What is your version of the American Dream, and what will your pursuit of happiness be? Well, those are things that are very different for everyone. This is because everyone has their own version of the American Dream and their own pursuit of happiness. This is shown perfectly in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald because of the setting of a roaring 20’s New York City filled with a variety of people, who are all searching for their American Dream. But along the way, everyone’s pursuit of happiness is not as they expected it to be. This idea is furthered in “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, in which he constantly criticizes how the American Dream is not real and that no matter what your pursuit of happiness is, you will …show more content…
Causing him to desire a version of America that will likely never happen. Lastly, this is furthered by Langston Hughes in “Let America Be America Again” with “I am the red man driven from the land,/ I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek,/ And finding only the same old stupid plan/ Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak" (Hughes). This quote furthers the idea that one’s environment impacts one’s American Dream and their pursuit of happiness and can cause one to be unachievable. This is because people come to America expecting to find a land of opportunities where their pursuit of happiness is constitutionally guaranteed and an American Dream is waiting for them to achieve. But this isn’t realistic; people are cutthroat and willing to do whatever it takes to survive, no matter who they are hurting, and often the poor are the victims of the rich. This idea continues throughout the stories with the characters’ interactions with each other. This is shown when Daisy is sad that she has a daughter but says it will be alright as long as she’s a fool, since a fool is the best thing a girl can be in the world …show more content…
These experiences caused him to hate the world (Dyson). This shows how Hughes’s personal experiences impacted his writing, because Hughes had a deep hatred for racism and this hatred was a frequent theme in his poems, making them very critical of the American Dream and the pursuit of happiness since they showed that these things weren't possible or achievable for minorities. This idea strengthened through Fitzgerald’s experiences specifically with, “At one point, he remarked.but his early death at age 44 prevented him from doing so.” (Lutz). This shows how Fitzgerald’s personal experiences impacted his writing because even though he seemed great on the outside, on the inside he was severely depressed. This depression played a massive part in his book The Great Gatsby, influencing his writing to show through a partially depressing setting that the pursuit of happiness doesn’t always end in joy, but sometimes it ends in sorrow. Every time Fitzgerald wrote, his debt would grow, and whenever he did finish his books, he would sell away their movie rights just so he would finally have enough money to pay back his loaners, but that still wasn’t
After reading both, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “Paradox and Dream” by John Steinbeck, it is extremely clear that both authors believe the American Dream differs from person to person. Though, the main similarity between American’s different versions of the American Dream is that each person wants more than they have. No matter the social status or salary, each person dreams of more; more money, a bigger home, a better job, etc.
The American Dream is something common to most individuals, however it's one thing that everybody views in several ways. The American Dream is totally different for everybody, however they share a number of a similar aspects of it. The dream relies mainly on the setting of wherever one lives and one‘s social status. for instance, The Declaration of Independence was by Thomas Jefferson, who was an upper class white male. He needed freedom, however freedom for people like himself that were white land owning people. martin luther King, in his I have a Dream speech, also demanded freedom, but mostly for African Americans like him. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his book the great Gatsby, that he wants to eliminate the rich, which he was a section of. every American Dream is somewhat totally different, however all of them relate to the days that one lives in.
Wealth, material possessions, and power are the core principles of The American Dream. Pursuit of a better life led countless numbers of foreign immigrants to America desiring their chance at the vast opportunity. Reaching the American Dream is not always reaching true happiness. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby achieves the American Dream, but his unrealistic faiths in money and life’s possibilities twist his dreams and life into useless life based on lies.
The phrase the American dream is contradictory to it’s meaning. The American dream was for most people just that, a dream. However, these very people had their hopes dashed and were forever lost. One could argue that a much more fitting and appropriate name for the American dream might as well be the American nightmare. In the 1920’s and early 30’s, the American dream was a beacon of hope as well as prosperity for anyone unfortunate enough to fall under it’s alluring curse, with an exception of a handful of people. What was given instead of this promise of wealth and dreams, what was given was the deterioration of dreams, and usually lives. Sadly, Lennie Small, from Of Mice and Men as well as Jay Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby was not the exceptions.
Americans live in constant pursuit of what they want more than anything, the American Dream. The perception of the American Dream varies from person to person, depending on what they hope to accomplish. In The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men the American Dream manifests in various extravagant and corrupt forms. The lives of these characters revolve around achieving their version of the American Dream.
