gatdream Blurry Dreams in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Blurry Dreams in The Great Gatsby

The American Dream is a path people set out upon in order to achieve a goal, usually pertaining to the acquirement of stability and security. The dreams of these people were followed through with strong hope and perseverance. Yet, during the period of the 1920's, this dream was obstructed by the need for materialistic power. Scott Fitzgerald portrays this destruction of the American Dream through the main character, Jay Gatsby, in his novel The Great Gatsby. Gatsby longs to rekindle a past romance with his love Daisy Buchanan, but this dream is obliterated by his greed of wanting more of something he never could have.

Jay Gatsby destroys the chance of living a normal, healthy life when he decides that he must reach an unattainable goal, having Daisy as his wife. Yet, Gatsby hadn't always lived his life as a man in search of an abundance of what was presented to him. This is made apparent in the end of the novel at his own funeral, when Gatsby's father, Mr.Gatz, presents Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel with a keepsake from Gatsby's childhood. The object is a journal of resolves that Gatsby had listed for himself to accomplish. Most of these goals were in reach of accomplishment, making it very capable of Gatsby to achieve his aspirations without fail. Mr. Gatz, marveling at the ambition Gatsby held for himself, "read each item aloud and then look[ed] eagerly at me. I think he rather expected me to copy down the list for my own use" (182). This statement shows how Mr. Gatz does believe in his son's old dreams of trying to better himself as a person. This goal, with work, seemed attainable and most likely to happen, but a stronger outside force of money pushed Gatsby in another direction.

Gatsby's early goals of manner and such seemed picayune in a society run by wealth and materialistic power. Therefore, in order to survive in this society, he changed himself from a man born under the poor family name James Gatz, to the falsely commended Jay Gatsby. His drive to succeed in the world was so strong that Gatsby went through illegal measures of bootlegging.