“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is blankly stare.” F. Scott Fitzgerald The American Dream: wealth, passion, power, love, an enormous house, luxurious cars, the finest clothing. The American Dream is something people have strived to achieve for centuries. The Great Gatsby is a novel of twisted love triangles, whose characters are trying to capture and live the American Dream. Dreams can fall to pieces when they are being perused for the wrong reason and the in the wrong ways. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates an ideal piece of literature that shows flaws, mistaken beliefs, and the ignorance of society in its belief of the American Dream. The American Dream isn’t something that one certain type of person can accomplish, it’s something that anticipated and molded by each and every person in all situations and social classes. Gatsby’s dream was not the typical American Dream, his was based on a fantasy that one could relive the past, that if he worked hard and made enough lifestyle changes he could win Daisy from Tom. Gatsby went through a remarkable alteration when changing his name from James Gatz, the lonesome soldier, to Jay Gatsby, a man of mystery and fortune. This was Gatsby’s attempt to re-invent himself and achieve his goals; showing the just how blinded he actually was to reality. Gatsby’s whole dream can be focused around the green light that is at the end of Daisy’s dock. It symbolizes Daisy in every way it’s green like the color of money that he needs to obtain for Daisy to even see him; he can see it from his dock in West Egg it is just barely out of his reach across the bay just like Daisy. While on the other hand Tom and Daisy Buchana... ... middle of paper ... ...sful no matter where they came from, but one can be blinded by success and lose sight of their morals. For Gatsby his dreams do not separate him from reality, but it is his way of life, his only focus and reason to live. For him there is not a line to distinguish right from wrong, fantasy from reality, it is all tangled into one. Thus leading to his demise. Without dreams, there is no hope, goals or meaning to life, dreams give purpose. The American Dream has been stretched from a dream to keeping up with the Jones’s and always pushing for more, the ideals collide with reality and ultimately end in failure. The Great Gatsby is a prime example of the corruption of the American Dream and its decayed moral values. “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is blankly stare. F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how people are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things. All my generation is experiencing these things with me..."
he screamed it and he could not be sure if the scream awakened him or the pain in his stomach….Brian stood at the end of the long part of the lake and watched the water, smelled the water, listened to the water, was the water.” The first part of the quote shows how even in sleep you will have a desperation for someone to love and care about you and this book shows this feeling almost perfectly. The second part tell us that in depression you may resolve into isolation and emotion dullness. In these stages and in the book you can feel the struggle and the determination to get through the challenge to accepting the
"A world which can be explained, even though bad reasoning, is a familiar one. On the other hand, in a world suddenly devoid of illusion and light, man feels like a stranger."
Gatsby's tragic loss of the American dream has to do with his toxic quest to fall in love with daisy “When he kissed her, She blossomed for hints like a flower and the incarnation was complete. In Daisy, Gatsby's meretricious dream was made
The American Dream had always been based on the idea that each person no matter who he or she is can become successful in life by his or her hard work. The dream also brought about the idea of a self-reliant man, a hard worker, making a successful living for him or herself. The Great Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream in the 1920s, a time period when the many people with newfound wealth and the need to flaunt it had corrupted the dream. The pursuit of the American Dream is the one motivation for accomplishing one's goals, however when combined with wealth the dream becomes nothing more than selfishness.
Jay Gatsby is a mysterious businessman from the nineteen twenties that is an ideal example of the American Dream. He falls in love with a young and vibrant woman by the name of Daisy Buchannan. Their admiration for each other enforces a luminous spark of determination upon themselves. This subsidizes their relationship under struggling circumstances, and changed their lives for the better. Daisy and Gatsby are the only two that truly prospered from their “American Dream” in this novel.
The second character Fitzgerald analyzes is Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan. Daisy is the definition of a dream girl, she is smart, gorgeous, and just an ideal woman to be around, and the relationship between her and Tom is quite odd (Baker). Daisy and Tom move to the fashionable East Egg from Chigaco (11). Daisy has everything a woman could wish for, a wealthy husband and an immaculate house. Daisy does not know that Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Nick Carraway plays a major role in Daisy’s love life in The Great Gatsby. Nick is Daisy’s second cousin and he knew Tom from college (11). Daisy invites Nick over for dinner one evening and that is how she relearns about Jay Gatsby (11-17). Daisy met Gatsby at a dance in Louisville. They used to be madly in love with one another when he was in the army (). They had plans of always being together and being married in Louisville at Daisy’s home (118). Later in the story, Daisy was invited to go have tea at Nick’s house, but what she did not know is that it was all Gatsby’s idea to get them to rekindle their rel...
“I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly and we don't even know it.”
So much held In a heart in a lifetime. So much how heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end-not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of constantly harrowed
this flashback, Jordan explains to Nick how she first met Gatsby. She explains to Nick
"There is nothing more dangerous than a large segment of people in society that feel that they have no place or stake in it, who feel they have nothing to lose. People who have stake in the society perpetuate that society, when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it." Unknown
In Gatsby’s mind the American Dream consists of two parts, one, “rising from rags to riches”, and two, being married to Daisy (Roberts). “Rising from rags to riches” was not originally part of his American Dream, his sole purpose in life was to marry Daisy. Earlier in Gatsby’s life he met Daisy and wanted to marry her, but he did not have enough money so Daisy ended up marrying Tom who did have a lot of money. When she refused to marry Gatsby, his American Dream Morphed into wanting both money and Daisy, but marrying Daisy was still his top priority
Author's Philosophy " After a short time silence, he stood up and told me that
The American Dream is a major in American Literature. According to James Truslow Adams, in his book Epic of America, this dream promises a brighter and more successful future, coupled with a vision based on everybody being equal irrespective of their gender, caste and race. It emphasizes that everyone is innately capable of achieving his or her dreams with hard work. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the American Dream is portrayed by Jay Gatsby's vision of attaining the social status he desires. Gatsby can achieve his dream once he marries Daisy Buchannan, a young woman he met in Louisville, where he falls in love with the opulence that surrounds her. Throughout the book, the motifs of the green light and fake facade are used to signify Gatsby's hope and never ending lust for status respectively. Gatsby's obsession with restructuring his past leads to his failure. Fitzgerald uses these motifs of the green light, fake facade and past to showcase Gatsby's objectification of his American Dream.
In a world of overpopulation and crowds the idea of solitude is foreign. Many people take “retreats” or trips to escape and find peace with themselves. However, these same people usually return to civilization and to familiar faces. The Wanderer in the lyric poem does not have this luxury; he is alone and will never see his kinsmen’s faces again. It is not just seeing these friends, however, that pains the Wanderer the most: “There is now none among the living to whom I dare clearly express the thought of my heart.” Being able to...