The Dichotomy of the American Dream: The Tragic Story of Jay Gatsby Most people’s dreams would be winning the lottery or being on the moon, but for Jay Gatsby, his was to pursue the American dream. Back in the day, the possibility of becoming rich or wealthy was next to impossible. The only thing people could do to become rich was to achieve the American dream, just like Gatsby. But, Gatsby had to endure a lot of ups and downs along the way. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s relentless pursuit of wealth and social status, exemplifying the American Dream in the 1920s, not only reveals the hollow core of such ambitions but also critiques the moral decay and disillusionment embedded within this ideal. Reaching a certain …show more content…
Gatsby’s adoration and pursuit of Daisy fuels his belief that being with her will make him happy. In his mind, Daisy personifies all that he aspires to have and being with her will make him feel successful in society. “He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes”(Fitzgerald 74). This passage is a good example of how much Gatsby valued Daisy's affection and approval. He was constantly fixated on trying to impress Daisy and win her love. He valued his worth and those of his possessions based on Daisy’s perception of them and thought that Daisy’s opinion was all that mattered. “To Gatsby Daisy is “the golden girl”, who belongs to a world in which money rules people’s minds. He knows very well that the only way of regaining her love is to offer her the lifestyle she is used to. From that moment, Gatsby devoted his dreams, and thus himself entirely, to getting Daisy back to him in the sense that his acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of an extravagant mansion on West Egg and his lavish parties are all merely means to achieve that end”(Bakri 28). This passage illustrates how much Gatsby idealized Daisy and her wealth and social stature. He understands that in order to win her love, he will also need to be wealthy and powerful. As a result, he becomes focused on accumulating wealth and social status so he can impress her and prove worthy of her affection. Gatsby believes that the American Dream of acquiring material possessions and belonging to upper echelons of society defines one’s worth. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby”, Jay Gatsby's relentless quest for wealth and societal prominence, emblematic of the American Dream during the 1920s, serves to expose the inherent emptiness of these aspirations while also
In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives the reader a glimpse into the life of the high class during the 1920’s through the eyes of a man named Nick Carraway. Through the narrator's dealings with high society, Fitzgerald demonstrates how modern values have transformed the American dream's ideas into a scheme for materialistic power and he reveals how the world of high society lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support his message, Fitzgerald presents the original aspects of the American dream along with its modern face to show that the wanted dream is now lost forever to the American people. Jay Gatsby had a dream and did everything he could to achieve it however in the end he failed to. This reveals that the American dream is not always a reality that can be obtained. Fitzgerald demonstrates how a dream can become corrupted by one’s focus on acquiring wealth and power through imagery, symbolism, and characterization.
The novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, deals heavily with the concept of the American Dream as it existed during the Roaring Twenties, and details its many flaws through the story of Jay Gatsby, a wealthy and ambitious entrepreneur who comes to a tragic end after trying to win the love of the moneyed Daisy Buchanan, using him to dispel the fantastic myth of the self-made man and the underlying falsities of the American Dream. Despite Gatsby’s close association with the American Dream, however, Fitzgerald presents the young capitalist as a genuinely good person despite the flaws that cause his undoing. This portrayal of Gatsby as a victim of the American Dream is made most clear during his funeral, to which less than a handful
Through the use of symbolism and critique, F. Scott Fitzgerald is able to elucidate the lifestyles and dreams of variously natured people of the 1920s in his novel, The Great Gatsby. He uses specific characters to signify diverse groups of people, each with their own version of the “American Dream.” Mostly all of the poor dream of transforming from “rags to riches”, while some members of the upper class use other people as their motivators. In any case, no matter how obsessed someone may be about their “American Dream”, Fitzgerald reasons that they are all implausible to attain.
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has indisputably been one of the most influential and insightful pieces on the corruption and idealism of the American Dream. The American Dream, defined as ‘The belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone,’ was a dominant ideal in American society, stemming from an opportunist pioneer mentality. In his book ‘The American Tradition in Literature’, Bradley Sculley praised The Great Gatsby for being ‘perhaps the most striking fictional analysis of the age of gang barons and the social conditions that produced them.’ Over the years, greed and selfishness changed the basic essence of the American Dream, forming firmly integrated social classes and the uncontainable thirst for money and status. The ‘Roaring Twenties’ was a time of ‘sustained increase in national wealth’ , which consequently led to an increase in materialism and a decrease in morality. Moreover, the
Critics agree that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is not only a social commentary on the roaring twenties but also a revelation of the disintegration of the American Dream. Jay Gatsby embodies this smashed and illusionary dream; he is seen as a “mythic” (Bewley 17) individual, as “the end product of the American Dream” (Lehan 109) and as a representative of “man’s headlong pursuit of a dream all the way across a continent and back again” (Moyer 219). The factors that contributed to the destruction of this American fantasy are materialism, moral waste, and spiritual transgressions. As a direct result of this fallen hope, the characters search in vain for fulfillment in wasteful and trivial pursuits. Fitzgerald portrays the American Dream by as a pure fairy tale.
