The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

681 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The Great Gatsby literature review

Gatsby tries to do anything he can to be with his one true love. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, depicts a man, James Gatz or Jay Gatsby, acquiring wealth all to impress the woman of his dreams. He does everything he possibly can to try and get her attention; he buys a mansion, throws elaborate parties, buys fancy cars and clothes but fails to live a long life with her. Throughout The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the readers through text that the American Dream is not attainable. Jay Gatsby thought his purpose in life was to gain wealth to be able to be with Daisy. For him, this is the American Dream. The book introduces Gatsby as, “James Gatz- that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career” (Fitzgerald 98). Jay’s friend, Dan Cody, helped Jay start off his career so he could become wealthy, which the epitome of the American Dream. After Gatsby was rich, his friends walked towards the back of the house and, “The gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in …show more content…

As characters walk into the valley of ashes they see, “But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg” (Fitzgerald 23). The Eyes is Doctor T.J. Eckleburg represents God watching over Gatsby. God is depicted as looking down on Gatsby, so he kept throwing obstacles in his way. “At eleven o'clock a man in a raincoat, dragging a lawn-mower, tapped at my front door and said that Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass” (Fitzgerald 83). Gatsby had invited Daisy over to his home for one of his parties. He thought that everything had to be perfect so Daisy will except him, even going as far as having his neighbors lawn cut. Everything in the book can correlate to Gatsby’s unattainable

Show More
Related

  • Essay On The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream very elaborately and shows the idea of the American dream to be connected with the goal of achieving wealth. Fitzgerald does not praise wealth in the Great Gatsby but condemns it by drawing attention to the dreadful fall made by Gatsby. Fitzgerald finds the desire of wealth to be a corrupting impact on people. Throughout the novel, the characters with money contradict the idea of the American dream. They are portrayed to be very snobbish and unhappy people. 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.

    Read More

  • Essay Comparing The Great Gatsby And Their Eyes Were Watching God

    525 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby tells the story of wealthy Jay Gatsby and the love of his life Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby dream was to secure Daisy just as things were before he left to the war. His impression was that Daisy will come to him if he appears to be rich and famous. Gatsby quest was to have fortune just so he could appeal more to Daisy and her social class.But Gatsby's character isn't true to the wealth it is a front because the money isn't real. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the rumors surrounding Jay Gatsby to develop the real character he is. Jay Gatsby was a poor child in his youth but he soon became extremely wealthy after he dropped out of college and became a successful man and create a new life for himself through the organized crime of Meyer

    Read More

  • The Meaning Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    The American Dream is an ideal that has been present in the majority of American literature including The Great Gatsby. Although this phrase has become a cliché we sometimes put it into use without knowing the meaning. What exactly does this famous American Dream mean? Some might say that it is a journey to wealth and prosperity, while others might say that it is nothing else but the beautiful promise of settling down, having children, being able to provide for your family, and basically living a pleasant worry-free life. However, over time, the original expedition for resolution and freedom has evolved into a continuing

    Read More

  • Jay Gatsby is a Sympathetic Character in Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby provides the reader with a unique outlook on the life of the newly rich. Gatsby is an enigma and a subject of great curiosity, furthermore, he is content with a lot in life until he strives too hard. His obsession with wealth, his lonely life and his delusion allow the reader to sympathize with him.

    Read More

  • The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    The American Dream There is no set definition to be found anywhere of the true meaning of The American Dream. Any hope, dream, or goal pursued by anyone in the history of America is an American Dream. In modern times the accepted dream seems to be 2.5 children, a house with a white picket fence, and a perfect spouse. However, as it is shown throughout literature from the early days of America to contemporary times, the American Dream is not always so simple a concept. America was originally founded on the dream of freedom.

    Read More

  • Essay On The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    1872 Words  | 4 Pages

    The American Dream is a powerful thing in the lives and hopes of its citizens, as shown in Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby. It is, and was, faith in individualism, expectation of progress, and mainly the belief in America as a land of opportunity. However, it also is differs from person to person. This plays a great part in Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby. His book took place in the 1920 's, which is also called the 'Roaring 20 's '. During this time, many Americans were freely spending. Moreover, the economy was doing extremely well and thus provided citizens with a sense of security and intense freedom. Many used that freedom and economic boom to become rich in business.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby: Money, Power, and the Fulfillment of Dreams

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money, power, and the fulfillment of dreams is what the story’s about. On the surface the story is about love but underneath it is about the decay of society’s morals and how the American dream is a fantasy, only money and power matter. Money, power, and dreams relate to each other by way of three of the characters in the book, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. Gatsby is the dreamer, Daisy cares about money, and Tom desires and needs power. People who have no money dream of money. People who have money want to be powerful. People who have power have money to back them up. Fitzgerald writes this book with disgust towards the collapse of the American society. Also the purposeless existences that many people lived, when they should have been fulfilling their potential. American people lacked all important factors to make life worthwhile.

