American Dream Analysis The Great Gatsby

Justin Seo
Mr. Gray
American Literature
31 May 2015

The American Dream Analysis
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, well known as the author of The Great Gatsby born in St Paul, Minnesota in 1896. His family was really poor. However, with the financial support from his mother’s side, he was able to continue study. In 1917, Fitzgerald participated in WWI. There, he met Zelda Sayre, who did not like him at first because he was poor. The Side of Paradise is the first novel he wrote when he came back from the war. Zelda did not show love toward him until the book was published in 1920 and became famous. Fitzgerald began to live well after publish several popular novels. The Great Gatsby, published in 1925 on the other hand gave him a critical comment. By

People did anything do achieve power and money. The pleasure-seeking changed the atmosphere of life in New York. All people were addicted to this mood and cocktail party was the popular one, where people gathered for dancing, gossiping and drinking. Fitzgerald depicted the lavish celebration in chapter 3 of The Great Gatsby. The abundant food, the noise, the huge crowd displayed the society’s atmosphere during that period. American Dream was originated from the colonial period and began to develop in the nineteenth century. People believed that no matter where they from, what they origin, could succeed in this society with their efforts or skills. The ideal of self-made man was the dream’s symbolization which the author also underwent. His famous novel, The Great Gatsby show what happened to the American Dream in the 1920s. This is a time when vulgar pursuit of wealth corrupted the old values. Most of the characters illustrated in this novel came to East for the money, excitement and fame. Fitzgerald do not disparage the origin of the American Dream, but the corruption of the dream in The Great Gatsby. Hard work and belief self-reliance by Thomas Jefferson become the service of a vast, and vulgar by what Nick Caraway calls. The pursuit of noble goals changed into the pursuit of pleasure and power which are not the true way of

Equality among people is the basic idea of democracy. However, to be honest, social discrimination still exists and the discrimination among the classes is hard to overcome. Myrtle
Wilson who was a poor woman always desired a better life. What she did was to have a prohibited relationship with Tom Buchanan who was a rich man. She tried to escape from her own class by taking advantage of her vivacity and her lively nature. She was able to live like her lover, but she just became corrupt, and vulgar just like other rich people. She looked under the people from her own class and lost all sense of morality. Unfortunately, she never succeeded in living as Tom’s