What It Means To Be An American In The Great Gatsby

Throughout the several hundred years of America’s existence, authors, essayists, and playwrights have independently forged their own ideas regarding what it means to be an American and recorded them in various works of literature. Though these ideas were all created separately, the aggregate of these works has produced a defining and characteristic image of what being an American means. American literature produces a common, undeniable explanation for what it means to be an American: to possess the ability to live one’s life without worries about conformity or judgment — to transverse various existing socioeconomic divisions in order to make one’s life as one pleases.

American literature asserts that life in America must be lived without

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby includes a title character that crosses one such barrier. In order to pursue the woman of his dream, Jay Gatsby decides to become wealthy — and he does. Observing Gatsby, Nick states, “ He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (Fitzgerald). This passage shows that Nick understands how Gatsby has progressed economically as his dream dictated. Fitzgerald’s words “he could hardly fail to grasp it” show the optimism that an American possesses. Gatsby is the perfect manifestation of an American who works hard to achieve his goals, and Fitzgerald’s description of his success shows that Americans who wish to progress socioeconomically can do so. Another work that shows that success can be attained through hard work, especially in America, is Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. The passage that most clearly exhibits Gladwell’s thoughts on the relationship between hard work and success is this: “If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (Gladwell 151). Here, Gladwell states that hard work leads directly to success, or what he calls “shap[ing] the world to your desires”. In Outliers, Gladwell later goes on to show that immigrants to America, specifically Jewish immigrants, were able to find great success in America. He demonstrates that America offered more opportunities to these immigrants than their home countries did. Synthesizing these two ideas found in Outliers, it is clear that hard work in America can directly lead to the progression of people on the socioeconomic ladder. In looking at both The Great Gatsby and Outliers, it is clear that to be an American is to be able to