The Great Gatsby And The American Dream

Gatsby and the American Dream Watching The Great Gatsby, it may seem that the movie is about a love affair between a couple of the main characters, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. But in reality the movie is far more than just a romance. It’s more about how the culture of the 1920s affected the American Dream. The movie is set in New York, in the 1920s, when Wall Street was booming and the ban on alcohol was backfiring. People were able to show more skin when it came to how they dressed, and religious traditions were being broken down. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. The Great Gatsby presents the culture of the 1920s by featuring a storyline based on the richest of the rich, and the poorest of the poor. The movie …show more content…
The country’s wealth doubled, creating a consumer society. People started to obsess over celebrities, and this decade arguably made America what it is today. With all of this, came the American Dream, which was a perception that no matter how poor you are, if you work hard enough you can become rich, successful, and happy. In the movie, Jay Gatsby represents the American Dream because he was a man who was raised dirt poor, but became extremely rich, having a big mansion and a great social life. He would wear the best clothes, have the best car, have a huge pool (that he’d never use) and what seemed to be most important: a big house for just himself. He would throw giant parties at his mansion, without having to invite anyone. People showed up mostly to show off that they were “someone.” It was all about having the best of the best. In order to have respect in that day and age, you had to have money, and you had to have evidence to prove it. That made you important, or so they thought. Gatsby had everything and it seemed like he was living the American Dream, but he still wanted more, and went out of his way to make sure that people thought he was the best of the best. Gatsby used his parties, house, …show more content…
But Daisy was already married to a man named Tom Buchanan. Tom was much like Gatsby, in the way that he was also wealthy and liked to show it off, but he was much more modest about it. Where Gatsby would flaunt and have the biggest and best, even though he didn’t need it, Tom would also have those things but not as elaborate, and without the crazy parties that celebrities attended. Because Daisy was married, Gatsby used her cousin, Nick Carraway, a middle class stock broker who was trying to achieve his own American Dream, to get Daisy to go on a date with him. The plan worked and the couple were