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The American Dream is an unobtainable goal to achieve happiness through power, fame and fortune. The American Dream is common to everyone; however, people view it in different ways. It is dependent on where one lives and their social status. Unfortunately, the Dream is often based on people's desire for material goods. Fitzgerald states,"A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about" explains the emptiness of an existence with realization of a corrupted ideal. Materialism was a major component in the time of the book and still a characteristic of modern societies today. People were and still are attracted to be in a higher class of living and everybody wants to be wealthy. …show more content…
Not only has it motivated Daisy, but it also motivated Myrtle to take risks with Wilson. In chapter 2, Tom takes Nick to see Myrtle in Queens, New York. They end up going into a New York apartment with Tom hosting a 'meeting'. It is obvious to the reader about Myrtle's infatuation with wealth. Myrtle regrets in marrying Wilson: "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman. I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe." (Fitzgerald 37). She thought he could support her, but realized later that he was borrowing the suit from a friend. In Myrtle's eyes, money is an escape from the Valley of Ashes, money can buy class and help bring social status. This can be a reason why Myrtle has an affair with Tom in order to achieve pleasure from his money to buy materials. Overall, Myrtle's materialism is her motivation. On the other hand, students in society have similar motivations. Today, many new college undergraduates serve to a higher paid job than a job one would like. In order to satisfy these students, they want high paid jobs and high social status. However, Fitzgerald clearly explained that continuing these materialistic ways can harm oneself. Money cannot be a satisfactory feature for everything one buys. Ryan T. Howell, Ph.D. in psychology, states that there might be a link to materialism as "relative deprivation". In this case, living in a strong, wealthy economy may change one's living standards. Usually people are just pressured by others around them and need to live up to that standard. People who buy so much materials tries to create an image for lower classes to look up
Andrew T. Crosland, an expert on the Jazz Age writings of author F.Scott Fitzgerald, wrote that Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby included over 200 references to cars (Crosland). This is not surprising as the automobile, like the flapper were enticing novelties at the time this book was written. The main characters in The Great Gatsby who, by the way, all drive cars are Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle and George Wilson. Attractive, yet enigmatic, Gatsby tries to win the love of an aristocratic woman, who rebuffs Gatsby for her upper class husband. This leads to Gatsby’s tragic murder after he is falsely accused of killing Myrtle with his Rolls Royce. The automobile, as
The dawn of the 20th century was met with an unprecedented catastrophe: an international technological war. Such a horrible conflict perhaps threatened the roots of the American Dream! Yet, most do not realize how pivotal the following years were. Post war prosperity caused a fabulous age for America: the “roaring twenties”. But it also was an era where materialism took the nation by storm, rooting itself into daily life. Wealth became a measure of success and a facade for social status. This “Marxist materialism” threatened the traditional American Dream of self-reliance and individuality far even more than the war a decade before. As it morphed into materialistic visions (owning a beautiful house and car), victims of the change blindly chased the new aspiration; one such victim was Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. As his self-earned luxury and riches clashed with love, crippling consequences and disasters occur. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby delves into an era of materialism, exploring how capitalism can become the face of social life and ultimately cloud the American Dream.
The American Dream is the concept that anyone, no matter who he or she is, can become successful in his or her life through perseverance and hard work. It is commonly perceived as someone who was born and starts out as poor but ambitious, and works hard enough to achieve wealth, prosperity, happiness, and stability. Clearly, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to personify the destruction of the American Dream. Gatsby started out as a poor farming boy, meticulously planning his progression to become a great man.
What is the American dream? The simplest version of the American dream is a nice house and family, with the white picket fence in the front yard. For many families this dream came true, but for others, it was not quite possible to achieve. In Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Nick gives his thoughts on Gatsby after things between him and Daisy fall through. He says “He must have felt he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream…” (8). When you concentrate on just one dream you are blind to other alternatives and dreams. With your mind set so tight on one idea, you are unconsciously setting yourself up for failure because you have no back up plan. The 1920s seemed to be full of wealth and fame but this was not valid. According to statistics, “It is a fact that millions of people lived below the poverty line in the 1920s”. It is clear now that you always need another dream to fall back on. Because of the fallacy of the American dream, many people were left with nothing because what they strived for was not sufficiently backed up.
