The Great Gatsby – The American Dream,The American Dream In The Great Gatsby
WebThe American Dream can mean different things depending on who is asked. Some will answer it is the freedom of religion, class or race, others will claim it is about the Web“During the s, the perception of the American Dream was that an individual can achieve success in life regardless of family history or social status if they only WebMar 28, · In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, rich people around the narrator, Nick, are the people who misunderstand the American Dream, and Nick WebMay 22, · The very idea of the American Dream can be translated into the meaning of anything can be possible, and Fitzgerald allowed Gatsby's dream to become so WebSep 13, · The American Dream was a conception of the post-war society, which advocated for a great life. For an increasingly optimistic public, the American Dream ... read more
Knowledge is of essential for one to realize the American dream. The only way to live the American dream is through hard work. A major theme in The Great Gatsby is the pursuit of what can be termed the American dream. Do you agree? Among the themes portrayed in the novel The Great Gatsby by by Scott Fitzgerald is the corruption of the American dream. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low economically or socially and then working hard towards wealth and prosperity. The American dream is an idealistic perception that people have about life. Most people view the American dream as a life characterized by wealth and fame.
Other supposed components of the American dream include a happy family and access to everything that can be purchased by money. It is possible to live the American dream, but one must dedicate themselves to hard work and perseverance. Achieving the dream is highly probable but living it is difficult. Many people have the perception that living the American dream is being wealthy. It is unrealistic to argue that one is living the American dream if they have poor health, no friends, and no family, even if they are endowed with materialistic things. Giving an individual a big mansion and an expensive car would only give them temporary contentment after which they would feel even emptier Hartshell 1. One of the things that characterize the American dream is hard work; it is impossible to live a good life in America without hard work.
Another critical factor towards living the American dream is knowledge. When one is aware that wealth will not translate to happiness, he or she will incorporate aspects of joy to supplement their wealth. People in the s were devoid of this knowledge and would therefore risk every aspect of their lives to amass wealth Hartshell 2. According to them, being wealthy, powerful, and famous translated to living the American dream. Gatsby, Myrtle, and Daisy involved themselves in corruption and devastation in efforts to realize the American dream. However, the mechanisms they used to achieve what they perceived as the American dream finally caught up with them ending their wealthy and unhappy lives.
Most people are aware that the American dream indeed exists. However, the factors that motivate them to chase after the goal push them away from experiencing the good things attached to the American dream. When she met her husband George, she overestimated his wealth and found herself getting married to a mechanic Wullick 2. Her desire for the American dream was so big that she was willing to sacrifice everything to realize it. She even contemplates having a divorce, but in the early years, such processes were highly discouraged. Tom is a wealthy man who was born into a wealthy family and leads a very luxurious life with his wife, Daisy. Myrtle is so blinded by her desire to lead a prosperous life that she fails to realize that Tom neither values nor respects her.
In reality, the American dream should be defined by wealth, health, and happiness. There is a stipulated way of living the American dream, and it involves using legal and socially acceptable methods to rise from poor financial grounds to the high-end life of the rich. Myrtle failed to adhere to these stipulated ways and ended up living a short and unhappy life. To live the American dream, one must set their priorities right. Most people end up missing on the American dream owing to their failure to prioritize the essential things in life.
Gatsby, unlike Tom, was born into a low-income family, but his desire to live the American dream was to get the attention of Daisy, who she first saw as a wealthy and young luxurious woman Falth 7. To rise from his poor financial grounds to the high-end life of the wealthy, Gatsby had to use illegal economic undertakings to make money. He involved himself in the distribution of unlawful alcohol Fitzgerald To protect his relationship with Daisy, he lied about owning a chain of drug stores. At one time, he had to force Daisy to confess that she never loved Tom, which she did but later denied Fitzgerald We will explore how this theme plays out in the plot, briefly analyze some key quotes about it, as well as do some character analysis and broader analysis of topics surrounding the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.
What is the American Dream? The American Dream in the Great Gatsby plot Key American Dream quotes Analyzing characters via the American Dream Common discussion and essay topics. Our citation format in this guide is chapter. We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it Paragraph beginning of chapter; middle of chapter; on: end of chapter , or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text. The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, gender, or nationality, can be successful in America read: rich if they just work hard enough.
