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The great gatsby by fitzgerald summary essay
The Story Behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Literary analysis on the great gatsby
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If the American Dream means economic upward mobility, happiness, stability, and general success in a rags-to-riches type of story, Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby should have been the perfect example of it. Most discourse surrounding Fitzgerald's ultimate comment regarding the American Dream deals with whether the author intended the readers to take a away an overall hopeful versus an ironic view when it comes to people actually believing in the American Dream. However, one perspective is that Fitzgerald did not intend the reader have a one-sided stance on the question, but rather the reader is meant to see the duality of how believing in the American dream is hopeful and valid, even though the reality of achieving it is futile because the disillusionment between what someone expected …show more content…
of the dream and what it turns out to be causes irreparable damage to the individual. Therefore, the reality of possessing the American Dream is worth less than the hope that motivates the American public to stay determined through believing in that same dream. Fitzgerald illustrates this through establishing the differences between the environments Gatsby, and Myrtle and George Wilson find themselves in, while simultaneously proving that it is the disillusionment that comes from getting closer and closer to obtaining the Dream, whether one achieves it or not, is what prompts these characters downfalls.
First, Fitzgerald juxtaposes the West Egg and the Valley of Ashes to establish Gatsby and Myrtle’s socioeconomic situations. The Valley of Ashes is where Myrtle and George Wilson live, and it is always described as an incredibly grey, bleak, lowly, dirty, and overall miserable environment. The Valley of Ashes is also characterized by how desolate it seems even though there are too many people crammed all together; all there trying to make a living. Meanwhile, the West Egg is Gatsby’s home: luxurious, extravagant, grand, and spacious; a mansion people stand in awe of for its splendour. It is always engulfed in light, natural or artificial, since another characteristic aspect of the West Egg are Gatsby’s parties held all throughout the summer. The food, the drink, and the entertainment all in excess, and open to anyone who shows up. An amalgamation of humanity where
everyone is a stranger to each other. Nearly no one is there by invitation considering all anyone knows about their generous host is, if they’re fortunate enough, his name and the rest is exciting speculation most of which is in Gatsby’s worship. If one had to make a split-second judgement to argue whose level of happiness is higher between Gatsby and Myrtle, it would make sense to argue that Gatsby has everything to be grateful and happy about. He has an incredible amount of wealth, the home of most people’s dreams, fame to last a lifetime if he keeps up what he’s playing at. Right? However, there is, perhaps, some truth to the saying “money can’t buy happiness”. Myrtle and her husband George are poor and their marriage is a mess, so having an improved economic situation should improve their lives. Then there’s James Gatz, Gatsby’s real name, started out as a poor man from a poor family himself, and while Jay Gatsby may have more wealth, he is stuck hoping to be reunited with a lost love who lives across the bay, Daisy, who unfortunately is married to Tom Buchanan who happens to be having an affair with Myrtle. Gatsby was unhappy, then reached for the dream, achieved it, and is still unhappy. Myrtle is very unhappy, decides to reach for it on her own, almost achieves it, and fails. George is unhappy, but has every plan to flourish and hopes to succeed eventually, yet is betrayed and left devastated anyways. Therefore, as a baseline Fitzgerald has established that the amount of wealth one has may not make a difference in how happy one is. Yet, if believing in the American Dream is what is meant to guide one to wealth, success, and happiness, why does it all go wrong?
No two people are going to share the exact same goals, and while many people’s dreams run along the same pathways towards security, money, love, and companionship, the route by which to get there and the destination should be left entirely to the dreamer. By creating an institution such as the American Dream, goals become oversimplified. The American dream boils happiness down into two or three facets, which everyone seems to try desperately to conform to, but people cannot be told what to like. As conformists, though, everyone will attempt to seem perfectly happy with a lot they never chose as they live a dream they never wanted. Nothing showcases this more clearly than the rampant unhappiness of the characters in The Great Gatsby. None of the people the world would consider ‘successful’ end the novel happy; instead they are left either emotionally hollow or entirely dead. Their failure at achieving real and true happiness is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s way of criticizing the relentless pursuit of a phony American
The American Dream offers opportunity, equality, liberty, and social mobility to those who have lost their place, such as immigrants, African Americans, and white males with little wealth. This national ethos can supposedly be achieved through hard work, and determination with few social barriers. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, illustrates the unreachable American Dream that so many have stopped fighting for. While the American dream may theoretically promise equality for all, social status will either hinder or improve an individual 's chances of success. Through rhetorical strategies such as imagery, symbolism, and diction, Fitzgerald’s interpretation of the American Dream is developed.
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.
The American Dream states that with hard work people come rich. Fitzgerald questions this value. Gatsby’s story presents the unrealisticness/falsehood of the tradition/original American dream.
