F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby and Barbara Ehrenreich's 2001 novel Nickel and Dimed both have protagonists that fall short of realizing the American Dream is something that can’t happen. In "Nickel and Dimed," Barbara Ehrenreich tests her ability to live on six to seven dollars an hour a year by working a low-paying job that doesn't require a college degree. "The Great Gatsby" centers on Nick Carraway, a wealthy and fascinating man who lives next to Gatsby in 1920s New York. These stories reveal the American Dream is a myth through sexism, the inaccessibility of the American dream, and discrimination. Equality of opportunity is defined as the American Dream, where all individuals have the same opportunities to pursue their desired goals in life. …show more content…
Barbara devotes herself to her first job as a waitress in Nickel and Dimed, where she must cope with obnoxious customers as well as unpleasant coworkers. However, before she gets the job, she is submitted to many tests in order to find out if she is even suitable for the job. “In some testing protocols, the employee has to strip her underwear and pee into a cup in the presence of an aide or technician. Mercifully, I got to keep my clothes on and shut the toilet stall door behind me, but even so, urination is a private act and it is degrading to have to perform it at the command of some powerful other” (Ehrenreich, 114). Barbara’s stunning revelation exposes the reality of America. If a prohibited substance is discovered in Barbara’s body, the employer will never hire her. Never allowing her to discover her potential as a person or whether she is capable of supporting herself. This act denigrates her as a person, and shows the Disciplinary Act of No
The books Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich, and The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald both portray the false realities of the American dream. Nickel and Dimed is about Barbara’s firsthand experience living while being paid minimum wage. She writes about many of her and her coworkers' experiences and personal struggles working on an extremely low income. The Great Gatsby is about James Gatz living with a large amount of wealth, but no internal happiness, as his heart lies in the unattainable
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed exemplify the desire for one to aspire to the unreliable expectations of love and desire, equality and opportunity, and desire and wealth set by the American Dream in order to combat the reality of one’s past to build his or her future. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby fights to reclaim the love he once had with Daisy Buchanan. Before Gatsby left to join the war, he and Daisy