever so revered American Dream. What is the American Dream? David Kamp describes the American Dream as "the idea rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."(Kamp). The dream lies deeply rooted in American society and the very mention of it lights a passionate fire in the hearts of American citizens everywhere. The idea behind the dream is that if an individual has sufficient willpower, he or she has a fair chance of achieving wealth as well as the freedom and happiness that come packaged with it. Essentially, it offers the opportunity of achieving spiritual and material fulfillment. It promises success at the cost of hard work and perseverance. Over time however, this idea of attaining success through hard work and perseverance has been skewed into one which exploits greed and carelessness and The Great Gatsby is an excellent affirmation of this. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald derides the gradual corruption of hard work and perseverance in the American Dream by utilizing the motif of driving and incorporating it with the the ideas of greed and carelessness.
What is the American Dream? Is it fame or fortune? Franklin Roosevelt explained the American Dream as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The American Dream is the idea of becoming successful through work, although, this is not always achievable because people in America are not always treated equally, and not everybody has an equal opportunity to reach the American Dream.
Wealth, material possessions, and power are the core principles of The American Dream. Pursuit of a better life led countless numbers of foreign immigrants to America desiring their chance at the vast opportunity. Reaching the American Dream is not always reaching true happiness. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby achieves the American Dream, but his unrealistic faiths in money and life’s possibilities twist his dreams and life into useless life based on lies.
The Great Gatsby is a short novel written by Scott Fitzgerald. It is set in the 1920’s, and like Fitzgerald, the novel is fervently identified with the Jazz age. The Jazz age was a time of self- indulgence squeezed between World War I and the Great Depression. The theme throughout the novel is recognized as the prestigious “American Dream” which holds a strong and honored place in American history. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s parties, the valley of ashes, and love to show that the ideals of the American dream are deteriorating.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby”, is one of the few novels he wrote in 1925. The novel takes place during the 1920’s following the 1st World War. It is written about a young man named Nick, from the east he moved to the west to learn about the bond business. He ends up moving next to a mysterious man named Gatsby who ends up giving him the lesion of his life.
In conclusion, The Great Gatsby reveals the carelessness and shallowness of the characters in the upper class. Society is totally corrupted and the character’s lives revolve around the money and extravagant lifestyles. All of the characters are surrounded with expensive and unnecessary itms, which in turn, dulls their dream of actual success. Scott F. Fitzgerald provides a powerful and everlasting message of a corrupt, materialistic society and the effects that it has on the idea of the American dream.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the idea of the American Dream as well as the portrayal of social classes. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. By creating two distinct social classes ‘old money’ and ‘new money’, Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the underlying elitism and moral corruption of society. The idea of the American dream is the idea that opportunity is available to any American, allowing their highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. In the case of The Great Gatsby it centres on the attainment of wealth and status to reach certain positions in life, which Fitzgerald’s protagonist sets out to achieve even if it means moral corruption.
There have been many people whose success stories reflect the American Dream. Among these people is Richard DeVos who got his start by selling soap and distributing food products. Through hard work and good marketing, his business grew and turned into his own company called Amway. Through all his hard work, DeVos gained a great deal of money and became quite wealthy. A similar, but fictional story, is that of Jay Gatsby, whose central mission, to win Daisy, is the embodiment of the American Dream, the belief that anyone can achieve a solid career, have freedom to pursue their own dreams, and fundamentally in the values of optimism and hope.
The pursuit of the American Dream has been alive for generations. People from nations all over the world come to America for the chance to achieve this legendary dream of freedom, opportunity, and the “all American family”. However, in the 1920’s this dream began to take a different form. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, unfolds what the American Dream really meant during the roaring 20’s. The Great Gatsby tells a story of the affluent Jay Gatsby and his dream of attaining the love of the married Daisy Buchanan. In this novel, Gatsby’s dream of love is unmasked and reviled as a dream of materialistic things. Fitzgerald shows that each character truly glorifies only money, power, and social stature. During the 1920’s, these things were the only thing people dreamt about. The symbolism in The Great Gatsby illustrates how the American Dream became corrupt in the 1920’s.