The American Dream thus presents a pretty rosy view of American society that ignores problems like systemic racism and misogyny, xenophobia, tax evasion or state tax avoidance, and income inequality. It also presumes a myth of class equality, when the reality is America has a pretty well-developed class hierarchy. The s in particular was a pretty tumultuous time due to increased immigration and the accompanying xenophobia , changing women's roles spurred by the right to vote, which was won in , and extraordinary income inequality. The country was also in the midst of an economic boom, which fueled the belief that anyone could "strike it rich" on Wall Street.
However, this rapid economic growth was built on a bubble which popped in The Great Gatsby was published in , well before the crash, but through its wry descriptions of the ultra-wealthy, it seems to somehow predict that the fantastic wealth on display in s New York was just as ephemeral as one of Gatsby's parties. In any case, the novel, just by being set in the s, is unlikely to present an optimistic view of the American Dream, or at least a version of the dream that's inclusive to all genders, ethnicities, and incomes.
With that background in mind, let's jump into the plot! Chapter 1 places us in a particular year——and gives us some background about WWI. This is relevant, since the s is presented as a time of hollow decadence among the wealthy, as evidenced especially by the parties in Chapters 2 and 3. And as we mentioned above, the s were a particularly tense time in America. We also meet George and Myrtle Wilson in Chapter 2 , both working class people who are working to improve their lot in life, George through his work, and Myrtle through her affair with Tom Buchanan.
We learn about Gatsby's goal in Chapter 4 : to win Daisy back. Despite everything he owns, including fantastic amounts of money and an over-the-top mansion, for Gatsby, Daisy is the ultimate status symbol. So in Chapter 5 , when Daisy and Gatsby reunite and begin an affair, it seems like Gatsby could, in fact, achieve his goal. In Chapter 6 , we learn about Gatsby's less-than-wealthy past, which not only makes him look like the star of a rags-to-riches story, it makes Gatsby himself seem like someone in pursuit of the American Dream, and for him the personification of that dream is Daisy. However, in Chapters 7 and 8 , everything comes crashing down: Daisy refuses to leave Tom, Myrtle is killed, and George breaks down and kills Gatsby and then himself, leaving all of the "strivers" dead and the old money crowd safe.
Furthermore, we learn in those last chapters that Gatsby didn't even achieve all his wealth through hard work, like the American Dream would stipulate—instead, he earned his money through crime. He did work hard and honestly under Dan Cody, but lost Dan Cody's inheritance to his ex-wife. In short, things do not turn out well for our dreamers in the novel! Thus, the novel ends with Nick's sad meditation on the lost promise of the American Dream. You can read a detailed analysis of these last lines in our summary of the novel's ending. This novel is just one very large burst bubble. In this section we analyze some of the most important quotes that relate to the American Dream in the book. But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling.
Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. In our first glimpse of Jay Gatsby, we see him reaching towards something far off, something in sight but definitely out of reach. This famous image of the green light is often understood as part of The Great Gatsby 's meditation on The American Dream—the idea that people are always reaching towards something greater than themselves that is just out of reach. You can read more about this in our post all about the green light. The fact that this yearning image is our introduction to Gatsby foreshadows his unhappy end and also marks him as a dreamer, rather than people like Tom or Daisy who were born with money and don't need to strive for anything so far off.
Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world. A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl.
I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry. Early in the novel, we get this mostly optimistic illustration of the American Dream—we see people of different races and nationalities racing towards NYC, a city of unfathomable possibility. This moment has all the classic elements of the American Dream—economic possibility, racial and religious diversity, a carefree attitude. At this moment, it does feel like "anything can happen," even a happy ending. However, this rosy view eventually gets undermined by the tragic events later in the novel. And even at this point, Nick's condescension towards the people in the other cars reinforces America's racial hierarchy that disrupts the idea of the American Dream. There is even a little competition at play, a "haughty rivalry" at play between Gatsby's car and the one bearing the "modish Negroes.
Nick "laughs aloud" at this moment, suggesting he thinks it's amusing that the passengers in this other car see them as equals, or even rivals to be bested. In other words, he seems to firmly believe in the racial hierarchy Tom defends in Chapter 1, even if it doesn't admit it honestly. His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star.
Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. This moment explicitly ties Daisy to all of Gatsby's larger dreams for a better life —to his American Dream. This sets the stage for the novel's tragic ending, since Daisy cannot hold up under the weight of the dream Gatsby projects onto her. Instead, she stays with Tom Buchanan, despite her feelings for Gatsby. Thus when Gatsby fails to win over Daisy, he also fails to achieve his version of the American Dream. This is why so many people read the novel as a somber or pessimistic take on the American Dream, rather than an optimistic one. as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world.
Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. 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.
He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. The closing pages of the novel reflect at length on the American Dream, in an attitude that seems simultaneously mournful, appreciative, and pessimistic. It also ties back to our first glimpse of Gatsby, reaching out over the water towards the Buchanan's green light. Nick notes that Gatsby's dream was "already behind him" then or in other words, it was impossible to attain. But still, he finds something to admire in how Gatsby still hoped for a better life, and constantly reached out toward that brighter future.
For a full consideration of these last lines and what they could mean, see our analysis of the novel's ending. An analysis of the characters in terms of the American Dream usually leads to a pretty cynical take on the American Dream. Most character analysis centered on the American Dream will necessarily focus on Gatsby, George, or Myrtle the true strivers in the novel , though as we'll discuss below, the Buchanans can also provide some interesting layers of discussion. For character analysis that incorporates the American Dream, carefully consider your chosen character's motivations and desires, and how the novel does or doesn't! provide glimpses of the dream's fulfillment for them. Gatsby himself is obviously the best candidate for writing about the American Dream—he comes from humble roots he's the son of poor farmers from North Dakota and rises to be notoriously wealthy, only for everything to slip away from him in the end.
Many people also incorporate Daisy into their analyses as the physical representation of Gatsby's dream. However, definitely consider the fact that in the traditional American Dream, people achieve their goals through honest hard work, but in Gatsby's case, he very quickly acquires a large amount of money through crime. Gatsby does attempt the hard work approach, through his years of service to Dan Cody, but that doesn't work out since Cody's ex-wife ends up with the entire inheritance. So instead he turns to crime, and only then does he manage to achieve his desired wealth.
So while Gatsby's story arc resembles a traditional rags-to-riches tale, the fact that he gained his money immorally complicates the idea that he is a perfect avatar for the American Dream. Furthermore, his success obviously doesn't last—he still pines for Daisy and loses everything in his attempt to get her back. In other words, Gatsby's huge dreams, all precariously wedded to Daisy "He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God" 6. This couple also represents people aiming at the dream— George owns his own shop and is doing his best to get business, though is increasingly worn down by the harsh demands of his life, while Myrtle chases after wealth and status through an affair with Tom.
Both are disempowered due to the lack of money at their own disposal —Myrtle certainly has access to some of the "finer things" through Tom but has to deal with his abuse, while George is unable to leave his current life and move West since he doesn't have the funds available. He even has to make himself servile to Tom in an attempt to get Tom to sell his car, a fact that could even cause him to overlook the evidence of his wife's affair. So neither character is on the upward trajectory that the American Dream promises, at least during the novel. In the end, everything goes horribly wrong for both George and Myrtle, suggesting that in this world, it's dangerous to strive for more than you're given.
George and Myrtle's deadly fates, along with Gatsby's, help illustrate the novel's pessimistic attitude toward the American Dream. After all, how unfair is it that the couple working to improve their position in society George and Myrtle both end up dead, while Tom, who dragged Myrtle into an increasingly dangerous situation, and Daisy, who killed her, don't face any consequences? And on top of that they are fabulously wealthy? The American Dream certainly is not alive and well for the poor Wilsons. We've talked quite a bit already about Gatsby, George, and Myrtle—the three characters who come from humble roots and try to climb the ranks in s New York. But what about the other major characters, especially the ones born with money? What is their relationship to the American Dream?
Specifically, Tom and Daisy have old money, and thus they don't need the American Dream, since they were born with America already at their feet. Perhaps because of this, they seem to directly antagonize the dream—Daisy by refusing Gatsby, and Tom by helping to drag the Wilsons into tragedy. This is especially interesting because unlike Gatsby, Myrtle, and George, who actively hope and dream of a better life, Daisy and Tom are described as bored and "careless," and end up instigating a large amount of tragedy through their own recklessness.
In other words, income inequality and the vastly different starts in life the characters have strongly affected their outcomes. The way they choose to live their lives, their morality or lack thereof , and how much they dream doesn't seem to matter. This, of course, is tragic and antithetical to the idea of the American Dream, which claims that class should be irrelevant and anyone can rise to the top. As we discuss in our post on money and materialism in The Great Gatsby , Daisy's voice is explicitly tied to money by Gatsby:. That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money--that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it.
High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. If Daisy's voice promises money, and the American Dream is explicitly linked to wealth, it's not hard to argue that Daisy herself—along with the green light at the end of her dock —stands in for the American Dream. In fact, as Nick goes on to describe Daisy as "High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl," he also seems to literally describe Daisy as a prize, much like the princess at the end of a fairy tale or even Princess Peach at the end of a Mario game!
But Daisy, of course, is only human—flawed, flighty, and ultimately unable to embody the huge fantasy Gatsby projects onto her. So this, in turn, means that the American Dream itself is just a fantasy, a concept too flimsy to actually hold weight, especially in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world of s America. Furthermore, you should definitely consider the tension between the fact that Daisy represents Gatsby's ultimate goal, but at the same time as we discussed above , her actual life is the opposite of the American Dream : she is born with money and privilege, likely dies with it all intact, and there are no consequences to how she chooses to live her life in between. Finally, it's interesting to compare and contrast some of the female characters using the lens of the American Dream.
Let's start with Daisy, who is unhappy in her marriage and, despite a brief attempt to leave it, remains with Tom, unwilling to give up the status and security their marriage provides. At first, it may seem like Daisy doesn't dream at all, so of course she ends up unhappy. But consider the fact that Daisy was already born into the highest level of American society. The expectation placed on her, as a wealthy woman, was never to pursue something greater, but simply to maintain her status. She did that by marrying Tom, and it's understandable why she wouldn't risk the uncertainty and loss of status that would come through divorce and marriage to a bootlegger.
Again, Daisy seems to typify the "anti-American" dream, in that she was born into a kind of aristocracy and simply has to maintain her position, not fight for something better. In contrast, Myrtle, aside from Gatsby, seems to be the most ambitiously in pursuit of getting more than she was given in life. She parlays her affair with Tom into an apartment, nice clothes, and parties, and seems to revel in her newfound status. But of course, she is knocked down the hardest, killed for her involvement with the Buchanans, and specifically for wrongfully assuming she had value to them.
Considering that Gatsby did have a chance to leave New York and distance himself from the unfolding tragedy, but Myrtle was the first to be killed, you could argue the novel presents an even bleaker view of the American Dream where women are concerned. Even Jordan Baker , who seems to be living out a kind of dream by playing golf and being relatively independent, is tied to her family's money and insulated from consequences by it , making her a pretty poor representation of the dream. And of course, since her end game also seems to be marriage, she doesn't push the boundaries of women's roles as far as she might wish. So while the women all push the boundaries of society's expectations of them in certain ways, they either fall in line or are killed, which definitely undermines the rosy of idea that anyone, regardless of gender, can make it in America.
The American Dream as shown in Gatsby becomes even more pessimistic through the lens of the female characters. Focusing the lens on the women is predictably depressing. Was all the work, time, and patience worth it for him?
In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. The rich people in the novel do not care about treating other people equally. As the American Dream implies, if people only focus on gaining money for themselves, how is it possible for other people to also obtain the same amount of money? This novel criticizes this interpretation of the American Dream because this is not sustainable. Ashes from industrialization are compared to wheat that is growing everywhere. Poor people are falling apart because society is moving forward so fast that the careless rich people forget that there are millions of poor people that are still suffering. At the same time, rich people like Gatsby or Tom are probably having a party or playing polo.
