What Is The Relationship Between The Great Gatsby And The American Dream

The roaring 20’s was a time period when people disregarded the prohibition of alcohol, invested in the new fashion styles and music, and denied a lot of honorable standards in order for them to have a better life. However, during the 20’s people were struggling to find a place and an identity that they believed belonged to them. The American Dream consisted of achieving wealth and having as many name brand materials as people could get. The American Dream was the ultimate goal for everyone to achieve in the 1920’s and in order to reach their goal the people changed their values of aiming for equality to getting as rich as possible. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the author, F.Scott Fitzgerald, demonstrates the aspects of the American Dream …show more content…
As James Gatz, Jay Gatsby focused on achieving his goal to live up to the dream that everyone was striving for and worked hard for his dream. Even Jay Gatsby’s father, Henry Gatz was aware that he was compelled to make something out of himself as he never stopped pushing himself in order to become a better a man saying that “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had reserves like this or something” (Fitzgerald 173). Jay Gatsby’s past life connects to the American dream because since he was young he worked on self improvement. Mr.Gatz feeds off of the enormous amount of success that Gatsby was able to achieve and praises his son by implying that everyone should look up to him. Gatsby wanted to be cultivated and learn as much as possible and he seemed to lecture his father about not being cultivated as well. Jay Gatsby’s initial American dream was to get rich and create a better life for himself. However,his dream took a different course as he wanted to get rich in order to impress Daisy, giving into the greed and corruption of the dream since he attained wealth through bootlegging. This contributes to the death of the American dream because, as Daisy said, those “West Eggers” come from nothing and return to nothing which is true for Gatsby since he rose to wealth and later lost it all when he died at the end of the novel, his dreams and …show more content…
Gatsby’s idealistic views on life are the results of an American dream that has been overpowered by personal greed. The American dream withers as Gatsby’s impractical expectations are never met and his death represents the end of exactly that, a dream too high to reach. Therefore, Fitzgerald describes the American dream as a dream that is not for everyone and causes social discrimination and it reveals how men and women were trying to live their dreams in a corrupt