Jay Gatsby American Dream Essay

The American novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, demonstrates the withering of the American Dream, an idealistic and illusionary goal to achieve high status and wealth. Fitzgerald establishes James Gatz as the embodiment of the American Dream. Gatz is a self-made man who dedicates his life to creating a new, higher-status persona. The product of James Gatz's hard work is the great “Jay Gatsby,” who epitomizes one of the main characteristics of the American dream: everlasting hope. However, Fitzgerald concludes the novel with the death of Gatsby and, therefore, the death of the American Dream. The American Dream is dead because of Gatsby’s idealistic and blind pursuits, the materialistic nature of the upper class, and the social discrimination within this shallow society.

Jay Gatsby possesses an “extraordinary gift for hope” and a “romantic readiness” that conquers all of the immoral and material corruption. Gatsby’s idealism evolves long before he meets Daisy. Gatsby finds inspiration in his association with Dan Cody. Cody represents the romanticism of the frontier, an era when exploration and risk-taking often led to fame and immense wealth. Cody’s selfhood influences the impressionable James Gatz. However, it is Gatsby’s innate sense of hope that sets him apart. Gatz embraces the possibility of reinventing a new persona for himself. Thus, when Daisy enters his life, she becomes the manifestation of all that commands his desire and purpose, as she is of the upper class wealth that Gatsby hopes to achieve. Daisy “blossoms for him like a flower... making the incarnation complete” (117). She embodies his dream. "He had waited five years and bought a mansion in which he had dispensed starlight to casual moths-so...

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...travagance and flaunting. This is shown when Tom Buchanan and the Sloanes drop by for a drink at Gatsby’s house. Out of courtesy, the lady invites Gatsby to her dinner party and he unwittingly accepts, unaware of the fact that the invitation is insincere (83). Gatsby’s lack of awareness of unwritten codes of conduct reveals his lack of “Old Rich” refinement. This proves that the class and posh that defines the upper classes cannot be obtained through an accumulation of wealth. Common individuals who seek social mobility are to be forever isolated from the elite, demonstrated by the lower class citizens who inhabit the Valley of Ashes.The valley represents the moral and social decay as the ash pile grows, distorting the American Dream.The condemnation of others based on social status is inevitable, therefore, the dream of social mobility is fundamentally unrealistic.