In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, George Wilson, and Tom Buchanan strive for contentment by achieving their American Dreams. For Gatsby, the American Dream consists of a higher social status, so he can pursue happiness in a relationship with Daisy Buchanan. He reveals his determination for this high status by rising from the poor lower class and living in wealthy West Egg; however, his inability to achieve his American Dream illustrates the impracticality of the dream. Furthermore, Wilson’s self-owned car repairs business portrays his hard work. The love he retains for his wife Myrtle Wilson influences his dream of making her pleased with money and moving out West. Similar to Gatsby, he fails at achieving his dream despite his great efforts; thus, his failure represents the impossibility of achieving the American Dream. Moreover, Tom Buchanan has wealth and status living in East Egg. He already achieves an American Dream of status and wealth, the certain desires that Gatsby and Wilson focus on; however, he lacks contentment in his marriage, so he cannot achieve his American Dream of finding happiness in a relationship. The characters portray much dissimilarity with their characteristics, and Fitzgerald utilizes their features to relate each of them to a different aspect of the American Dream that focuses on the pursuit of happiness; however, he uses the characters’ ultimate discontent and failure to attain their dreams to convey the inability of achieving the American Dream. Fitzgerald displays Gatsby, Wilson, and Tom with varying lifestyles to illustrate them with differences in characteristics. Gatsby’s rise from the lower class to new money in West Egg illustrates his ambition and determination for... ... middle of paper ... ...ty; however, his failure at attaining his desires illuminates the hopelessness of achieving the dream. Additionally, Wilson exemplifies a hard worker by owning his own car workshop as he strives to make his wife, Myrtle, happy by making money. His incapability to make his wife content relates to his inability to achieve his dream. Tom Buchanan portrays the desires Gatsby and Wilson yearn for with his high status and great wealth; however, his unhappiness in his marriage keeps him from living a dream and displays the overall absurdity of the American Dream. Fitzgerald utilizes contrasting characters to relate them each to a separate part of the American Dream; however, through their disappointments he communicates the impracticality of the dream. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.
The character of Gatsby and Fitzgerald’s commentary on the logical fallacies of the American Dream are closely intertwined, which is why Fitzgerald goes to such great lengths to separate the two. By distinguishing Gatsby from the flaws he possesses allows the reader to care for Gatsby, and the impact of his death all the more powerful when it finally occurs. By making Gatsby a victim of the American Dream rather than just the embodiment of it, Fitzgerald is able to convince his audience of the iniquity of the American Dream by making them mourn the life of the poor son-of-a-bitch
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.
In the novel, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author establishes materialism and wealth as a corruption to the American dream. The American dream embodies the idea of self-sufficient, honest and intelligent individual with a happy successful life. It is also the idea of the pursuit of happiness but Daisy Buchanan a wealthy aristocrat goes after the empty pursuit of pleasure, portraying her character as a disillusionment of the American dream and how much it lost its good values. The wealthy are blinded by all their money, such as the Buchanan’s who forget the real idea of the American dream leading them to having no morals or values. The money gives them the ability to walk all over others, careless of whom they hurt and affect. Daisy Buchanan represents the corruption of the American dream; her careless actions resulted in destroying the ones around her. Although Daisy appears to be full of light and kindness, she is truly self-centered. Fitzgerald develops his social commentary on the idea of wealth corrupting morality and the American dream through the lack of values that Daisy embodies.
Maurer, Kate. Cliffs Notes on Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. New York: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2000.
Bruccoli, Matthew J. Preface. The Great Gatsby. By F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. vii-xvi.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print. The.
One of the characters that falls short of the American Dream is Tom Buchanan. Tom is a powerful wealthy man, and much more than that. He is very shallow argent person with little moral values. Which in the end leaves him with a very uncontrollable life. “His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate were slipping precipitately from his control.” (Fitzgerald 131). According to Colin laPenta wealth and power can turn a person into a hallow shell of their former self “Arrogance and unfortunate quality that is often associated with people of power and wealth and Tom Buchanan is no exception.” (LaPenta). As well, Tom Never has really cared about the wellbeing of his fellow man as long as he is safe in his mansion. Also, explained by Matthew Bruccoli “Although it’s hard to choose just one character flaw of Tom Buchanan, the most prevalent one is his cruelness, he believes that money and power gives him the ability to bully others” (Bruccoli). Another character who falls short of the American dream and their own personal dream is Jay Gatsby. Gatsby doesn’t achieve his dreams because he is trying to not look into the future, but instead alter the future to make it like the past relationship with Daisy through wealth and power to be more like her new lover (Tom). “Can’t repe...
Through the use of symbolism and critique, F. Scott Fitzgerald is able to elucidate the lifestyles and dreams of variously natured people of the 1920s in his novel, The Great Gatsby. He uses specific characters to signify diverse groups of people, each with their own version of the “American Dream.” Mostly all of the poor dream of transforming from “rags to riches”, while some members of the upper class use other people as their motivators. In any case, no matter how obsessed someone may be about their “American Dream”, Fitzgerald reasons that they are all implausible to attain.
His characters follow their American Dream and they fail miserably in attaining it, a few of them end up getting killed following their American Dream. In Gatsby’s case, he dreams to make a lot of money and to marry Daisy. He gets his precious money, but he never marries Daisy. He fails to achieve his dreams by offending Daisy with his parties, and letting Daisy drive the car killing Myrtle Wilson and eventually killing Gatsby. In Daisy’s case she fails by now living with the knowledge that she killed Gatsby, and the fact that she is married to someone that she does not even love for the rest of her life. Overall, these failures seem to indicate that Fitzgerald is attempting to say that the American Dream is
Raleigh, John Henry. "F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: Legendary Bases and Allegorical Significances." F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Arthur Mizener. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963. 99-103.
The American Dream is not something easily achieved, and according to Fitzgerald it is literally unattainable. There is always some obstacle or barrier in the way of success. Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby is not a very satisfied man; he seems to have a sense of ennui when it comes to his marriage and his life. So he lives the life he really wants part time with his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. However, this semi-fulfillment of his dreams is stopped, and what stops it is the fact that Myrtle is married, and her husband, George, has “discovered that Myrtle [has] some sort of life apart from him in another world” (The Great Gatsby 130). Tom is reaching for his own idea of success with Myrtle, but he cannot reach it due to her being married. What keeps one from attaining their dreams is not necessarily something as physical as a marriage; it can be someone’s attitude, like that of Judy Jones in Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams”. The young protagonist in this story, Dexter Green, is in love with the flighty flirt Judy Jones. His dream is to be with her; unfortunately, “She [is] entertained only by the gratification of her own ...
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.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a superbly written and an intrinsically captivating novel that deals with the decline of the American Dream and how vapid the upper class is. To illustrate and capture the essence of these themes, Fitzgerald uses characters Gatsby, who epitomizes the actual American Dream, and Daisy, who is based on the ideal girl. Yet, as these characters grasp the topics Fitzgerald wants to convey, there is something inherently like missing from the story as a whole. To fill this void, Fitzgerald utilizes minor characters as a means to move the plot along, develop characters further, and build upon the themes present in the novel. One such character is George Wilson.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925