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The Honest Truth of the American Dream
An Analysis of "The Great Gatsby"
Throughout history people pursue three simple concepts that they believe will lead them to a perfect life; freedom, to be independent, and the ability to advance and succeed in their life. These three ideas are major components of what has become known as the American dream, a dream that is beautiful in the fact that it provides people with hope and a goal. This dream is what caused so many settlers to travel to the new world, the idea of being able to be anyone they wanted to be, even in modern times it still draws thousand if not millions to its magnificent idea. Unfortunately, it has slightly changed into an idea of being able to own a big house, be with someone they love, and live a life of ease. This ideal life, which so many strive for, is unreachable due to the harsh reality of life and inequality of man. However in the roaring times of the twenties Americans were not focused on the reality of life but were more focused on the idea of freedom and independence than ever before, they believed that they were free to do as they willed; they drank, they spent money, they partied, and they lusted. In Fitzgerald's book, The Great Gatsby, which is set in the twenties, we see just this; we see parties, excessive amounts of drinking and love affairs.
In the book the main protagonist, Jay Gatsby, originally grew up as James Gatz the son of a poor German American farmer but despite this he turns into a cultural, smart, and rich war hero, all with the help of a rich man that he saves on a yacht named Dan Cody. For some this could be considered the greatest goal or accomplishment of all, the rags to riches tale that so many dream of but few achieve. In the novel, i...
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...nreachable to be completely happy and obtain a perfect life. The matter of fact is that the "American dream … no longer exists except in the minds of men like Gatsby, who it destroys in their... restless pursuit of it." (Pearson 645) Knowing this it is clear that the American dream is a beautiful idea, though, a nightmare of pain and failure to anyone that pursues too much.
Work cited
Fahey, William. F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1973.
Hearne, Kimberly. "Fitzgerald's Rendering Of A Dream." Explicator 68.3 (2010): 189. ` MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Ornstein, Robert "Scott Fitzgerald's Fable of East and West" College English, Vol. 18, No. 3 ` (Dec., 1956), pp. 139-143
Pearson, Rogers "Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream" The English Journal, Vol59, No. 5 (May, 1970), pp. 638-642+645
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. In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald attempts to criticize American
The American standard of success has always been defined by the effort put into receiving this success. Some are lucky and have success come with ease, others have to put in a great deal of work and even then they still fall short of their desired position. Throughout, “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald scrutinizes the collapse of the American dream through Jay Gatsby. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the readers experience the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby’s successes. From the initial sequences of the novel it is apparent that wealthiness is the point of which you are judged in the time period the book takes place.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's life has been described as a “Tragic example of both sides of the American dream the joys of young love , wealth and success and the tragedies associated with excess and failure. ”(Willet, “The Sensible Things”). The Dominant influences on Fitzgerald and his work were aspiration,literature, Princeton, his wife and alcohol. With the constant fear of death and failure plaguing him his entire life, his literary works and his life accomplishments always seemed to be never good enough and through his life Fitzgerald constantly suffered a constant thought that he had failed to do anything with his life and that his literary works would never go on to be anything that people ever took the time to care about.
Eble, Kenneth. F. Scott Fitzgerald Limited Edition. Ed. Sylvia E. Bowman. N.p.: Twayne Publishers, 1977. Print. Twayne’s United States Authors Series.
The American Dream is a concept that has been wielded in American Literature since its beginnings. The ‘American Dream’ ideal follows the life of an ordinary man wanting to achieve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The original goal of the American dream was to pursue freedom and a greater good, but throughout time the goals have shifted to accumulating wealth, high social status, etc. As such, deplorable moral and social values have evolved from a materialistic pursuit of happiness. In “Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity”, Roland Marchand describes a man that he believed to be the prime example of a 1920’s man. Marchand writes, “Not only did he flourish in the fast-paced, modern urban milieu of skyscrapers, taxicabs, and pleasure- seeking crowds, but he proclaimed himself an expert on the latest crazes in fashion, contemporary lingo, and popular pastimes.” (Marchand) This description shows material success as the model for the American Dream. In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald reveals the characterization of his characters through the use of symbols and motifs to emphasize the corruption of the American Dream.
The freedom in self endowment has always been the fuel to the average American citizen and his drive toward success. In other words, Americans always strive to achieve the ever so revered American Dream. What is the American Dream? David Kamp describes the American Dream as "the idea rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."(Kamp). The dream lies deeply rooted in American society and the very mention of it lights a passionate fire in the hearts of American citizens everywhere. The idea behind the dream is that if an individual has sufficient willpower, he or she has a fair chance of achieving wealth as well as the freedom and happiness that come packaged with it. Essentially, it offers the opportunity of achieving spiritual and material fulfillment. It promises success at the cost of hard work and perseverance. Over time however, this idea of attaining success through hard work and perseverance has been skewed into one which exploits greed and carelessness and The Great Gatsby is an excellent affirmation of this. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald derides the gradual corruption of hard work and perseverance in the American Dream by utilizing the motif of driving and incorporating it with the the ideas of greed and carelessness.
