In a well developed essay, evaluate the extent to which ambitions for the future play in influencing an individual’s actions.
Whether hoping for drastic, life-altering changes, or minimal day-to-day changes, the means of planning and obtaining a better future have frequently been aspirations of humans in order to achieve a better lifestyle for themselves or for their loved ones. While some dreams can be achieved through simple steps and changes, many dreams often come with great risks. As people aspire to achieve and follow their dreams, their reality often becomes distorted. This can lead people to take lengthy measures in order to achieve the dream, causing the dreams to greatly impact an individual’s actions through disillusionment and
…show more content…
The Clutter family is the perfect example of the Nuclear Family at the time, and Herb Clutter, the patriarch of the family, encompasses the example and desire to be a self-made man. On the contrary, the two murderers of the Clutter family, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, both come from a life of poverty and both feel incapable of achieving the American Dream, ultimately leading them to a life of crime and poverty. In a letter to Perry from his sister, she writes, “are you willing to work and make an honest effort to attain whatever it is you choose to do?” (Capote). As disillusionment of the American Dream begins to take over Dick and Perry’s dreams, jealousy and greed begin to influence their actions towards those they perceive to be wealthy and live a simple life, leading them to murder the Clutter family. The attempt to satisfy their desires of achieving a relatively simple and wealthy life led to disillusionment and jealousy among Perry and Dick, leading them to take the impulsive action to murder the Clutter family, who they perceived as living the life they …show more content…
In his book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald highlights the extreme measures the main character, Jay Gatsby, took to achieve the American dream of prosperity and wealth, only to see it disintegrate as greed and affairs begin to take over. The narrator of the story, Nick, describes Gatsby’s means of achieving his dream through highlighting his fraud and grand parties he held in order to make himself appear desirable in society. As both Gatsby and his dream rapidly decline throughout the story, the hope and optimism for the future and still remain. Nick describes that, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther..” (Fitzgerald). Gatsby achieved his wealth through very questionable methods, such as organized crime and illegal activities, illustrating his obsession with achieving the American Dream and winning over his love. This ultimately stripped him of his wealth and destroyed his dream in the end, but despite the ruined dreams, the characters in the book continue to hope for a better future and aspire to create a better life for
The theme of the book as it relates to the American Dream is those who take advantage by becoming covetous and acquisitive. The Clutters in this book are described as the ideal American Dream family. Herb Clutter is the head man of the house who makes sure that his family and financial situations are in order. Herb started off with a struggle but eventually worked hard to become the man he became. Even though they were viewed as a rich family toward the community they did have underlying issues that weren’t visible to the outside world. Dick and Perry on the other hand are those who were unable to achieve the American Dream so they were willing to do anything to become successful the easy way even if that means stealing from others. They
The Clutters, themselves, were the embodiment of the American dream and they seemed to be content with what they had already. However, for Dick and Perry, this was not the case. Perry suffered throughout his childhood and still has trauma from it, but his American dream was very ordinary, which was to be famous. It is seen in one of his theatrical fantasies that Perry was a star who advertised himself as “The OneMan Symphony” named Perry O'Parsons. He also wanted a higher education than the one he had, which would have been pass third grade since he stopped at third grade due to his father. One of the main reasons why Perry resented his sister and father was due to the education that he didn’t receive. Dick also yearned to obtain a higher education, but due to his financial situation he wasn’t able to study to become an engineer. Dick proclaimed, “I wanted to study engineering, but even with a scholarship, deals like that cost plenty. I don't know, it seemed safer to get a job” (Capote 137). Even Dick’s parents noticed as his father felt that Dick resented not being able to go to college. Also, Dick desired wealth, which explained the motive for targeting the Clutters, the writing of the bad checks, and it also may explain why he stole so frequently. Between Dick, Perry, and the Clutters, the American Dream were mostly contrasting against each
The novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, deals heavily with the concept of the American Dream as it existed during the Roaring Twenties, and details its many flaws through the story of Jay Gatsby, a wealthy and ambitious entrepreneur who comes to a tragic end after trying to win the love of the moneyed Daisy Buchanan, using him to dispel the fantastic myth of the self-made man and the underlying falsities of the American Dream. Despite Gatsby’s close association with the American Dream, however, Fitzgerald presents the young capitalist as a genuinely good person despite the flaws that caused his undoing. This portrayal of Gatsby as a victim of the American Dream is made most clear during his funeral, to which less than a handful of people attend. Gatsby makes many mistakes throughout the novel, all of which Fitzgerald uses these blunders as a part of his thematic deconstruction of the American Dream.
The Great Gatsby, a novel by Scott Fitzgerald, is about the American Dream, and the downfall of those who attempt to reach its impossible goals. The attempt to capture the American Dream is used in many novels. This dream is different for different people; but, in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is that through wealth and power, one can acquire happiness. To get this happiness Jay must reach into the past and relive an old dream; and, in order to do this, he must have wealth and power.
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has remained a spot-on representation of a time in American history in which the people believed anything was possible. Gatsby is the definition of this idea. The underlying cause of everything in this novel is his--and in essence everyone’s idea. This idea is the ubiquitous notion of the American Dream. And Fitzgerald does not only write about the American Dream, but about its corruption as well. This following quote truly epitomizes what the American Dream had become in the eyes of Fitzgerald:
The Great Gatsby,a novel by F,Scott Fitzgerald,is about the American Dream,and the downfall of the people who try to reach it.The American Dream means something different to different people,but in The Great Gatsby,for Jay Gatsby,the subject of the book,the dream is that through acquiring wealth and power,one can also gain happiness.To reach his idea of what happiness is,Gatsby must go back in time and relive an old dream.To do this,he believes,he must first have wealth and power.
