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Literature review on the great gatsby novel
Literature review on the great gatsby novel
The Great Gatsby literature review
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The Great Gatsby and The American Dream
The question is did Jay Gatsby achieve the American Dream? The American Dream is getting married, being rich and successful. In The Great Gatsby Nick Carraway goes to visit his cousin the beautiful and very wealthy who is married to Tom Buchanan over the summer. He moves into a house right beside Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lives across the bay from Daisy’s. Jay and Daisy have a past they were once in love before the war. Gatsby went off to the war and Daisy was forced to be married to Tom. Tom is a very shallow man he cheats on Daisy throughout the whole book with Myrtle Wilson a poor woman married to George Wilson who owns a gas station. Daisy knows of the occurrences. Nick and Gatsby become very good friends,
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Here are some reasons he did achieve The American Dream. Gatsby was a very rich man he even said,”It took me only three years to earn the money.” He had millions! To earn all that money back in the 1920’s in just three years time is crazy. He did achieve being a rich and wealthy man. Some people say he was a great man and had all he could ever want. “When Owl Eyes, believing that Gatsby is authentic, calls Gatsby “a regular Belasco.” They thought he was just like every other wealthy man. A rich man who made him money all by himself. It was not given to him by his family like …show more content…
He died with no children and no wife. No one to live on of his legacy and name. No one to leave him money to. No on to love him memory. “paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.” This proves he lived one dream which was one of riches. Not love, Gatsby and Daisy love was pure and real but, Daisy was a very timid girl and did what she was told by her husband. “Only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away...” This is saying he died so young and fast. He didn’t even get to live his whole life. He dreamed of having a full life with Daisy. He didn’t even really get to be with Daisy, because she was still with Tom and I don’t think she ever planned on leaving Tom. He never even got to live out the American Dream.
He was not accepted by all the other businessmen. They were old money and he was new money. For example, Tom was from old money so didn’t have to do a thing for his money. Jay did. He didn’t make his money legally but he worked for it. Tom even accuses Gatsby saying, “He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter.” He is accusing him of selling alcohol over the counter illegally. Which he is that’s how he made all his money in that three years doing illegal
When the book begins, it is assumed that his dream is fortune and “fame,” but as the book continues, it reveals his dream is love. He has a love, Daisy for many years, she is the reason he lives where he does and has the parties he has, just to impress Daisy. Daisy never even showed up to one of his parties until the end. Gatsby bought a big house right across the river from Daisy’s house and and throws extravagant parties to get her to come, all he wants was love. Although he never truly achieves it, he is able to work hard to try to achieve it. That is a part of the american dream, it may not be attainable and Gatsby might be working hard for something that just is impossible for him to achieve . “―I thought of Gatsby‘s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy‘s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could barely fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (p. 180,
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. In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald attempts to criticize American
Gatsby is unrealistic. He believes he can relive the past and rekindle the flame he and Daisy once had. He is lost in his dream and accepts that anything can be repeated, "Can't repeat the past…Why of course you can!" (116, Fitzgerald). For Gatsby, failure to realize this resurrection of love is utterly appalling. His whole career, his conception of himself and his life is totally shattered. Gatsby's death when it comes is almost insignificant, for with the collapse of his dream, he is spiritually dead.
The American dream is an idea that every American has an equal chance of success. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald shows us this is not the case. Fitzgerald wrote the character Jay Gatsby as a tragic American hero. Jay Gatsby went from a nobody to a millionaire and most people believe that he had achieved the American dream. However, he did not achieve the American dream because he lost a piece of himself in his pursuit of his supposedly incorruptible dream.
The American dream today is very different from Gatsby's. The dream today is to have our necessities and to have fun. Many people would like to have a house to call your own, a job you like that pays the bills, and a healthy family. Gatsby's dream was to be wealthy and to find love, which was Daisy. He wanted to be an important person that people remembered. Gatsby thought that his wealth would buy Daisy's love, He tried to buy happiness and become something he wasn't. Even with all of his money he was not ever truly happy until he got Daisy. Gatsby lived his whole life with money and class but in the end he ended up dying because of
"The American dream is the idea held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity." Wikipedia: So basically the American Dream is to have money, and a family. Gatsby got his money, but what he really wanted was Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby spent his whole life striving for one thing.
In the end he fails to get Daisy back and his pursuit of the American Dream in the Roaring Twenties is over and unsuccessful. By the time he almost reaches his dream, the year of the American Dream has past and he fails miserably. Although he has failed to achieve his American Dream, “Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it was what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men” (Fitzgerald 6-7). The Great Gatsby is seen as being a "general critique" of the American dream that everyone hoped to gain. It was a powerful example of the disadvantages for Americans of Fitzgerald’s generation and after. The American Dream is possible if you believe you can achieve it in the end.
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.
Today’s American Dream is similar to Gatsby’s because they both have a basic idea of what it means to be successful. Gatsby’s American Dream was all about his meaning of success, which was having an opulent life to share with his one true love, Daisy. Daisy stands for two things: Gatsby’s goal of love and his goal of high social status. Gatsby’s motivation to be successful came from his passion towards Daisy because he knew he could only be with her if he was wealthy and had a proper social status like old rich. Likewise, today’s definition of success is having wealth, high class, and someone to share it with. People will aim for success because they want to support their family or be worthy of someone. Gatsby wanted to be worthy of Daisy, which is why he became wealthy. Gatsby was an empty shell and he was not in touch with reality. He was always seeking the end of his dream, yet there was no ending. Similarly, the p...
Up until now, the term American Dream is still a popular concept on how Americans or people who come to America should live their lives and in a way it becomes a kind of life goal. However, the definitions of the term itself is somehow absurd and everyone has their own definition of it. The historian James Tuslow defines American Dream as written in his book titled “The Epic of America” in 1931 as “...dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” The root of the term American Dream is actually can be traced from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 which stated “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
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.
American clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger once said “The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it is possible to achieve the American dream.” This idea of the “American dream” has been around since the founding and has become a prominent part of American culture and identity. This same idea is what the raved about novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is based around. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, pursues this American dream through his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan and his need to be insanely rich.
Gatsby became successful by being hardworking but, he was not moral. He came from a poor childhood ,but he turned his life around and became a successful man because of his illegal bootlegging business.Bootlegging was how many people became rich during this time period. Because of the Prohibition Act, selling and transporting alcohol was illegal ("The Demise of the 1920s American Dream in The Great Gatsby"). He worked hard so that he can have a fancy car,house, and parties.Gatsby needs constant reassurance from his acquaintances that his belongings are impressive. While talking to Nick, Gatsby states “My house looks well doesn’t it? See how the whole front of it catches the light.”(Fitzgerald 90). Jay Gatsby desires the values of the American Dream because he believes it will impress Daisy and make her fall in love with him. But, his dream eventually fails because he has unrealistic expectations for
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.
The American Dream is simply that; a dream. Through the tragedy of Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows us what happens when fantasy and reality are brought together. Despite seemingly having everything, Gatsby has nothing. His material wealth cannot compensate for what he lacks emotionally. Like Jay Gatsby, the American Dream will always fail when it is shattered by reality.