Fitzgerald's View Of The American Dream

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The American Dream inspires the tired, the poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It serves as the beacon of light for the oppressed or the determined to find wealth and opportunity in America. It was in the hopes and dreams of the old Dutch sailors, the revolutionary patriots, and in the youth who had witnessed the first World War. An archetype of the post
World
War I American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald expressed in his writing the profound shift in values accompanied by the Dream in the 1920 's. In The
Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald presents the American Dream as a hedonistic and irresponsible product of post-WWI America. He develops this view of the
American Dream through the characters, James Gatsby and Daisy, and through the eyes of Dr.
Fitzgerald
shows how Gatsby pays for his carelessness and hedonistic tendencies and that he is not immune to the negative aspects of the American Dream.

Fitzgerald also shows his irreverence for the American Dream through the character of Gatsby 's ex-lover, Daisy, who has an affair with Gatsby with almost no regard to her current marriage with Tom Buchanan. After
Gatsby
argues with Tom over Daisy 's love, she claims that “I love [Gatsby] now
-
isn 't that enough?..I loved [Tom] once - but I loved [Gatsby] too”
(132).
Through Daisy 's ambivalence in choosing a man, Fitzgerald disapproves of the American Dream because it is not attainable for everyone. In addition, Fitzgerald displays the reprehensible practices of the wealthy elite through Daisy 's disregard for her child and reliance on her money.
After
Gatsby 's death, Nick notes how Daisy and Tom “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness...and let other people clean up the mess they had made”
(179).
With this, Fitzgerald weaves an intricate tapestry that shows the

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