The almighty American Dream is like getting trapped… you can’t make it out. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is set in the early 1900’s along with the prohibition era. People were making easy money by bootlegging alcohol and the stock market was booming. Jay Gatsby was one of those people, he needed that quick and easy money. The inevitable death of Gatsby and Myrtle delineates the American Dream they tried to have dying with them. The West Egg and the East Egg reveal the difference in grasping the American Dream. The West Egg is known as ‘new money’, people who attain their wealth. The East Egg is notorious for being ‘old money’, the people that grew up with or inherited their fortune. East Egg tends to be more pristine, “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water” (10). Gatsby almost tries to use his money to buy his happiness, Daisy. Since Gatsby grew up without money and worked his way up to being a West Egger, he didn’t know what his money could really get him to an extent. “There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among …show more content…
the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his motor-boats slid the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains”(43). Every party Gatsby threw was all about the materials on the outside. Take a closer look and it’s noticeable that what Gatsby actually wants is his true love, Daisy. He thought the party would attract Daisy to finally reconnect with him. After all the trouble he went through to throw these parties, all of his materialistic lures failed him. Money cannot buy happiness.
No matter how hard Gatsby tried to be happy, his wealth didn’t do it for him, “I’d never understood it before. It was full of money-that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it… High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl…” (127). Daisy wouldn’t marry him when he was poor and still wouldn’t marry him when he gained wealth and sophistication. Daisy has a rich husband, a child, a big house and can lounge around, yet she’s still not happy. She’s not out in the city struggling to survive, she has loads of things to do but can’t seem to find anything to fit her high expectations, “‘What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?’ cried Daisy, ‘and the day after that, and the next thirty
years?’”(125). Moving up on the social ladder never ends well. In The Great Gatsby Myrtle dies, and she was most definitely trying to climb her way up. She had a loving husband, but he wasn’t enough because he was just a car mechanic and not too much money, “‘... He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in and never even told me about it’” (39), Myrtle wasn’t satisfied with her caring husband George, instead she wanted wealthy, abusive Tom Buchanan. Obviously that didn’t work out too well considering she was killed in an ironic hit and run. Gatsby worked his way up from rags to riches in order to be sufficient for Daisy, “He talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…” (117). He died and his lover fled with her prosperous husband. It seems as if there’s a sort of pattern behind this fatal love story. The American Dream is a sly, lethal trap. As soon as someone tries to grasp it, they die, soon as someone grasps it, they die… either metaphorically or they physically die. James Gatz died metaphorically as soon as he decided to change his persona. As soon as someone is born into a wealthy family they live a happy life. Fitzgerald had a vision of the social ladder that he portrayed as a type of ruse. Myrtle and Gatsby both got caught up in the ruse of wealth as happiness and their inevitable death was upon them.
Because of his wealth, everything in Gatsby’s life hints at having power through status and money, but he is not happy because all he wants to do is be with hard to reach Daisy; she is the reason why he acquires the materialistic things he does in the first place.
The East and West Egg are two opposite parts of Long Island. The East Egg is where people of old money reside, like Daisy and Tom, who have inherited the riches of the aristocracy. However, the West Egg is the home of the nouveau riche or new money. It is where Gatsby and Nick reside, who have accumulated great wealth on their own. Fitzgerald contrasts these two places and the characters from each Egg to highlight the cultural clash in the 1920’s between old and new money and the contrasting theme of corruption and morality.
In the novel entitled the great Gatsby, the ideals of the so called American dream became skewed, as a result of the greediness and desires of the main characters to become rich and wealthy. These character placed throughout the novel emphasize the true value money has on a persons place in society making wealth a state of mind. The heart of the whole notion of wealth lies in the setting of the novel, the east and west eggs of New York City. The west egg was a clustering of the "Nouveau riche" or the newly acquired rich, and the east egg was where the people who inherited their riches resided.
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 caused 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 of people attend. Gatsby makes many mistakes throughout the novel, all of which Fitzgerald uses these blunders as a part of his thematic deconstruction of the American Dream.
American clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger once said “The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it is possible to achieve the American dream.” This idea of the “American dream” has been around since the founding and has become a prominent part of American culture and identity. This same idea is what the raved about novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is based around. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, pursues this American dream through his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan and his need to be insanely rich.
