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Social class distinction in the great gatsby
Social class distinction in the great gatsby
A paper about the american dream
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Kathleen Crosby
Ms. Maki
AP Lang/ P.4
5 October 2016
What is the Dream?
Everybody should have a dream. Having a dream gives us a reason to work hard and to achieve a better life. That’s why I believe the American dream is important and something that should still be supported. The American Dream is about working hard to achieve a better life, not the best life. However, in the last section of the novel Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he begins with bringing the reader eye to eye, with the monstrous side of the American dream. All through the story, Gatsby has been known for one who has accomplished the American dream — he had cash, belongings, freedom, and individuals who needed to associate with him. Or so the reader thinks. At the end
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Dreams are valuable, to a point, however when they devour the visionary, they prompt humiliation. By the end of the novel, Nick has come to understand that he's changed and will never be the same. It appears his character situation is never completely determined. We don't know where he will go ("West" is not very specific), or what he will do. His perception that every one of the characters in this story were "Westerners" is a clever one – it sums up one of the novel's main point, the possibility that we may be characterized by where we're from, or the sorts of universes we experience when we are a child. From that, Nick eventually understands that he has no place in West Egg or in New York, in the insensitive, judgmental, and quick moving East; so he “had [his] trunk packed and [his] car sold to the grocer” (192). However, unfortunately, we need to think about whether he can truly backtrack home once more, in the wake of seeing what he has seen. In spite of the fact that he used to trust that you couldn't make things the same as before and come back to the past, Nick's point of view has changed: his neighbor Gatsby is gone. Tom and Daisy are no more. Jordan Baker is no more. Nicks biggest fear – that he will be distant from everyone else – has worked out as
Neither were capable of fully assimilating to that chaos life on the east coast offered. After the death of Gatsby, Nick packs up and moves out of New York. The East became “haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ power of correction” (176). The power the East held over Nick, died with Gatsby in the pool. He was no longer capable of keeping up with the charade of his new life. Nick understand his failure, “conduct maybe be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point” (Fitzgerald 2) it really does not matter anymore, he does not care anymore. There is nothing left for Nick in New York, not even Jordan Baker, a potential
Finally, Nick’s inability to involve himself emotional with anyone is also a problem. He is more of a bystander than a participant. He fears of being close to anyone, and mostly just gets along with everything. That is a problem. He needs to find someone to listen to, instead of him always being the listener. This emotional distance, which he has, is not a healthy thing for him and can cause him to end being a loner.
The American Dream states that with hard work people come rich. Fitzgerald questions this value. Gatsby’s story presents the unrealisticness/falsehood of the tradition/original American dream.
Even though he had some thought that the meeting would provoke harmful tensions between Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, he went along with it anyways, further demonstrating his own innate lack of reservation. Ultimately, Nick is an unreliable narrator who overlooks Gatsby’s lies because of his biased judgment of him. Nick portrays Gatsby as a generous and charismatic figure while in reality, he is a duplicative and obsessed man entangled in illegal business who is determined on an unattainable goal. It is highly ironic that Nick judges others for their lack of morality and honesty; his own character is plagued by lies as he abets Gatsby in many of his schemes.
During his journey, his desire for solitude is explicit: “Nick did not like to fish with other men on the river. Unless they were of your party, they spoiled it.” In his emotionally fragile state, Nick is ill-prepared to handle the “unpredictable variable” posed by fishing companions. Consequently, he chooses to travel alone into the wilderness, interacting only with characters from the natural world such as grasshoppers and trout. Through his decision to embark on a solo journey, he is able to place more control over the external environment which is a crucial element of his rehabilitation.
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. When Gatsby’s father showed Nick the journal where Gatsby wrote his resolution, he says, “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he 's got about improving his mind?” (182). The written resolution demonstrates how ambitious and innocent Gatsby was in pursuing his dreams and how much he wanted to improve himself that his father applauded him, which once characterized the process of pursuing the American Dream. While pursuing Daisy (Gatsby’s American Dream), Gatsby becomes corrupt and destroys himself. He did not achieve his fortune through honest hard work, but through dishonesty and illegal activities. Furthermore, Gatsby has a large, extravagant mansion, drives flashy cars, throws lavish parties filled with music and
The Great Gatsby is a story of the American Dream. The Great Gatsby is a view into the society of the 1920's masterfully created by 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 concept of one’s journey to reach the so called "American Dream" has served as the central theme for many novels. However, in the novel The Great Gatsby, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays the American Dream as so opulent it is unrealistic and unreachable. The American Dream is originally about obtaining happiness, but by the 1920's, this dream has become twisted into a desire for fame and fortune by whatever means; mistaken that wealth will bring happiness. Fitzgerald illustrates that the more people reach toward the idealistic American dream, the more they lose sight of what makes them happy, which sends the message that the American dream is unattainable. The continuos yearning for extravagance and wealthy lifestyles has become detrimental to Gatsby and many other characters in the novel as they continue to remain incorrigible in an era of decayed social and moral values, pursuing an empty life of pleasure instead of seeking happiness.
...eep my refuse away” (Pg. 177). This shows Nick’s sense of decency and friendship. He realizes that fast carousing life of the East Egg is a terrifying cover for moral emptiness from inside just like the valley of ashes. Before leaving to go back home he took care of all unfinished business. He ended his relationship with Jordan and walked away from Tom Buchanan who he only shared college experiences with. Nick needed to go back to a cleaner simpler time in life away from East Egg and the Great Gatsby. At last his greatest fear came true; he became all alone by himself. At the end he realized that he has been changed and won’t be able to go back to how he used to be. Even though his personality remains the same he is stronger from inside; not afraid of anything.
The maturation of Nick begins with his description of his time leading to his arrival in West Egg, “I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War” (Fitzgerald, 3). The protagonist comes into the story having not lived much of his life in the normal world that he desires to successfully conquer. He goes directly from schooling into the war, where he found heroic satisfaction. Yet, somehow, Nick is able to keep part of himself innocent and pure despite being in the horrors of war. It is not long after attending his first party at Gatsby’s that Nick confesses that “Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known’ (Fitzgerald, 59). The level of Nick’s idealism and virtuousness begins at such an innocent pl...
However, by then end of the novel Nick realizes he’s not only lonely but empty. As he knows more about the drama around him than himself. This can bee seen in the hotel scene when Tom and Gatsby are auguring, and Nick makes the small comment to himself, that he “ just remembered that today’s [his] birthday. [he] was thirty. Before [him] stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.” Yet, he had nothing to show for it. As his social life was filled by the secrets of others and his one potential romance, something Nick deeply dreams about, fades away by the end of the novel as Jordan leaves
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.
People would do anything when it comes to love. They would do the unthinkable just to be noticed. That’s exactly what Gatsby had to go through. The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 and has been highly recognized in society since then. One of the main reasons it is considered a classic American novel is because of its success and relevance to American history. It is also your typical love story that never gets old. In this story, the reader gets a glimpse at Jay Gatsby’s lavish life and his over the top parties that are held every weekend. He is living the American Dream. The story is told by Nick Caraway, a young man from Minnesota who moves to West Egg, Long Island for the summer to learn about the bond business. He
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. In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald attempts to criticize American
Up until now, the term American Dream is still a popular concept on how Americans or people who come to America should live their lives and in a way it becomes a kind of life goal. However, the definitions of the term itself is somehow absurd and everyone has their own definition of it. The historian James Tuslow defines American Dream as written in his book titled “The Epic of America” in 1931 as “...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.” The root of the term American Dream is actually can be traced from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 which stated “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that