Gatsby American Dream Failure

The American Dream is not actually a goal in life that people can achieve through hard work, but will always simply be just a dream. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F.Scott Fitzgerald, the reality of the American Dream is exposed through the life of Jay Gatsby and the dreams that he has. Jay Gatsby is a man who climbed up in status and became rich by doing illegal business in order to become successful on his own. He only has one main goal in life though and that is to win over the first love of his life, Daisy Buchanan, which whom he was separated with when he had to go to war. The only problem is that Daisy is already married, but Gatsby still perseveres and yearns for so long that he will one day be with her again, but in the end his loyalty towards her ends in his own tragic death without ever really having …show more content…
Gatsby’s dream is similar to the concept of the American Dream as he pursues it with all he’s got and does not stop, corresponding to the way people persistently work towards the “American Dream” and are determined to see it through. The prototypical American Dream was merely hoping to own a nice house where one’s family could live comfortably in without being discriminated or having to worry about money. In the Great Gatsby though, this dream is magnified so much that it is not only about having a nice house to live in, or having a stable job that can simply supply necessities, but it is to live in a mansion and to be filthy rich. Gatsby’s dream on the other hand, was mainly to win over Daisy, and to have her all to himself. The narrator explains the extent of Gatsby’s actions in order to be with Daisy as he narrates, “He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths - so that he could “come over” some afternoon to a stranger’s garden”(78). Just like how