The Great Gatsby : The American Dream

532 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Theme of the great Gatsby and how the author shows it in the book

In The Great Gatsby, one of the predominant themes is the death of thee American dream. In this, F. Scott Fitzgerald is showing how the American dream has become corrupt and that the dream is dead..

The Great Gatsby took place in the roaring twenties. A time when man no longer found happiness in simple pleasures like he did once such as life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is when the first breakdown in the American dream occurred. The idealization of the American dream was over, people took what they were born with for granted and did not miss what the never had.

Things that the dream stood for such, as life was not an issue that people talked about. There was an unspoken silence of live and let live even though there was vast amounts of discrimination. Liberty, a thing taken for granted since all born on American soil are free men and women, thus no one cherishes that part of the dream either. The pursuit of happiness is befuddling. Daisy makes this clear by saying 'Your revolting'; to tom. Obviously she's unhappy with tom yet she wont leave him for Gatsby. Daisy made this clear when Gatsby gave her the ring and she wouldn't ware it. And she said 'be my friend, be my lover'; meaning she wanted him yet she wanted her life of flirting with the in crowd more then she loved Gatsby. However this is a generation that is comparable to our generation x children in how lazy they were. The roaring twenties was an era off sophistication, technology and leisure. People had what they had ant what they didn't the lived with out.

The American dream itself is idealized. It was first thought of during the American Revolution as a way to keep spirits up. The motto, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not by any means a dream but an aspect of a way to make a certain reality for oneself. Then as time went on, the time period to actually make this dream a reality was passed over, people no longer lived a hard life or struggled for freedom. So the dream itself got left behind. We idealized it and later in the roaring twenties, that idealization was recognized by F Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby was Fitzgerald's cry out to the American people. A metaphor intended to make people aware that they had forgotten about the true pleasures in life and that they were wrapped up in the material world.

Show More
Related

  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    377 Words  | 1 Pages

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, the pursuit of the American dream in a corrupt period is a central theme. This theme exemplifies itself in the downfall of Gatsby. In a time of disillusionment the ideals of the American dream are lost. The classic American dream is one of materialism and when Gatsby incorporates Daisy, a human being, into the dream he is doomed to fail.

    Read More

  • The Residue of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald elucidates the hollowness of the American Dream, as the unrestrained longing for wealth and freedom exceeding more honorable desires. He illuminates the idea that having or attaining this American Dream will result in unethical behavior or unethical acts.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby and the American Dream

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Objectification of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Objectification of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby The American Dream is a major in American Literature. According to James Truslow Adams, in his book Epic of America, this dream promises a brighter and more successful future, coupled with a vision based on everybody being equal irrespective of their gender, caste and race. It emphasizes that everyone is innately capable of achieving his or her dreams with hard work. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the American Dream is portrayed by Jay Gatsby's vision of attaining the social status he desires.

    Read More

  • The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    The American Dream There is no set definition to be found anywhere of the true meaning of The American Dream. Any hope, dream, or goal pursued by anyone in the history of America is an American Dream. In modern times the accepted dream seems to be 2.5 children, a house with a white picket fence, and a perfect spouse. However, as it is shown throughout literature from the early days of America to contemporary times, the American Dream is not always so simple a concept. America was originally founded on the dream of freedom.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Complexities Of The American Dream

    654 Words  | 2 Pages

    A story isn’t a story without a deeper meaning. This proves true with the book The Great Gatsby, a book set in the roaring 20’s where the American Dream was the only thing on everyone’s mind. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald dives into the downside of the American Dream and the problems it causes. Through imagery, flashbacks, and irony, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes of the complexities of the American Dream.

    Read More

  • How The Great Gatsby Relates to the American Dream

    951 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Gatsby is a view into the society of the 1920's masterfully created my Fitzgerald. In this society the one and only Gatsby falls right into the middle. Gatsby is an exemplary example of one trying to live out the American Dream. "The American dream is the idea held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity." (Wikipedia) So basically the American Dream is to have money, and a family. Gatsby got his money, but what he really wanted was Daisy Buchanan.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby - The American Dream

    664 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Great Gatsby American Dream

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thesis: In this passage, Fitzgerald's stylistic choices illustrate his concern with America's path of loneliness and isolation if they continue to pursue a corrupted American dream.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby and the American Dream

    1547 Words  | 4 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby”, is one of the few novels he wrote in 1925. The novel takes place during the 1920’s following the 1st World War. It is written about a young man named Nick, from the east he moved to the west to learn about the bond business. He ends up moving next to a mysterious man named Gatsby who ends up giving him the lesion of his life.

    Read More

  • Degradation of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    956 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Jazz age was a convivial time known for innovation, creativity, and women pushing the limits of their new found freedom, but it was also a time of mourning and loss after the end of World War I. The combination of these emotions is what made the roaring twenties so unique, yet unstable. Before the twenties, the American dream had been to earn a stable income and raise a family in the great country that is America, but during the twenties the American dream became much more diminished as people worked for riches and luxuries that only a few could afford. In The Great Gatsby the main characters are striving for this dream of riches in a turbulent setting, but ironically are blinded by the distractions of the Jazz age and they do not realize until it is too late and that they have been walking away from their own dreams. During the Jazz age people partied, drank, and danced to their heart’s content, but little did they know that they were losing sight of the American dream.

    Read More

  • Gatsbys Pursuit Of The American Dream

    828 Words  | 2 Pages

    The American Dream had always been based on the idea that each person no matter who he or she is can become successful in life by his or her hard work. The dream also brought about the idea of a self-reliant man, a hard worker, making a successful living for him or herself. The Great Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream in the 1920s, a time period when the many people with newfound wealth and the need to flaunt it had corrupted the dream. The pursuit of the American Dream is the one motivation for accomplishing one's goals, however when combined with wealth the dream becomes nothing more than selfishness.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby and the American Dream

    864 Words  | 2 Pages

    The freedom in self endowment has always been the fuel to the average American citizen and his drive toward success. In other words, Americans always strive to achieve the ever so revered American Dream. What is the American Dream? David Kamp describes the American Dream as "the idea rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."(Kamp). The dream lies deeply rooted in American society and the very mention of it lights a passionate fire in the hearts of American citizens everywhere. The idea behind the dream is that if an individual has sufficient willpower, he or she has a fair chance of achieving wealth as well as the freedom and happiness that come packaged with it. Essentially, it offers the opportunity of achieving spiritual and material fulfillment. It promises success at the cost of hard work and perseverance. Over time however, this idea of attaining success through hard work and perseverance has been skewed into one which exploits greed and carelessness and The Great Gatsby is an excellent affirmation of this. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald derides the gradual corruption of hard work and perseverance in the American Dream by utilizing the motif of driving and incorporating it with the the ideas of greed and carelessness.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby: American Dream or American Nightmare?

    1747 Words  | 4 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Essay On The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream very elaborately and shows the idea of the American dream to be connected with the goal of achieving wealth. Fitzgerald does not praise wealth in the Great Gatsby but condemns it by drawing attention to the dreadful fall made by Gatsby. Fitzgerald finds the desire of wealth to be a corrupting impact on people. Throughout the novel, the characters with money contradict the idea of the American dream. They are portrayed to be very snobbish and unhappy people. The American dream in the novel is shown to be unachievable. For some time, the American dream has been focused upon material things that will gain people success.

    Read More

More about The Great Gatsby : The American Dream

Open Document