American Dream In The Great Gatsby

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the ideals of wealth and dreams are exhibited through the lives and experiences of Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby. Specifically, Gatsby tends to waste his wealth rather than investing for the future. He uses the “green light” to serve as a constant reminder of his dreams and life goals he wishes to pursue. Nick Carraway’s friendship with Gatsby enables him to partake in the wealth and luxuries of Gatsby's lifestyle. The American Dream is brought to fruition through Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle and extravagant parties. Furthermore, the motifs of wealth and dreams are perpetually shaping and influencing the characters’ decisions, experiences and outcomes over the course of the story.

Gatsby lives in a very large house that clearly shows of his wealth. Although he is very wealthy his house and his parties also show how he doesn't care much about his wealth and has a deeper meaning for having all his items and his house. For example, “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be across the bay.” (Fitzgerald, Page 63) The real reason he bought reason he bought his house was to be right across the bay from Daisy because he still loves her.

Gatsby displays his new money by throwing large, extravagant parties. The old money establishment of East Egg think Gatsby does this to show off his new money, but his motif is different. Jordan

“She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me!” (Fitzgerald 123). People saw Gatsby as the epiphany of the American Dream. But what actually was the “American Dream”? The American Dream was people who craved money and wealth, both of which Gatsby had attained. Money would allow them to obtain everything they could ever dream of, solve all their problems, most importantly, give them a social status, and with money and status came happiness. “I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall” (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby was constantly throwing huge parties with everyone around town showing up uninvited, when in reality, he did it all for one person, Daisy. Gatsby contained the best possessions money could buy, a mansion, clothes, books, cars, etc. “As soon as I arrived, I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements” (Fitzgerald 42). Gatsby hired people to throw elaborate parties for him, he sat back and hoped that

The American Dream, is an idea that all Americans are familiar with, no matter what age they are. It is the dream that everyone has an equal opportunity, to use hard work and integrity to achieve success. The American Dream is an integral aspect of Jay Gatsby’s life in the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novel follows Jay Gatsby, as told by Nick Carraway, through the trials and tribulations that correspond with newfound wealth and the quest to find true happiness in a cynical and testing environment. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald suggests that the American Dream has the power to corrupt individuals, through his depictions of wealth, materialism, and the consequences they inflict in the character’s lives.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Gatsby attempts to be obtain his American dream with conspicuous consumption. Fitzgerald uses symbols of conspicuous consumption in money, cars and houses to show that the American dream of wealth and possessions doesn't necessarily ensure happiness.

At the beginning of the novel, Nick regards Tom Buchanan with admiration and intimidation, but after Gatsby’s death, Nick regards him with disgust when he says,” I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their cast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made”. The word “careless,” or variations of it, is purposely employed to reveal his attitude of disgust towards those of the wealthy in 1920s; he believes them to be careless, wasteful people with little regards to anyone else or the consequences of their actions. In a like manner of effective diction, Gatsby’s house is portrayed from the start of the novel to after his death. Gatsby’s house and parties are described as “gleaming” and “dazzling”, but after his death, it is viewed as “empty” and a “huge incoherent failure.” Fitzgerald uses the house and Gatsby to illustrate his once bright, now melancholy tone towards the American Dream. Quickly after Gatsby’s death, his house is no longer a place of liveliness and excitement, but now a desolate wasteland; synonymous to how the height of the American

The idea of American Dream as presented by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby novel involves rising from poverty or rags to richness and wealthy. The American Dream exemplifies that elements such as race, gender, and ethnicity are valueless as they do not influence the ability of an individual to rise to power and richness. This American Dream makes the assumption that concepts such as xenophobia are non-existent in America a concept that is not true and shows vagueness of the American Dream. In his novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the Great Gatsby to demonstrate the overall idea of living the American dream. Gatsby leaves his small village of farmers and manages to work his way up the ladder although some of the money he uses to climb the ladder is associated with crime “He was a son of God and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty” (Fitzgerald 6.7). This phrase shows that Gatsby wasn’t meant for a life similar to that of his father but rather destined for greatness. However, his dream his short-lived and he doesn’t make it to the top as Daisy who is a symbol of his wealthy rejects her and a series of events transpire that result in his death before he could live his American Dream alongside everyone else who was working up the ladder to live the American Dream.

