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Disillusionment Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

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Zoheb Akhtar Ms. Ringiewicz English 11 1/7/22 The American Dream in the Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby embodies classic American culture in the 1920s. It exposes the corruption of American society in the 1920s through the narrative of Jay Gatsby and the upper social class while commenting on the decline of the American dream. The American dream is the idea that there is an equality of opportunity between every American and that anyone can pursue their dreams. Fitzgerald uses various symbols to represent the American dream. But Fitzgerald mainly focuses on how the American dream is elusive and hard to reach. Fitzgerald comments on how the American dream is not always fulfilled — which is the central message Fitzgerald is trying to represent. …show more content…

The Valley of Ashes is mentioned in Chapter 2. It is a bleak place where lower and working-class people live. The Valley of Ashes shows a more dismal point of view than what we have seen in the rest of the novel. The Valley of Ashes is a symbol of the disillusionment of the American dream because it provides contrasting views to what we had previously seen. Primarily we had only seen the extravagancy and wealth that resided in West Egg, but the Valley of Ashes provides a glimpse into corruption and immorality. These people also could have been people who failed to achieve the American dream, which builds on the theme of the American dream being hard to attain. Within the Valley of Ashes also resided a billboard of T.J Ecklburg’s Eyes. Nick describes the billboard very thoroughly as if it held greater importance. Nick describes the eyes of Ecklburg as “blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose” (20). While the eyes “dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground” (20). The eyes could be interpreted as a failure of the American dream because it is looking over the people in the Valley of Ashes with a blank

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1. The Valley of Ashes is the farm land or almost like a wasteland filled with ashes that separates the wealth of the East and West Egg Village. 2. “The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose” (Fitzgerald 23).

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Beginning with one of the most recurring symbols in the text, the Valley of Ashes shows a stark contrast of poverty and dull lifestyles compared to the lavish and posh lives in East and West Egg. The Valley of Ashes is like the ghost to a failed American Dream. Instead of a beautiful landscape, the setting is made up of dark and depressing figures: “ashes take the forms of houses. . . men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. . .

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Suggesting divine judgment on the immoral and forgotten victims of America’s pursuit of wealth, casting a shadow over the American Dream. Hence, the Valley of Ashes displays the dark underbelly of the American Dream, a place where dreams are not just deferred but obliterated by the harsh realities of inequality and

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Fitzgerald focused on the shift in the American Dream - from being the idea of self-fulfillment, dignity and comfort that is achieved through hard work, to being equated with the pursuit of wealth and power, and identifying happiness with having money. The novel depicts the rise and fall of the concept and describes the causes of its decay. The downfall of the American Dream is most accurately shown through the main protagonist of the story – Jay Gatsby. To reiterate, the American Dream is the concept that anyone can achieve a better life and become self-fulfilled, if they put enough effort to it and make the most of their abilities.

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To continue, similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot delivers the same message that the American Dream is more distant than the past in his poem, “The Hollow Men.” In the poem concerning the life between lightness and darkness, the author writes, “More distant and more solemn than a fading star” (Source D). The author of this poem further explains the truth behind the American Dream that is its inability to be attained. The ideals within the American Dream are often associated with memories and items of the past, ultimately illustrating the impossibleness behind achieving it. As supported, seeking to achieve the American Dream steers one’s mind to emphasize the past rather than the present or

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