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has remained a spot-on representation of a time in American history in which the people believed anything was possible. Gatsby is the definition of this idea. The underlying cause of everything in this novel is his--and in essence everyone’s idea. This idea is the ubiquitous notion of the American Dream. And Fitzgerald does not only write about the American Dream, but about its corruption as well. This following quote truly epitomizes what the American Dream had become in the eyes of Fitzgerald:
The Great Gatsby,a novel by F,Scott Fitzgerald,is about the American Dream,and the downfall of the people who try to reach it.The American Dream means something different to different people,but in The Great Gatsby,for Jay Gatsby,the subject of the book,the dream is that through acquiring wealth and power,one can also gain happiness.To reach his idea of what happiness is,Gatsby must go back in time and relive an old dream.To do this,he believes,he must first have wealth and power.
The society of the mid nineteen-twenties, as depicted by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his novel “The Great Gatsby”, is one of glamorous parties and shallow, superficial and material-based relations. East Egg is home to the more apathetic portion of New York’s elite, which cares only for their money and view the world around them as disposable. West Egg, however, is full of hardworking people who are willing to peer beyond one’s surface to discover the true potential locked within one’s self. Though both Eggs are similar in the fact that they are both very careless due to their social status, the two vary greatly when it comes to their levels of compassion towards others, as well as their morals. East Egg and West Egg, although similar in nature, ultimately demonstrate differences in value, integrity and responsibility.
Similarly, The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who plays with the idea of whether the American Dream is attainable. He projects the American Dream during the roaring twenties with the character named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby strives for the American Dream. He captures everything a wealthy man could possibly own.
The Great American Dream has been the reason why people work and try their best to move up in life. In the 1920’s, America had finished fighting in World War I, and the economy was booming. Americans were partying, carefree people, and were heavily influenced by fashion. There was a serious change in the lifestyle of hundreds and thousands of people, it was a new way of living. After the stock market crash in 1929, life seemed to be meaningless, and it was too difficult to be someone that was carefree, the Great American Dream became unreachable. In the great American novel, The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the character Gatsby to demonstrate the difficulty of obtaining the Great American Dream.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, perfectly symbolizes many emerging trends of the 1920’s. More importantly, the character of Jay Gatsby is depicted as a man amongst his American dreams and the trials he faces in the pursuit of its complete achievement. His drive to acquire the girl of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan, through gaining status and wealth shows many aspects of the author's view on the American dream. Through this, one can hope to disassemble the complex picture that is Fitzgerald’s view of this through the novel. Fitzgerald believes, through his experiences during the 1920’s, that only fractions of the American Dream are attainable, and he demonstrates this through three distinct images in The Great Gastby.
The Great Gatsby, a novel by Scott Fitzgerald, is about the American Dream, and the downfall of those who attempt to reach its impossible goals. The attempt to capture the American Dream is used in many novels. This dream is different for different people; but, in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is that through wealth and power, one can acquire happiness. To get this happiness Jay must reach into the past and relive an old dream; and, in order to do this, he must have wealth and power.
During the 1920's America was a country of great ambition, despair and disappointment. The novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of this decade, it illustrates the burning passion one man has toward his "American Dream" and the different aspects of the dream. Fitzgerald's work is a reflection of America during his lifetime. The Great Gatsby shows the ambition of one man's reach for his "American Dream," the disappointment of losing this dream and the despair of his loss.
Gatsby was a rich man, but that doesn't mean he is happy in life. He lived a some what boring life. All he wanted was to be together with Daisy. He always had the idea of winning her back for all these years. Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay." and threw big parties all the time hoping Daisy would just show up and be in love with him. He also made many stupid mistakes that got some people to very much dislike him, and some to like him, but not many. His dreams were almost unattainable; he coldly win back Daisy from Tom or any way. His mistakes along the way of trying to impress Daisy, may have been a reason he got
The unhappy and careless people of both the East and West Egg represent the immorality and corruption that wealth can bring. Gatsby’s dream was ruined by his own materialistic views. His dream of success transformed into a nightmare that ultimately led to his death. Gatsby and the Buchanans are proof that wealth does not equate to happiness or success. Gatsby’s romantic idealism is so great that he does not understand how wealth cannot bring happiness or love.