The notion of the ‘American Dream’ is one of the repeated aspects portrayed in this book, since Gatsby’s entire life is dedicated to achieving this. The ‘American Dream’ comprises of grand opulence, social equality, wealth; more specifically, a big house with a big garden, the newest model cars, the most fashionable attire, and a traditional four-peopled ‘happy’ family. To Fitzgerald, the ‘American Dream’ itself is a positive, admirable pursuit. We can see this when Fitzgerald uses personification, “flowers”, to background positive connotations behind the idea of the ‘American Dream’. In regard to Gatsby, he achieves the wealth aspect of this ‘dream’, “he had come a long way to this blue lawn”; however, he was yet to be satisfied because he did not have Daisy. Ever since the very beginning of the story, Gatsby always associated Daisy with magnificent affluence, the white house, and the grand quality of being rich. Gatsby wanted everything ever since he was first introduced to the higher status. But Gatsby felt incomplete and unfulfilled even after getting everything he dreamt of, so he sourced this emptiness as not having Daisy, where in reality, “he neither understood or desired” the motives he thought he once had.

The flamboyance of Gatsby’s house mirrors his desire to impress. From the moment Nick meets Gatsby, Gatsby starts to show off. He offers to give Nick a ride in his new “hydroplane” (47). Furthermore, the house’s opulence matches what society views as wealth, just as Gatsby adjusts his own thinking to the opinion of an outside source. When Gatsby shows Nick and Daisy around his house, he “revalued everything” based on “the

One of the most influential writers of the early 20th century was a man named F. Scott Fitzgerald. The biggest topic that he wrote about was the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses many different aspects of writing to get his opinion across, such as the outcome of stories like The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams”. He also uses the setting and to explain his beliefs. Based of his work, Fitzgerald believes the American dream is not only unrealistic, but also unattainable.

Consequently, Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson are two completely different characters in many ways. Firstly, Daisy and Myrtle are different in the physical aspect, for example Myrtle is a, “thickish sort of a woman… with an immediate perceptible vitality about her. She smiled slowly… then she wet her lips.” Using a biblical allusion, the author fashions Myrtle into the adulteress woman in proverbs “there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtle of heart. She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house… so she caught him and kissed him.” (Pr. 7 vs. 10-13) Likewise Myrtle is a woman who is considered sensual, and she uses her smoldering body to attract Tom for her own gratification and satisfaction. However, Daisy in her physical appearance is “Dressed in white, her face sad and lovely, bright eyes and her voice a singing compulsion, a whispered listen.” The author

In addition Gatsby says “It took me just three years to earn the money that bought it.” This makes the reader feel suspicious of Gatsby because he is so wealthy but he says he gained all the money for his mansion in three years. This shows that Gatsby probably has a disreputable way of making

Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald both defines the American Dream and depicts its corruption. Gatsby started out as James Gatz, a “penniless young man without a past” (Fitzgerald, 149). He grew up extremely poor, having to work various jobs, some degrading and humiliating, in order to survive. However, in the true spirit of the American Dream, he used the opportunities presented to him to make himself a rich man. Through bootlegging, Gatsby earned a fortune that allowed him a “mansion” (5), a “yellow” “Rolls-Royce,” and extravagant parties (39). However, despite depicting Gatsby as a truer form of the American Dream, Fitzgerald still depicts the corruption behind his version. Gatsby’s fortune

The definition of the American Dream has chanaged during the course of history and has been especially modefied in the 1920´s. F. Scott Fitzgerlad critiqued this in his novel "The Great Gatsby", which he published right during that time. He prsents a distorted version of the American dream, as well as the measures taken in order to scuceed in the 1920´s. The general goal of the American dream in "The Great Gatsby" is wealth and belonging to the upper class of society.