The American Dream is the concept that anyone, no matter who he or she is, can become successful in his or her life through perseverance and hard work. It is commonly perceived as someone who was born and starts out as poor but ambitious, and works hard enough to achieve wealth, prosperity, happiness, and stability. Clearly, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to personify the destruction of the American Dream Gatsby started out as a poor farming boy, meticulously planning his progression to become a great man. When Gatsby’s father showed Nick the journal where Gatsby wrote his resolution, he says, “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he 's got about improving his mind?” (182). The written resolution demonstrates how ambitious and innocent Gatsby was in pursuing his dreams and how much he wanted to improve himself that his father applauded him, which once characterized the process of pursuing the American Dream. While pursuing Daisy (Gatsby’s American Dream), Gatsby becomes corrupt and destroys himself. He did not achieve his fortune through honest hard work, but through dishonesty and illegal activities. Furthermore, Gatsby has a large, extravagant mansion, drives flashy cars, throws lavish parties filled with music and
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, perfectly symbolizes many emerging trends of the 1920’s. More importantly, the character of Jay Gatsby is depicted as a man amongst his American dreams and the trials he faces in the pursuit of its complete achievement. His drive to acquire the girl of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan, through gaining status and wealth shows many aspects of the author's view on the American dream. Through this, one can hope to disassemble the complex picture that is Fitzgerald’s view of this through the novel. Fitzgerald believes, through his experiences during the 1920’s, that only fractions of the American Dream are attainable, and he demonstrates this through three distinct images in The Great Gastby.
Gatsby encompasses many physiognomies such as ambitious. Ambitious outlines one who is eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, Jay Gatsby. It is evident that Gatsby generates his own fantasy world, a realm where he is not the underprivileged James Gatz, but the fantasized Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald conceives him as, “… the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98). This quote expresses how he dreams up a new world to escape the blandness of his own existence. But his imagination and turmoil pays off because he ends up making his dreams reality. He personifies a man who goes from “rags to riches” because he strives to better himself as opposed t...
More often than not, the outcomes of events that occur in a person’s life is the product of the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. It is that which “occurs when a person’s expectations of an event make the outcome more likely to occur than would otherwise have been true” (Adler and Towne, Looking Out, Looking In 66). Or restated, as Henry Ford once put it, “If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right!” This brief research paper touches on the two types of self-fulfilling prophecies, those that are self-imposed and those that are imposed by others. Additionally, it gives a discussion on how great of an influence it is in each person’s life, both positively and negatively, and how it consequently helps to mold one’s self-concept and ultimately one’s self.
In the early morning of November 15, 1959 four family members of the Clutter family were brutally murdered in the small town of Holcomb Kansas. Two men make an escape, fleeing across the country living what those two thought to be the dream. While on the run, a detective works tirelessly night and day to catch the despicable people who could commit such an atrocity. Truman Capote captures both realities, putting them together in a true crime story of convicts, Perry Smith and Richard Hitchcock who run from the law and Al Dewey’s hunt for the killers. In his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote reflects on the events of his turbulent and lonesome life, exposes his internal struggles with the murder mystery case, but also the search
In the nonfiction novel, “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote, the author tells a story of the murderers and victims of a slaughter case in Holcomb, Kansas. Instead of writing a book on the murder case as a crime report, the author decides to write about the people. The people we learn about are the killers, Dick and Perry, and the murdered family, the Clutters. The author describes how each family was and makes the portrayals of Dick and Perry’s family different from the Clutters.The portrayal of the Clutters and of Dick and Perry’s families, was used to describe what the American Dream was for each character. In the beginning we learn about what type of family the Clutters were and how they represented the American Dream for the people of Holcomb.
The American dream has an inspiring connotation, often associated with the pursuit of happiness, to compel the average citizen to prosper. In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s infatuation for Daisy drives him towards wealth in order to respark his love. Due to Daisy’s rich background, the traditional idea of love becomes skewed because of the materialistic mindsets of people in the 1920s. In the novel the wealthy are further stratified into two social classes creating a barrier between the elite and the “dreamers”. Throughout the novel, the idea of the American dream as a fresh start fails. As Nick, the narrator, spends time in New York, he realizes the corruption pursuing goals. Characters such as Gatsby and Myrtle constantly strive toward an the American dream, which Nick realizes to be fruitless in the end.
The American Dream is a promise for liberty, opportunities, and social mobility. It envisions a society with few barriers where social class does not determine one’s future—an environment where anyone can reach their ambitions. Throughout In Cold Blood, Truman Capote narrates the story of various individuals capturing their share of American Dream to different extents. Capote elucidates that those who have accomplished their dreams live with higher contentment, but that the ideals of the American Dream are noninclusive and ineffective.
The American Dream, a long standing ideal embodies the hope that one can achieve financial success, political power, and everlasting love through dedication and hard work. During the Roaring 20s, people in America put up facades to mask who they truly were. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald conveys that the American Dream is simply an illusion, that is idealist and unreal. In the novel, Gatsby, a wealthy socialite pursues his dream, Daisy. In the process of pursuing Daisy, Gatsby betrays his morals and destroys himself. Through the eyes of the narrator, Nick, one sees the extent of the corruption Gatsby is willing to undertake in order to achieve his dream. Although Fitzgerald applauds the American Dream he warns against the dangers of living in a world full of illusions and deceit; a trait common during the Roaring 20s. The language and plot devices Fitzgerald uses convey that lies and facades, which were common during the Guided Age, destroys one’s own character and morals. Through Fitzgerald use of symbolism, expectations, and relationships, he explores the American dream, and how it is an illusion that corrupts and destroys lives.