The American Dream In John Smith, Jay Gatsby And Willy Loman

John Smith, Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman all spend their lives trying for something extraordinary. Gatsby and Loman seek to fulfill the very dream which brought John Smith to America, the American dream. A dream in which one comes to American and preserves themselves and " may quickly grow rich" (Descriptions of New England). However, all fail to realize that the American Dream would not be a dream if all could achieve it, and more importantly that a dream by its very nature is not real .

In John Smith’s “A description of New England “ he writes about, In his writing he says that “May quickly grow rich” in the new world. Even “if he have nothing but his hands he may set up his trade, and by industry quickly grow rich, spending but half the time well which in England we abuse in idleness, worse as ill” (Descriptions of New England). In his “Descriptions of New England” Smith writes of land where one “may quickly grow rich” (Descriptions of New England)in the new world. In writing this Smith pioneers the fabled american dream, which he too strives to achieve, of

Instead Jay Gatsby returns, where we comes to America and fundamentally reinvents himself by rejecting his past as Jimmy Gatz by virtue of the fact that he wants to be special and by changing his name he rejects his past and his parents as “his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all” (Gatsby Page 83), Instead he wanted to represent " all the beauty and glamour in the world” (Gatsby page 100). Jay Gatsby wanted to be considered more than just a average person, he wanted to attain enough wealth and affluence to be an extraordinary person. Gatsby seeks to preservation through achieving the American dream, this is clear through his very transformation to a man with “a blue coat, six pairs of white duck trousers, and a yachting cap” (Gatsby page