This description of poor people is a perfect representation of the oppressive nature of capitalism. A more specific example is Mr. He is a regular hard working man that only lives for his family; however, Tom takes that away. Wilson is the owner of his garage, but in this scene, Tom invades Mr. Wilson in a way as if he is the owner of the garage. Then he takes Myrtle away under Mr. Wilson does not dare to say anything because he is of a lower social class. After this, Tom makes Gatsby become the scapegoat.
Resulting in the death of both Gatsby and Mr. In contrast to the idea of building a better world that is advocated in the American Dream, their way of doing things really does not represent the upward social mobility that is mentioned in the American Dream. Gatsby was a self-motivated person, and this could have made him become a representation of the American Dream, but he has drifted further and farther away from his initial motivation toward money. He has always had some resolutions like this or something. He felt married to her, that was all'' Fitzgerald Gatsby loves Daisy so much that he felt married to her, but he had nothing to win her. As a result of this truth, from that point on, he knows he needs money to get Daisy.
Daisy becomes his motivation and Gatsby wants her so much that he does not care if his money is illegal or not. Then as time moves on, his main motivation becomes money itself. Nick, on the other hand, is a completely different kind of person. He is careful, he watches, he is genuine and hardworking. He means a completely different thing. The entire book is about his judgment. His critic of the people around him clearly shows that he is a different type of person from the others. He works hard to earn a simple life. Although he dislikes the other people, he still tries to be friends with them, which shows his genuineness.
He has gone back to the root of this society that has been built on the golden money and blue loneliness and sees the true motivation of all of these, which is a green desire of being better than before, the true American Dream. The Great Gatsby reflects the broken American Dream in practice from different points of view. Nick understands that the root of the American Dream is not based on money, so he chooses to be a quiet observer of the careless people in this novel, and criticize them. Essay Samples Writing Help. The American Dream Theme Analysis in The Great Gatsby ��Category: American dream , Books , Philosophy , The Great Gatsby ��Words: ��Pages: 4 ��Published: 28 March Related Samples Challenge the Expectations in Fahrenheit , Romeo and Juliet, and To Kill a Mockingbird Essay Example American Dream in A Raisin in the Sun and Death of a Salesman Essay Example Dehumanization in The Hunger Games Essay Example The Creature Is a Victim in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Essay Sample A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Book Analysis To Kill a Mockingbird Literature Essay Example Theme of Control in Uncle Silas Free Essay Sample Analysis of the Yellow Wallpaper Essay Example Female Independence and Self-Actualization in Their Eyes Were Watching God The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Persuasive Essay.
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The American Dream in the Great Gatsby Essay example,The Great Gatsby Essay: The Pursuit of the American Dream
WebMar 28, · In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, rich people around the narrator, Nick, are the people who misunderstand the American Dream, and Nick WebMay 22, · The very idea of the American Dream can be translated into the meaning of anything can be possible, and Fitzgerald allowed Gatsby's dream to become so WebSep 13, · The American Dream was a conception of the post-war society, which advocated for a great life. For an increasingly optimistic public, the American Dream WebThe American Dream can mean different things depending on who is asked. Some will answer it is the freedom of religion, class or race, others will claim it is about the Web“During the s, the perception of the American Dream was that an individual can achieve success in life regardless of family history or social status if they only ... read more
Daisy and Gatsby met at a party where Daisy could not determine his wealth because he was in uniform. Before the events of the …show more content… Even though she is married to Tom, his wealth is not enough to satisfy her. The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story on the surface, but it's most commonly understood as a pessimistic critique of the American Dream. If you're thinking about "deferred dreams" in The Great Gatsby , the big one is obviously Gatsby's deferred dream for Daisy—nearly five years pass between his initial infatuation and his attempt in the novel to win her back, an attempt that obviously backfires. So instead, Gatsby turned to crime after the war to quickly gain a ton of money. In his mind, money is the only thing that could win Daisy back. Apparently, dreams deferred are dreams doomed to fail.
The American Dream certainly is not alive and well for the poor Wilsons. American Dream or American Nightmare. Lindberg, L. Within T. He means a completely different thing. However, the mechanisms they used to achieve what they perceived as the American dream finally caught up with them ending their wealthy and unhappy lives. This moment has all the classic elements of the American Dream—economic possibility, racial and religious diversity, a carefree attitude.
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