Fitzgerald shows us in the novel The Great Gatsby that the American Dream is a illusion of greed and pride. One good example of this is seen in the novel when In Chapter one of The Great Gatsby Nick ,Our main protagonist, relates a proverb from his father told him, “ Just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the Advantages that you've had” (Fitzgerald 5). This is important because in the 1920’s the expectations of the American Dream contradicts itself by trying to live a wealthy and successful life while maintaining equality. It shows the reader that the truth of the matter is equality and the American dream are unrealistic and unattainable due to the fight to gain a higher position of wealth and power by dragging others below
No two people are going to share the exact same goals, and while many people’s dreams run along the same pathways towards security, money, love, and companionship, the route by which to get there and the destination should be left entirely to the dreamer. By creating an institution such as the American Dream, goals become oversimplified. The American dream boils happiness down into two or three facets, which everyone seems to try desperately to conform to, but people cannot be told what to like. As conformists, though, everyone will attempt to seem perfectly happy with a lot they never chose as they live a dream they never wanted. Nothing showcases this more clearly than the rampant unhappiness of the characters in The Great Gatsby. None of the people the world would consider ‘successful’ end the novel happy; instead they are left either emotionally hollow or entirely dead. Their failure at achieving real and true happiness is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s way of criticizing the relentless pursuit of a phony American
Americans are perpetual dreamers, unwavering optimists, and incessant innovators. We believe in ourselves, we believe in a better world and we believe that we can do anything we put our minds to. Pursuing the American Dream at all costs, economic class, race, and religion are not barriers; we achieve our goals no matter how unattainable they may seem. We are a nation of underdogs who put our heads down and work towards our goals. Dating back to the Revolutionary War, this mentality won us our freedom; we were David and England was Goliath, but we wanted freedom more than they resisted it. Our nation had a dream and it was determined to make it a reality. 250 years later, Americans are just as ambitious as our Founding Fathers. Young people in this country
Wealth, material possessions, and power are the core principles of The American Dream. Pursuit of a better life led countless numbers of foreign immigrants to America desiring their chance at the vast opportunity. Reaching the American Dream is not always reaching true happiness. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby achieves the American Dream, but his unrealistic faiths in money and life’s possibilities twist his dreams and life into useless life based on lies.
American clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger one said “The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it 's possible to achieve the American dream.” This idea of the “American dream” has been around since the founding and had become a prominent part of American culture and identity. This same idea is what the raved about novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is based around. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist pursues this American dream through his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan and his need to be insanely rich. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to symbolize the American dream, and uses his rags to riches journey to convey to his readers that the American dream is an extremely dangerous thing to pursue and ultimately impossible
“The American dream is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking and hard work, not by chance. Both native-born Americans and American immigrants pursue and can achieve the American dream” (Investopedia 2014). This deceiving passage sends hopeful words to the population of the United States as if pursuing the dream can give anyone a contented life from hard work, as their stepping stones to success. In the 1920’s the corruption of the American Dream is incorporated in most of the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it portrays where dreams are driven by wealth, power, betrayal and shame to moral values. After World War I, commercial growth climaxed resulting the boasted financial gain to most civilians that
The book starts off with the narrator Nick Carraway. He is from Minnesota and in 1992 he moves to NYC in the summer. He starts by giving us advices that his father told him about not to make fun of people what so ever. Daisy Buchanan is Nick’s cousin; she is married to Tom Buchanan. Jordan Baker is Daisy’s close friend. Daisy Baker falls in love with Nick, and he loves her back. He goes to NYC to study about the bond business.
The simple definition of the American dream is a state of happiness a person hopes to achieve by obtaining materialistic prosperity through hard work. This however has not always been the dream. In early America the dream of many was to venture west, find land, and start a family, but as time progressed the dream has transformed into a need for materialistic possessions such as a car or a large house. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald reveals the how corrupt the American Dream has become and how truly irrelevant money and worldly possessions are to becoming genuinely satisfied. He does this through his portrayal of Gatsby’s confused love for Daisy or the idea of Daisy, Daisy and Tom Buchanan’s marriage, and the death of Gatsby.
When Mr. Fitzgerald wrote “The Great Gatsby,” he described the actions of the human society. In a certain way, not only did he describe and critic the high class but also the lower class, which ended up critiquing the American Dream. The American Dream was a idea give to believe that a human being should pursue being happy, wealthy, and loved which has cause any human being to go in search for this idea. All that is end up being found is the fact of having the illusion of having more material is to be happy than being happy by valuing what you already have.