E. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Sylvia Plath’s Ariel and Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie all fit into the category of American literature that examines the ability, “of the individual to transform him or herself-to be self-made”. All three texts portray personal transformation as the process of breaking free from society’s expectations towards the self-made aspiration of a more contented identity. Fitzgerald presents Jay Gatsby as being restricted by the class system and the corrupted ideas of the American dream, which convinces Gatsby that his ideal happiness is dependent on the mass accumulation of wealth: his transformation is therefore based on external standards and therefore his change is the most unsuccessful. Williams
