The American Dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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American Hustle Our big brothers, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Jefferson, have advanced the state of this fraternity. We began as just pledges in the ΣΩβ fraternity, but with the passing of time we proved our worth and became kappa leaders. Our battle to become a national power representing the Greek life was hard fought, from our battles with our Greek brothers in the South, to the battles with our rivals across the sea. Oppression is the hazing process needed to become an American. American society has you all fooled! They preach words of freedom and opportunity, while little did you know the whole system is rigged. Opportunity does not open its doors to the immigrant from Italy who wants to establish and continue his/her family business in America. Opportunity is a discriminator. It picks who gets to advance in the social hierarchy, contrary to the ideals of the American dream, a hope shared by the millions who wish they can come to America to gain equality, democracy, and material prosperity. It is in fact the corporate and political leaders of America that choose who can become a successful American. They are greedy creatures who wish to continue their success and American identity, known family career, in their blood lines. Families like the Rockefellers and the Carnegies who control industries, force immigrants to conform to the social inadequacies of America. They provide their children with the necessary means to succeed, while people coming to America in search of opportunity are being handicapped to the bottom of the social ladder. People throw away their identity and what little property they had just to come to America to face the same oppression they had faced in their home lands. A man can be a doctor... ... middle of paper ... ...icans. Similarly to Belfort, Jay Gatsby funded his lavish livelihood through means that were not acceptable in society. Gatsby was a bootlegger, a distributer of alcohol during the prohibition era. It is ironic that a man that reached a high status on the social ladder accomplished his goals through illegal activity, and is now looked up to by the other high class members of America he is surrounded by. "He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong."(Fitzgerald 72). Deception’s role in both “The Great Gatsby” and obtaining an American identity The American identity is truly characterized by survival of the fittest, you are either the oppressor or under the oppression.

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