    Read More

  • Themes Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    755 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gatsby had been working for so long to make Daisy his, that somewhere along the way his love turned to obsession. His Dream is not the pure thing it started out to be. His first step in fulfilling it was to become wealthy, which he did through corrupt means. He was filled with hope that once Daisy saw his wealth and how much he still loved her, that she would leave her husband Tom and come be with him. He even “bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 83). In an attempt to make this come true, he and Daisy began to have an affair. The amorality and dishonesty of this only solidifies the fact that Gatsby’s dream was corrupted by his desire to have Daisy, as if she were an object not a person. Gatsby also never took into account that Daisy may have already fulfilled her dream. She was, even throughout her affair with Gatsby, content with her life with Tom because he gave her the life of luxury she had always dreamed of. Daisy’s dream was corrupt from the beginning. Her desire for money won over her desire for love. As for Gatsby’s dream with Daisy, “it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city…” (Fitzgerald

    Read More

  • The American Dream In The Abundant Gatsby

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    This represents the abstraction of the American Dream, area qualities of harder plan and appetite are shown. The atypical The Abundant Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald embodies abounding themes; about the a lot of cogent one relates to the bribery of the American dream. The American Dream is authentic as anyone starting low on the bread-and-butter or amusing level, and alive harder appear abundance and or abundance and fame. By accepting money, a car, a big house, nice clothes and a blessed ancestors symbolizes the American dream. This dream aswell represents that people, no amount who he or she is, can become acknowledged in activity by his or her own work. The admiration to strive for what one wants can be able if they plan harder enough. The

    Read More

  • Jay Gatsby

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel, The Great Gatsby focuses on one of the focal characters, James Gatz, also known as Jay Gatsby. He grew up in North Dakota to a family of poor farm people and as he matured, eventually worked for a wealthy man named Dan Cody. As Gatsby is taken under Cody’s wing, he gains more than even he bargained for. He comes across a large sum of money, however ends up getting tricked out of ‘inheriting’ it. After these obstacles, he finds a new way to earn his money, even though it means bending the law to obtain it. Some people will go to a lot of trouble in order to achieve things at all costs. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, conveys the numerous traits of Jay Gatsby through the incidents he faces, how he voices himself and the alterations he undergoes through the progression of the novel. Gatsby possesses many traits that help him develop as a key character in the novel: ambitious, kind-hearted and deceitful all of which is proven through various incidents that arise in the novel.

    Read More

  • Research Paper On The Great Gatsby

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Examples Of Direct Characterization Of The Great Gatsby

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel “The Great Gatsby,” author F. Scott Fitzgerald writes about a character that goes by the name Jay Gatsby, who captures the attention of those around him by surrounding himself with rich people and materialistic possessions. The title of the book itself is named after the protagonist, Jay Gatsby, who is a well-off man that moves from the west to the east to obtain the one thing in his life that he deeply desires; to be reunited with his one true love, Daisy Buchanan, who he had lost five years prior. Gatsby’s physical appearance, mannerisms and impressions contribute to his pursuit for The American dream drives him from rags to riches, into the arms of the love of his life, and ultimately to his death.

    Read More

  • Probing the American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is an illustration of the irony surrounding the American Dream.  The story is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, who is a given the task of relating the story of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby's story is just one example of what the American Dream represents. Gatsby successfully escaped poverty and was able to acquire millions of dollars and widespread fame within a few years.  The American Dream offers Gatsby the chance to "suck on the pap of life, to gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder" (117).  However, Gatsby must exist on a solitary pedestal in order to experience the marvels that the dream has to offer.  This is the irony of the situation.  In spite of his fame and popularity, Gatsby becomes alienated from the rest of society, completely alone with his wealth. Jay Gatsby had a relationship with a lady named Daisy Fay (nee: Buchanan) before he acquired his wealth.  When Daisy married a wealthy man named Tom Buchanan, Gatsby decided that he would have to make a fortune in order to win her back.  Jay Gatsby does not un...

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby: The American Dream

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is about the American Dream, and the demise of those who attempt to capture its false goals. For Jay, the dream is that, through wealth and power, one can obtain 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.

    Read More

  • The Ending of the American Dream

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since the early colonization of America, the American dream has been the ultimate symbol for success. In retrospect, the dreamer desires to become wealthy, while also attaining love and high class. Though the dream has had different meanings in time, it is still based on individual freedom, and a desire for greatness. During the 19th century, the typical goal was to settle in the West and raise a family. However, the dream progressively transformed into greediness and materialism during the early 20th century. The indication of success soon became focused on wealth and luxury. The Great Gatsby is a story focused on the deterioration of the American dream. Throughout the novel, Jay Gatsby is shown with a desire to achieve his dream by all means. Utilizing the Roaring Twenties as part of his satire, Fitzgerald criticizes the values of the American dream, and the effects of materialism on one’s dream.

    Read More

More about The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

Open Document