Examples Of Strikes Out In The Great Gatsby

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America Strikes Out
Like baseball the American dream is a widespread and popular phenomenon. While both may serve to promote hope, unity and patriotism, one is a grandiose and unattainable illusion. Today we must face the truth and ask ourselves, is it the American reality to strike it rich or just strike out? Writes Laura Straede.
In any game there are winners and losers. Why is it that so many fail? Is it the booing of the crowd, of society? Is it the fast backspin on the ball so cruelly thrown? Or is it the batter, unprepared for his single strike? As the illusion of the dream shatters we realize, success is not a game of baseball. At least not a fair one.
Today America lives under a deceitful pretense. An endless pursuit of Gatsby’s green …show more content…

East and West Egg clearly symbolize the class divide between the highest pedigree of society and those they look down on. East Egg is home to the aristocratic families who hold a perceived superior social standing to the new wealth. Gatsby, who belonged to this new wealth class is described as “Mr. nobody from nowhere” by Tom Buchanan. This exclusion serves to remind the dreamer that although they may be financially successful the dream will still elude them.
This class divide continued through the decades. “The Talented Mr. Ripley” was driven to overcome his low class status during the 1950’s. This movie, produced in 1999 by Anthony Minghella explores protagonist Thomas Ripley as he learns, through the simple act of borrowing a jacket, the only way attain social mobility is to become a “fake somebody”.
How can the Dream remain pure when social mobility can only truly be attained through reinvention and moral corruption? We must recognize the Dream is not a stark choice between the streets and the …show more content…

Both are romantic dreamers with the ability and vision to make something of themselves. However, this reinvention is a house of cards. It didn’t take long before Thomas Ripley saw his self-made reality begin to crumble.
Through reinvention the corruptive nature of the Dream is self-evident. Rigid social class corrupts. A system in which odds are unfairly stacked against the poor corrupts. The mad consumerist scramble corrupts.
It is this corruption that sees narrator Nick Carraway retreating back into the safety of the Mid-West. Money and social class gave the Buchanan’s the right to be “careless people” to “smash up things and creatures”. Like Myrtle Wilson, killed by a gold car, racing through the Valley of the Ashes.
Today America faces another recession. President Barak Obama, a man who believes “only in America is my [his] story possible” declares this the “American Dream in reverse”. The characteristic hope and optimism is crashing as the illusion of the Dream crashes. There is a “nagging fear that Americas decline is inevitable” as 54% of the American population no longer believe in the Dream.
How can a nation succeed when its national goal is a collective

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