Essay On The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream: Promising or Hopeless? A statement from the article “Rethinking the American Dream” reads, “(…) like so many before and after him, was overcome by the power of the American Dream” (Source E). The American Dream is the ideal that everyone should possess an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through determination. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby discusses and portrays various themes and ideas that tie into the American Dream. Fitzgerald develops several life-like characters that convey the reality of achieving the ideal every American dreams of. F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of the novel The Great Gatsby, illustrates the corruption behind aiming to achieve the American Dream through Gatsby’s

First, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, further depicts this idea through the bygone love shared between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby and Daisy wrap up their first time back together in five years, the narrator explains, “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams (…)” (95). Fitzgerald’s inclusion of Gatsby’s and Daisy’s relationship within the novel ultimately furthers the development of the idea that the American Dream deters people’s minds to the past. In the novel, the two characters depicted fight for a love that is lost and unattainable, very similar to the American Dream. 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