The Great Gatsby American Dream

The American Dream; the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. Unfortunately, back in the 1920’s this ideal remained but a mere dream for anyone trying to work their way up from rags to riches for the simple reason that it was practically impossible to become rich unless you were already born into it. In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald we get an up close and personal idea…

Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is a criticism of the dying American Dream in the 1920's and how it is corrupted by greed and materialism. The American Dream used to be a quest towards success, but now it is a rat race for wealth and status. The pursuit of the American Dream gave the characters in the novel, money and prestige, but along with it came corruption, barbaric human nature, and carelessness. However, the protagonist, Jay Gatsby is one of the very few Americans left who still…

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was based the “American Dream”. The book was about A young man by the name of Jay Gatsby. He didn't quite fit in with the people he was surrounded by. He lived in West Egg. In a huge house and threw amazing parties often. He never could achieve the american dream. Simply because he fell in love with Daisy(whom is married) , Which soon ended because Daisy would never give up her social position for a man who couldn't ever really fit into her world.…

The Great Gatsby and the Demise of the American Dream Published in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has and still remains a staple of American Literature and is acclaimed by generations of readers. Often considered “the novel of the jazz age”, it tells of a time when lavish parties were an everyday thing. Above all, The Great Gatsby shows how the drive to achieve the elusive “American Dream” can corrupt oneself. Best remembered as a decade of prosperity and dissipation, and of jazz…

A Dead Man’s Dream Hard work, dedication and initiative are the fundamental values of the great pursuit of success, known as the “American Dream”. Equal to all US citizens, it represents the individual and collective desire to push beyond the boundaries of society and to strive for a better future. For generations, it has been the motivational ground for the progressive development of american civilization. In his critically-acclaimed novel “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald…

The theme of the corruption of the American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, is the greed in his characters lives. This may be used to show how corrupted the American Dream gets when people let it consume them. This can explicitly be seen through the characters: Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson. In the novel, Myrtle Wilson is an extraordinary example of a character that has shown the corruption of the American Dream because she views the American Dream as greed and money. According…

The Great Gatsby: A Pursuit for the ‘American Dream’ In spite of the innumerable calamities, from the naval blockade of vessels to hinder the ingression of contraband to alcohol distilleries, situated in esoteric locations across the nation, concurring with the adversities endured by the vagrants, who lived amid the secluded, “valley of ashes,” – (Fitzgerald, 23) a land which epitomized the ‘social and moral decay of humanly ethics’. However, “For every item that carries the darkness of…

Through the idea of the “American Dream” of success and wealth, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates that wealth isn’t what brings happiness to people, and the ideal lifestyle of the time isn’t as satisfying as it seems. The idea of the “American Dream” is just a superficial notion with no real substance behind it, just like those who are ‘living the dream’. It is fueled by the conception that America is the land of opportunity, and anyone can reach the pinnacle of success if the right amount of…

The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s James Gatz, a poor man from North Dakota, is unhappy with his poverty and social status. He decides he wants to change all of that. So, at the age of seventeen he changes his name to Jay Gatsby and begins to reinvent himself (Fitzgerald 54). In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a major theme is the decline of the American Dream in the 1920s. The original American Dream was about being loved, having wealth, and the pursuit of…

False American Dream The Great Gatsby serves as a literary piece which exposes the truth about the American Dream. Fitzgerald shows that the American Dream was an ideal which captivated the poor, such as Gatsby by romanticizing it by believing that hard work can lead to the gain of wealth and power in the society. Such ideas pose as a disturbance in the way the old money usually acquired their status. Their name in society was pre owned by their ancestors, such as Tom Buchanan’s (Hays). This…