The façade or belief of being able to achieve “The American Dream” has been repeatedly written about through centuries of American literature. Those words can describe a multitude of different feelings and meanings. In the article, “Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream”, Roger L. Pearson stated, “The American Dream, or myth, is an ever-recurring theme in American literature. … It is the belief that every man, whatever his origins, may pursue and attain his chosen goals, be they political, monetary, or social” (Pearson 1970). Pearson demands that the idea that every man is somehow able to achieve this so-called American dream no matter what social class they were born into or what obstacles
The American dream. Everyone has different opinions on what the American dream is. Their 'ultimate goal'; in life. The people in The Great Gatsby think they are living that dream, but I beg to differ. The only one who I believe is living out something close to the American dream is Tom, and I will prove so.
The concept of the American Dream has always been that everyone wants something in life, no matter if it is wealth, education, financial stability, safety, or a decent standard of living. In addition, everyone will try to strive to get what they want. The American Dream, is said to be that everyone should try and get what they hope they can get in life. In the play A Raisin in the Sun the author Hansberry tells us about a family where each has an American Dream, and Hughes in the poem “ Let America be America Again “is telling us to let America be the America that was free for us to obtain The American Dream. Hansberry and Langston see America like as a place to find the dream desired, although they also see limitation to obtain the American Dream, such as poverty, freedom, inequality, racism and discrimination.
Millions of immigrants flood into American with suitcases filled with nothing but hopes of achieving the American Dream. To walk down the streets paved with gold with golden cities in America: the land of opportunity became a universal dream. Unfortunately, when they arrived to America they were extreemly unhappy and disappointed because the streets are not paved with gold they are not paved at all and they have to pave them. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby emphasizes that this American Dream does not exist. The over rated American dream is just a big illusion it’s an unobtainable ideology that places hope upon its prey: purposeless, poor, damned from the start people like Gatsby and Myrtle and ultimately destroys them.
To do what makes oneself happy. The American Dream is represented in many different ways and every person lives and chases a different version of the American Dream. Chris McCandless lived his American dream by walking alone into the wilderness of Alaska. The song written by Toby Keith, “American Soldier”, shows the price some pay for their dreams and ours to come true. Jay Gatsby died trying to acheive his dream and get the girl he loved, but died happy because he had pursued her until his death. The band All Time Low wrote a song called “The Reckless and The Brave” that brings a new light to how we go about achieving our dreams. So I believe that the American Dream is all about doing what will make you the happiest in the end.
“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
America has been labeled "The land of opportunity," a place where it is possible to accomplish anything and everything. This state of mind is known as "The American Dream." The American Dream provides a sense of hope and faith that looks forward to the fulfillment of human wishes and desires. This dream, however, originates from a desire for spiritual and material improvement. Unfortunately, the acquisition of material has been tied together with happiness in America. Although "The American Dream" can be thought of as a positive motivation, it often causes people to strive for material perfection, rather than a spiritual one. This has been a truth since the beginnings of America, such as the setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, which is an example of this set in the 20’s. The characters in this novel are too fixed on material things, losing sight of what is really important.
The American Dream is exactly what it seems to be: the chance for people to have hope of achieving something great. However, it demands pleasure of every victory one has earned, and the desire is always demanding one to work slightly harder and gain slightly more than someone else. Some may say The American Dream is no longer attainable because in many ways it is getting harder to find good paying jobs and harder to get noticed for skills one possesses. But to the majority of people, the American Dream is still attainable, it just isn’t the American dream one is taught to pursue at an early age.
A lot of the time people visualize the American dream as having money; being rich and wealthy. However this may not work for people. They can have all the money in the world but they will never have obtained or reached what they believe is the American dream. A testament to this idea is Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
The ideology of the American Dream can be traced back to the flood of immigration in the early twentieth century. Families from European Countries sailed on boats from months to read the great promise America held. They left their home countries and everything they had to lead successful and prosperous lives in the US. Another form of the American Dream arose in the 1950s after the US successfully win World War II. Young men came back to their young wives and had many children, hence the name “baby-boom generation.” Soon Levittowns sprung up around the country, cookie-cutter houses divided by pristine white picket fences, to handle the population increase. In Arthur Miller’s 1949 classic, Death of a Salesman, the antagonists American Dream is to retire comfortably, pay off the house he raised his family in, and for his sons to have a steady job and settle down with a woman. His dreams are much like those of elder parents who want not only the best for themselves, but also the best for their family. My American Dream is different then those listed about though being prosperous and happy is a theme that ties them all together. Instead of the perfect conforming dream of the 1950s, I would have a more Cosmopolitan twist to it. Though everyone’s American Dream is different, they all have the some underlying tone: to be successful, comfortable, happy, and prosperous.