The Great Gatsby The American Dream

“... it is a story about failure and death, an idealistic quest for unworthy goals, and the almost total collapse of the aspirations of nearly all of the principal characters” (Nagel 113). The Great Gatsby is a story that represents people’s unachieved aspirations that lead to a sad existence and ultimately death. They are all trying to attain one thing, the American Dream. The American Dream is almost impossible to attain and that is why a lot of people failed when it came to living out the American Dream. In Fitzgerald’s, “The Great Gatsby”, Gatsby tries to attain the American Dream through Daisy throughout the whole novel but fails and is left heartbroken.

1. The green light, situated at the end of the Buchanan’s dock, represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates the light with Daisy and in Chapter one, he reaches toward it

     Perception and reality do not always align. Is true love really true love, or is it a farce, a self-created mythical re-interpretation of the thing we hold so dear? In The Great Gatsby, is Gatsby really in love with Daisy, or his vision of her? Does she feel the same way for him, or does she truly love him? And what does the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock mean to Gatsby?

"The parties were bigger. The pace was faster. The shows were broader. The buildings were higher. The morals were looser. And the liquor was cheaper." In the 1920s, Americans were having fun in ways that hadn't even been invented half a century earlier. Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald explored the reality of the American Dream of wealth and success. In 1925, he wrote The Great Gatsby to showed the American dream ending in nightmare. In the novel through hard work, James Gatz crested himself as Jay Gatsby, a successful businessman. Gatsby fills his home with wild parties and bootleg liquor. But in the end, Gatsby and his dream are violently destroyed by his meaningless death. The United States is supposed to stand for independence and the ability

For the sake of this essay let's define the American dream is obtaining large amounts of power, wealth, and social status. The epitome of this is “The Great Gatsby”. Jay Gatsby has it all money power women he controls his own world. Yet as it seems in the novel that he never fully takes advantage of it all. Until the end, he doesn't partake in the glamor and is considered a mystery at his own parties. I think that this is due to his ambition to achieve wealth. Jay has dedicated his entire life to materialistic achievement and ambition this great does not leave the holder. The ambition of Gatsby to achieve his materialistic dreams allowed him to gain mass amounts of wealth, however, this ambition that created the great gatsby destroyed him. The greatness in which describes Gatsby roots from his success in the economy and social realms. Known for his magnificent parties, Nick narrates these parties by writing “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 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” (Fitzgerald 39). Any outside observer can clearly see that

Jay Gatsby is the man with an extravagant amount of money and a colossal mansion, yet he is living despondent life; in fact, he is breathing in a loveless world filled with dreadful rumors. Although, Gatsby is a self-made man, he receives his profits from illegal bootlegging, which was a frowned upon, yet the popular profession in the 1920’s. Gatsby’s American Dream caused him pain because he was spending all his earned money trying to find love, which was unrealistic. Jordan Baker says, “Gatsby bought a house so that Daisy would be just across the Bay” (Fitzgerald 62). Jay Gatsby has been trying to settle permanent love with Daisy, but Daisy would never give up herself from Tom’s money. Basically, if Mr. Gatsby would move on from Daisy and find a new woman to love, then Mr. Gatsby would truly be living the American Dream, but instead he is trying to relive the

Within the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the reader is portrayed how Gatsby desired wealth and an affluent lifestyle as a child. For example, “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people—his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all…But his heart was in constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night…For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of realty…” (Fitzgerald 98-99). Here, one is able to identify Gatsby as an imaginative character, as he lives within an illusion, where he hopes in achieving an idealistic American dream in which he is able to live a luxurious life.

Red, white , and blue are iconic to the American culture we know of. They can show our passion, desire, and pride for our country, but you will always have you might have to give in, against what your morals tell you.In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald uses the colors red, blue, and white to symbolize the American dream. To accomplish the American dream you need passion and desire but you will face situations where your morals will compromised. Passion is a necessity when trying to accomplish the American dream. Fitzgerald used the color red when he was revealing someone's passion and love.Fitzgerald uses the color blue when describing desire which is another crucial part of achieving the American dream. Lastly, when trying to accomplish the American dream you will be faced with moments where you may have to compromise your morals.

The American dream is one of success. The vision differs from person to person and is affected by many things according to circumstance. Someone’s upbringing, who influenced them, their capabilities, gender, and more tie into the creation of their “American Dream.” In The Great Gatsby, wealth seemed to define the” American Dream” for most of the characters.

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story, but it’s more frequently understood as a cynical analysis of the American Dream. In the novel, Jay Gatsby overcomes his poor past to gain an absurd amount of money and a limited amount of social cache in a 1920’s New York City, only to be rejected by the “old money” socialites. The main theme of the novel reflects a much larger, less romantic capacity than what it would first seem. The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic reflection on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unique wealth and materialistic views.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, depicts the life of the notorious Jay Gatsby as told by Nick Carraway. Gatsby spends his entire post-war life dreaming about Daisy Buchanan. She is everything Gatsby could ever want so to try and attract her he throws lavish parties. The problem is that Daisy is married to Tom, a wealthy retired athlete, and has moved on with her life in the years Gatsby was away. Gatsby is so consumed with the dream of Daisy and their life together that he creates an impossible standard for real world Daisy. Gatsby fantasies about the Daisy he once knew years ago and expects her to be exactly the same as she once was. The issue is that Daisy has changed, the chose money and stability over love and now cannot

Henry David Thoreau writes, “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby follows the life of Jay Gatsby, a young man devoted to dreams of prosperity and romance. Even though Gatsby becomes astoundingly rich by bootlegging alcohol and organizing crime, he lacks sensitivity towards others and constructs his identity around unfeasible goals. Fitzgerald asserts that egocentric ambitions deprive life of meaning and impair the development of identity; Gatsby’s idealistic aspirations take ordinary experiences for granted and disregard pragmatic expectations.

The American Dream is defined as “a life of happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.”. This definition is reinforced by the character’s lifestyles in The Great Gatsby. Their goals are to achieve money, popularity, and power but through the novel their goals fall apart. Each person has characteristics of the American Dream in their lives but as the novel continues they lose these characteristics. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the main theme is the deterioration of the American Dream in the lives of the characters.

The author of The Light in the Heart, Roy T. Bennett, once said, “Dreams don’t work unless you take action. The surest way to make your dreams come true is to live them.” Bennett believes in sharing his personal feelings about how to live a fulfilling life. He writes in the hopes that his writings will guide a person in the right direction to succeed past new limits. Just like Bennett, we all believe that hard work is the key to success. The Great Gatsby explores the American Dream and how hard work can affect someone's life drastically. Some people view Gatsby as a successful man who was able to achieve the American Dream. A character in the novel named Nick Carraway compares Gatsby to Jesus, “He was a son of God...So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (Fitzgerald 105). Gatsby saw himself in a particular way and was determined to transform himself into the vision he imagined himself to be. He held high standards to please everyone and through his secretive close relations with people who were tied to his work. Little do you know, but Gatsby grew up in a poor unsuccessful farming family who could barely get by. However, when he grew older he became a very wealthy businessman that lived in West Egg. He met Dan Cody who taught him the tricks of the trade to reach the top. After leaving Dan Cody, he was driven to live a successful life and to make

During the 1920’s in America there was much corruption and crime because of the new prohibition laws. There were also changing gender roles because women were realizing they should be equal to men. The novel The Great Gatsby is written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and is considered a great social commentary of the 1920’s because most of the events in his novel were actually happening in the United States. In Fitzgerald's novel and the 1920’s the main cause of social conflict in the United States is prohibition and gender roles of women.