The world is filled with cheapskates, phonies, and two-faced people. Many use others for their own benefits. In The Great Gatsby, through the motif of superficiality, Fitzgerald critiques the theme that displaying materialism and superficiality can ruin true love and a chance at true love. Objects cannot define a relationship; it should be the feelings developed that defines the relationship of two people. The characteristic of materialism is a barrier for true love between two people. Nick Carraway has just moved to a West Egg, and his mysterious neighbor is Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s long living dream is to rekindle his love and relationship with Daisy Buchanan, who is currently married to Tom Buchanan. He attempts to pursue his relationship with Daisy through his unexplained wealth. However, their love couldn’t be true because of their focus on “things” rather than each other.
Despite how impossible it is, every person tries to achieve his or her dream so they can be happy or successful. The American Dream is being more powerful or better than anyone was before. In his stories Fitzgerald argues that this “American Dream” cannot be reached. No matter what it is, be it topping the social ladder, or getting the girl, or just being satisfied with one’s life, it just cannot be reached. There is always something stopping one from achieving one’s dream. Whether it is disadvantages or limitations sprung from social status, or other uncontrollable barriers blocking the dream, it is not something that can ever truly be enjoyed.
The American Dream The American Dream was the philosophy that brought people to America and to start a new life in a strange, foreign land. Due to this dream, it was believed that America was the land of opportunity, wealth, and prosperity. The dream consists of three components: all men are equal, man can trust and should help his fellow man, and the good, virtuous and hard working are rewarded. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a condemnation of American Society and focuses on its downfall.
In the 1920’s, America changed its way of living from being more religiously based to being more materialistic. The idea that social status was directly related to how rich you were and how much you had was very strict in the 1920’s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby highlighting the culture and materialism of the 1920’s like the riskier dresses that put more emphasis on the body than the woman’s personality, the boom of the illegal alcohol production a very addictive substance but specifically at parties, a place to flash social status. Gatsby, though, holds extremely expensive and boisterous parties not so that he can flash his money, but to catch the eye of Daisy, the love of his life who lives on the opposite Egg of Long Island.
Some people get so caught up in the dreams and fantasies of life that they forget what can actually be achieved. They set goals so high and think they have all the power in the world to obtain a goal that ultimately fails. One may pour all of one’s money into the goal, or every second of one’s day, or every ounce of energy in one’s body just to fail. Everything one ever wished for may be simply unattainable. It leads to the ultimate feeling of disappointment. In 2012, Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, felt disappointment and sadness when he lost the election. During some interviews after losing the election Romeny expressed his emotions after losing all that he worked for, “We were convinced we would win… It 's hard,
Materialism has a negative influence on the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The most terrible thing about materialism even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offers a prospect of deliverance.” This quote, stated by Malcolm Muggeridge, says that people get bored with the things that they have when they get new things all of the time. When they get bored with these things, they turn to stuff like sex, alcohol, and drugs. In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle, Daisy, and Gatsby are greatly influenced by money, and material things. The negative influence that materialism has on these characters is shown throughout the entire novel.
The American Dream, which was started out as a good intention, was eventually perverted in the 1920s. In the world of The Great Gatsby, the American Dream is synonymous with money and status. Most of the characters reveal themselves to be highly materialistic, their motivations driven by their desire for money and material goods.
The acquisition of material wealth is often equated with happiness in this country. This is true today, and it was true during the 1920's, the setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. That the majority of Americans believe that wealth and happiness are the same is a result of our market economy that encourages consumption and conditions us to think that we need material possessions to be happy. According to Andrew Bard Schmookler, "Wealth and human fulfillment have become equated in the predominant ideology of liberal society, even though the great spiritual teachers of humanity have all taught otherwise." (17)
As our society has become more modern and advanced, there has been an increase in the desire to acquire more material wealth. There are several examples of this phenomenon present in society. Celebrities in the entertainment industry help to fuel the world's desire for material materialistic gain by flaunting themselves publicly. In today’s world, it's common to witness people choosing money or status over family and good morals. The increase in this self centered behaviour is problematic to our society because true values and morals are being erased as the gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider. There are people in the world who use materialistic gains in order to fill a void such as emptiness or loneliness but these possessions
What is the American Dream? As James Truslow coined in 1931 " A dream of land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper class to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, able be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position"(Truslow). Most believe that it 's a place and a system where everyone have an equal
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: