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The origin and essence of the american dream
Historical relevance to the Time Period of The Great Gatsby
Historical relevance to the Time Period of The Great Gatsby
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Started From The Bottom
“All men are created equal”. This is the foundation of the American Dream( Jefferson). The forefathers of the United States believed that all men have equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This appealed to those who needed a fresh start or that just wanted a better life and this ideal has become synonymous with the 20th century America because America prides itself on being the land of opportunity. America has many people from all over the world come to live there because they yearn for opportunity and freedom. Ever since the creation of the United States of America the American Dream has been advertised. In the past century the American Dream has been made known by the Roaring 20s and the post WW2 era. The American Dream used to mean that every man had equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but now it’s transformed into “Any man can walk into America with nothing and come out rich through hard work and dedication.”And so people took this dream to heart, making it their life dream to become rich.
In the 1920s the change of the American Dream began to change for the worse. The Dream changed from “life, liberty, pursuit of happiness” to “anyone can get rich” because America grew as a nation. After World War 1 the creation of cars, telephones, movies, and
electricity were factors that turned America into a superpower. The people of America started spending more and there was more room for entertainment. The American classic,The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel about the indulgence and excess wealth of the 1920s. Gatsby, the man whose belief in the American Dream was his downfall, lived in excess wealth ...
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Works Cited
Danzer, Gerald A. The Americans. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.
Death of a Salesman. Dir. Volker Schlöndorff. Perf. Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich. CBS, 1985. Web.
"Explore PBS." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. May 2014.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 1993. Print.
The Great Gatsby. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. WB, 2013. Film.
"History.com." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. May 2014.
MacDougall, Robert. N.p., n.d. Web. May 2014.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1976. Print.
"Dispelling the Top Eight Therapy Myths." Article. Wvu.edu. N.p., May 2014. Web. May 2014.
During the time of depression in the land, everyone dreamt for better, richer, and fuller life that made the U.S. writer James Truslow Adams to coin the term “the American Dream” in his book “The Epic of America.” It is not the dream that comes in the night and vanishes in the morning, but a dream to achieve the fullest stature with greater opportunity for everyone based on his/her ability or accomplishment. This is to get the social order where each woman and man have to be recognized for innate capabilities regardless of his/her birth and must be recognized for what they are.
... Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1996. Print. The. Sherk, James.
The 1920s changed many things from how people thought, acted, dressed, saw others, and it changed the way we see the American dream as. All this change did not all the sudden appear there was an event that caused this massive change in mentality and that was World war one. During the world war, the Americans bonded with each other, every American was on the same team ethnicity and class did not separate people from each other as much. “Americans all being on the same team, no matter economic class or ethnicity.[9] The World War I era was a time of strict moral codes with serious objectives to be accomplished, and, as any largely supported war time, produced huge economic success and prosperity, giving birth to the infamous Roaring Twenties.” (“The American Dream in the 1920s & 30s” Savannah Grantham). The strict morals and seriousness within the U.S. were a part of it too, everybody pitched in and everyone had their part. At the end of the World war there was a huge economic boom, financial success became a more reachable goal for everyone to grasp. A huge generation of men was wiped out during the war and the woman along with some men of the time just wanted to enjoy life, for many people that was expressed through reckless spending of money change of morals and way of thinking. Since the way of thinking changed so did the ideas but the main one was the American dream itself. “ From that point on, that very same idea of what it is to be an American could never be extinguished, but would instead endure and thrive into the renowned American Dream. American investors define the American Dream 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’ and believe that ‘The American dream is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking
The 1920s and 1930s were an extremely hard time. War, Great Depression, and illnesses spread throughout America. Even with all that tumbling the great people of this country, the American Dream lived on. The American Dream in the 1920s started at the immigrants who left their lives back in their home country to live their dream in America. Some of their dreams and reason why they came to america was for more freedom (Destination). They knew that America was the land of opportunity. They could easily find work and free land (DeLorenzo). Many were not welcomed in their country because a certain ethnic group or religion. America was there only choice to be free (Destination). Other than immigrants Americans were searching for their own identity. Many just barely surviving the great depression, they were now searching for steady jobs and wanting to become rich (American 2). Thats the Americans dream to become rich. They wanted to provide for their families. The great men of America tried to do all that while transitioning out of the great depression.
In the 1920s, the American Dream was much different from what we believe the American Dream is today. Although it is changing, the American Dream is also fading and people are making their own dreams. The American Dream is the traditional social ideals of the United States and many people’s lives revolve around trying to achieve what they perceive this dream as.
The American dream is the general belief that American Citizens all have an equal opportunity to succeed socially and economically, regardless of any predating circumstances. This idea has been accepted as possible by the majority of citizens in this country. This “dream” cannot be true, as there are multiple discriminations in this country, which make it impossible for everyone to have the same chance to succeed. Biases against racial minorities, women, and citizens from lower social classes are examples of just a few reasons that everyone does not have the same chance to succeed in our current economic and social system in America, resulting in unequal chances to achieve “the American Dream.”
Comparing the perspective of the American dream in the 1920’s to the American Dream in the 1940’s and present day seems to be a repeating cycle. The American dream is always evolving and changing. The American dream for present day is similar to the dream of the 1920’s. An Ideal of the American life is to conform to what our society has determined is success. Money, materialism and status had replaced the teachings of our founding fathers in the 1920’s. A return to family values and hard work found its way back into American’s lives in the 1940’s. The same pursuit of that indulgent lifestyle that was popular in the roaring twenty’s has returned today for most Americans, many Americans are living on credit and thinking that money and the accumulation of material items can solve all problems. Through film, literature, art and music, an idealized version of what it means to be an American has changed from money, materialism, and status of the 1920s to hard work and family values of the forties.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman; Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem. New York: Viking, 1949. Print.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Seventh Edition. X.J. Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999
"All Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among there are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". It is in this sentence from the Declaration of Independence, that the idea of the American dream has its roots. The phrase, “the American dream” can mean many different things, but among the most basic interpretation is that America is a land of opportunity and freedom for all who come to it. The idea of the American dream has influenced people to come to America in search of economic opportunities, political choice, and religious freedom.
Miller, Arthur “Death of a Salesman” Literature: Craft and Voice. Ed. Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2012. 205-13. Print.
The American Dream, in the 1920’s, turned into a greedy system of obtaining wealth. Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Nick Carraway, and Jordan Baker demonstrate that the American Dream has become corrupt through their symbolism in The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald. The American Dream is about the pursuit of happiness, and that everyone is equal in opportunity to obtain happiness. Yes, if you want to make money and become wealthy, you can do that, given that you work hard enough. But this is where things start to get corrupt. The most important things in life are the relationships that you form with the people around you. In the 1920’s, it was all about having money and expensive possessions. Jay Gatsby had a dream of him and Daisy living the rest of their lives together, happily in love, but that dream was crushed by Tom, and he was ended by George, thus destroying the last shreds of the American Dream.
Death of a salesman. : McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print. The. "
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Seventh Edition. X.J. Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999. 1636-1707.
When the term ‘American Dream’ was first mentioned in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, he described it as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” (Clark). When Adams mentioned the term, it had much more of an idealistic meaning, rather than the materialistic meaning it has in modern society. At the time of it’s mention, the dream meant that prosperity was available to everyone. In the beginning, the American Dream simply promised a country in which people had the chance to work their way up through their own labor and hard work (Kiger). Throughout history, the basis of the dream has always been the same for each individual person. It