When Gatsby was growing up he had imagined becoming a millionaire and while he had been working for a millionaire he decided that he wanted to achieve afflation. In addition, in the past when Gatsby was with Daisy, Gatsby left her because he was in a low income social class and he thought that he wasn’t good enough for her; he thought that she didn’t want to settle for a man without money. For example, when Gatsby and Daisy were young, Nick Carraway explained the life of Gatsby as “ A son of god--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about his father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98). Carraway describes Gatsby as a person who was dedicated to his dream and his dream was to become rich and to get Daisy back. Moreover, Carraway explained “Faithful to the end” (98), in a way that meant to imply that Gatsby pursued his idea of being wealthy. In addition, Gatsby not only becomes wealthy to obtain Daisy but she also represents a trophy to him. If he has Daisy he can show everyone that he was able to have her back into his
While there are numerous themes throughout the text of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the most prominent is that of the American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that any person, no matter what he or she is, or from where he or she has come, can become successful in life by his or her hard work; it is the idea that a self-sufficient person, an entrepreneur, can be a success. In this novel, however, it is the quest for this ‘dream’ (along with the pursuit of a romantic dream) that causes the ultimate downfall of Jay Gatsby.
The American dream is a farce. Hopeful American children and quixotic foreigners believe that freedom will lead to prosperity, and that prosperity will bring happiness. This anticipation of joy will never come to fruition, and all these unfortunate people will feel that they were cheated out of happiness by some unlucky roll of dice, but really they have been chasing cars, because the American dream is not something one can truly capture, but only smoke trapped in the palm of a hand. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s lavish parties, characterized by music, dancing, and illegal alcohol, are a representation of the corruption of society’s values, and are filled with guests only concerned with material things as they step further and further away from the moral values that once dictated the lives of those before them. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s parties to illustrate the “roaring” twenties as a time of gluttonous people who have abandoned moral values like wrecked ships in a storm of trivial desires as they chase the happiness that the American dream promises.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, perfectly symbolizes many emerging trends of the 1920’s. More importantly, the character of Jay Gatsby is depicted as a man amongst his American dreams and the trials he faces in the pursuit of its complete achievement. His drive to acquire the girl of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan, through gaining status and wealth shows many aspects of the author's view on the American dream. Through this, one can hope to disassemble the complex picture that is Fitzgerald’s view of this through the novel. Fitzgerald believes, through his experiences during the 1920’s, that only fractions of the American Dream are attainable, and he demonstrates this through three distinct images in The Great Gastby.
Scott Fitzgerald’s book “The Great Gatsby”, Jay Gatsby's american dream was to earn wealth, to portray himself wealthy and high standard in front of society. To create a reputation of a prosperous man, he wasted his money in possessions and parties to impress Daisy. Daisy belonged to a royal family. Daisy had mentality that “a rich girl would never marry a poor boy”. She loved Gatsby only when he accomplished wealth, but as soon as she realized that Gatsby would be in a big trouble, she left him and did not cared about his money anymore. In this example, we can see that the wealth earned was fruitless, it neither provided love nor care. Instead, it made the beautiful girl turn out ugly from within. Gatsby died leaving behind his wealth. His wealth never gave him happiness or
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the idea of the American Dream as well as the portrayal of social classes. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. By creating two distinct social classes ‘old money’ and ‘new money’, Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the underlying elitism and moral corruption of society. The idea of the American dream is the idea that opportunity is available to any American, allowing their highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. In the case of The Great Gatsby it centres on the attainment of wealth and status to reach certain positions in life, which Fitzgerald’s protagonist sets out to achieve even if it means moral corruption.
Thesis Statement: In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s relentless pursuit of wealth and social status, exemplifying the American Dream in the
The American dream has an inspiring connotation, often associated with the pursuit of happiness, to compel the average citizen to prosper. In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s infatuation for Daisy drives him towards wealth in order to respark his love. Due to Daisy’s rich background, the traditional idea of love becomes skewed because of the materialistic mindsets of people in the 1920s. In the novel the wealthy are further stratified into two social classes creating a barrier between the elite and the “dreamers”. Throughout the novel, the idea of the American dream as a fresh start fails. As Nick, the narrator, spends time in New York, he realizes the corruption pursuing goals. Characters such as Gatsby and Myrtle constantly strive toward an the American dream, which Nick realizes to be fruitless in the end.
The pursuit of the American Dream has been alive for generations. People from nations all over the world come to America for the chance to achieve this legendary dream of freedom, opportunity, and the “all American family”. However, in the 1920’s this dream began to take a different form. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, unfolds what the American Dream really meant during the roaring 20’s. The Great Gatsby tells a story of the affluent Jay Gatsby and his dream of attaining the love of the married Daisy Buchanan. In this novel, Gatsby’s dream of love is unmasked and reviled as a dream of materialistic things. Fitzgerald shows that each character truly glorifies only money, power, and social stature. During the 1920’s, these things were the only thing people dreamt about. The symbolism in The Great Gatsby illustrates how the American Dream became corrupt in the 1920’s.
Since the early colonization of America, the American dream has been the ultimate symbol for success. In retrospect, the dreamer desires to become wealthy, while also attaining love and high class. Though the dream has had different meanings in time, it is still based on individual freedom, and a desire for greatness. During the 19th century, the typical goal was to settle in the West and raise a family. However, the dream progressively transformed into greediness and materialism during the early 20th century. The indication of success soon became focused on wealth and luxury. The Great Gatsby is a story focused on the deterioration of the American dream. Throughout the novel, Jay Gatsby is shown with a desire to achieve his dream by all means. Utilizing the Roaring Twenties as part of his satire, Fitzgerald criticizes the values of the American dream, and the effects of materialism on one’s dream.