The Use Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream has long been a desire first establish upon the very making of this nation. It holds to be the driving force for change, innovation: the manifest destiny that upon the arrival to these shores do immigrants first glimpse this abstract idea upon the contour of the Statue of Liberty. This abstract idea is a dream of hope and new beginnings, where anything is possible and where the only limitation exists within one’s imagination. This is the world in which F. Scott Fitzgerald explores in his classic novel The Great Gatsby. Throughout The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the American Dream as a bittersweet drug which clings to the hearts of the American people, where the wonder of dreaming and hope combats the forever unsatisfying desire of lust, want, and materialism. Throughout the novel F. Scott

F. Scott Fitzgerald incorporates this tool of imagery in his novel to showcase the idea of the American dream within The Great Gatsby. Through the use of imagery, Fitzgerald illustrates the subjective nature of the American dream and uncovers its more materialistic nature which is filled with greed, want, and lust. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald writes, “They’re such beautiful shirts, she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful shirts before” (pg. 92). Fitzgerald incorporates the use of imagery to display the emotion Daisy expresses in this scene; Fitzgerald implements elements such as Daisy’s voice changing in the ‘thick folds’ to express the physical and verbal effects that the emotional Daisy fundamentally has for the elegant clothing reflecting her materialistic personality. This quote establishes the materialistic desire, that arose from the American dream and ambition, that Daisy expresses throughout this scene: being wooed by material objects rather than by Gatsby