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.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel The Great Gatsby, common themes integrated into the story include love, wealth, the past and desperation. Of these themes, desperation is the most prominent. Fitzgerald writes desperation into his characters so deeply that the reader can feel what the characters feel. Examples of desperation within characters include the unreachable love, wealth, new life, and overall happiness.
While everyone has a different interpretation of the "American Dream," some people use it as an excuse to justify their own greed and selfish desires. Two respected works of modern American literature, The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman, give us insight into how the individual interpretation and pursuit of the "American Dream" can produce tragic results. Jay Gatsby, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, built his "American Dream" upon the belief that wealth would win him acceptance. In pursuit of his dream, Gatsby spent his life trying to gain wealth and the refinement he assumes it entails. Jay Gatsby, lacking true refinement, reflects the adolescent image of the wealthy, and "[springs] from his Platonic conception of himself" (Fitzgerald 104).
Disillusionment and hope go hand in hand with one another in the aspect that hope often leads to disillusionment. If one aspirations, one can often be blinded and disappointed by the effects when one’s desires do not turn out the way one desires, leading to disillusionment. According to Sven Birkets, a critic, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is one about “disillusionment and hope”.In F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby the character of Tom Buchanan experiences his own taste of disillusionment while Jay Gatsby encounters hope in his own life.
The American Dream is a concept that has been wielded in American Literature since its beginnings. The ‘American Dream’ ideal follows the life of an ordinary man wanting to achieve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The original goal of the American dream was to pursue freedom and a greater good, but throughout time the goals have shifted to accumulating wealth, high social status, etc. As such, deplorable moral and social values have evolved from a materialistic pursuit of happiness. In “Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity”, Roland Marchand describes a man that he believed to be the prime example of a 1920’s man. Marchand writes, “Not only did he flourish in the fast-paced, modern urban milieu of skyscrapers, taxicabs, and pleasure- seeking crowds, but he proclaimed himself an expert on the latest crazes in fashion, contemporary lingo, and popular pastimes.” (Marchand) This description shows material success as the model for the American Dream. In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald reveals the characterization of his characters through the use of symbols and motifs to emphasize the corruption of the American Dream.
Restraining the American people, the rigid structure of society evokes a strong desire to rebel against societal pressure, seen in many pieces of American literature. In many of their novels, American authors portray this feeling as being the most strong in youth, or those in transition to adulthood. Helplessly, these individuals feel as if they are not quite adults, but also not children. For this reason they are confused by societal expectations, and in return rebel. According to Salinger, many young American individuals feel confined by the expectations of society. In like manner, they go against the wishes of others in order to find themselves. In many cases a sense of being held back by society catalyzes rebellion. Naturally, individuals
“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.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. The American Dream, a long-standing ideal, embodies the hope that one can achieve financial success, political power, and everlasting love through dedication and hard work. During the Roaring 20s, people in America put up facades to mask who they truly were. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald conveys that the American Dream is simply an illusion, that is idealist and unreal.
Many of us strive to live the American dream. Everyone has a different American dream, such as, to make money, to have better lives, or to simply have a career. Determined poor people will attempt to do anything in their power to attain their dream. Others are born with money and can effortlessly become anything they want. You might hear about the American dream every day, but it is not always accomplished. If the dream is somehow not succeeded humanity could be in agony for the rest of their lives. “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald 101). The character Gatsby cannot get over his love of Daisy no matter how poorly she treats him. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby the author conveys the theme about the American dream and defines the understanding of social class.
Frances Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is written in the 1920’s setting and focuses on the American Dream. Gatsby, the protagonist, strives to make his American Dream, the achievement of wealth, social status, and family a reality but fails by paying the ultimate sacrifice—his life. Today, many people believe in coming to America to pursue the American Dream, yet they do not realize they are pursuing an inexistent achievement. People pay a high price as well because they spend so much of their lives working on achieving their dream and when they fail, it is as if they wasted their entire life. Similar to Gatsby’s efforts, today’s society defines the American Dream in the same way as Gatsby, causing people to sacrifice their morals, friendships, and lives in their journey towards this unattainable dream.
With new modernist American literature, Americans lose faith in their traditional beliefs and values, including the American dream. Many novels used the concept of the American dream to make people question whether the dream still existed in the mist of the First World War and the Great Depression. In describing the American dream, one is led to believe that the individual is led to self-triumph, and their life will progressively get better and better in America. In Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, the American dream is perceived originally by the thought of discovery and the pursuit of happiness. Money, parties, and relaxed social views came with ease to the American people in the 1920s. However, Fitzgerald demonstrates how the American soldiers re...