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Jacob Rhee Mr. Compton English 10 30 January 2017 Symbolism in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald serves many purposes. It entertains the reader, teaches life lessons, and even gives readers an insight as to what life was like in the 1920s. But perhaps the most important and prevalent theme in the book is the downfall of the American Dream. The American Dream is the belief that through hard work, any individual can obtain success in America.
The American Dream: An Inherent Failure The 1920’s was a time of prosperity in the United States. The economy was booming, and everyone believed that they could become wealthy. Everyone also believed that they could be anything they wanted. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald many characters strive for wealth and status but fail, and those with wealth lead unfulfilling lives.
Money and greed led to a death of morals in the 1920’s society. Fitzgerald showed this era with low moral and social values, along with greediness and empty happiness. “The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic mediation on 1920’s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess” (SparkNotesEditors1). The Crazy parties Gatsby throws every Saturday show the desire for money and pleasure over a nobler, moral filled lifestyle. “The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music-epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night-resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals”
While “The Great Gatsby” explores a number of themes, none is more prevalent than the corruption of the American dream. The Great Gatsby is about the main character, Nick Carraway, who comes to New York in search of the American dream. The American dream is someone starting low on the social or economic level towards prosperity and wealth. By having money, a big house, a car and a happy family symbolizes the American dream. The dream is represented by the ideas of a self-sufficient person, who works hard to achieve a goal to become successful.
In The Great Gatsby F.Scott Fitzgerald focuses in the era of the 1920’s sometimes called the roaring twenties because it was a time when America experienced a sustained economic growth. It was also a period of loose moral standards and a new obsession with money as Americans were starting to realize how effortless it was to become rich without any restrictions. This influx of prosperity brought many new opportunities to people, and to many the american dream began to be about materialistic values such as partying, having nice cars, owning colossal houses, spending lots of money and drinking bootleg liquor. In the novel we come to see how wealth not only corrupts characters such as Tom and Gatsby, but also corrupts society by giving them a
Title The Great Gatsby is a book that contains an abundance of motifs. F Scott Fitzgerald uses these motifs very masterfully to enhance the novel The Great Gatsby. One of the motifs that he uses is that money corrupts. The corruption is shown in many different ways and through many different people.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald once stated, “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart and all they can do is stare blankly.” Throughout his famous work, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrayed the American Dream. Contrary to the ideology of the “Roaring Twenties” society, he described the American Dream as a delusion. People of the era focused on materialism in order to boost their wealth and status and forgot the importance of their relationships. Several characters within the novel sought to gain a higher status in society.
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man 's needs, but not every man 's greed.” As humans, we work hard in order to have the greatest opportunity to succeed in life, which will fulfill our wants. F Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, utilizes effective language and punctuation in the text, which helps him accomplish his purpose: Illustrate what material goods does to a society. From a rhetorical standpoint, examining logos, ethos, and pathos, this novel serves as a social commentary on how the pursuit of “The American Dream” causes the people in society to transform into greedy and heartless individuals.
In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald characterizes the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values. One of the major themes explored in this novel is the Hollowness of the Upper Class. The entire book revolves around money including power and little love. Coincidentally the three main characters of the novel belong to the upper class and throughout the novel Fitzgerald shows how this characters have become corrupted and have lost their morality due to excess money and success and this has led them to change their perspective towards other people and they have been portrayed as short-sighted to what is important in life. First of all, we have the main character of this novel, Gatsby who won’t stop at nothing to become rich overnight in illegal dealings with mobsters such as Wolfsheim in order to conquer Daisy’s heart.”
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald is very meticulous on how the novel is shown as more satirical rather than romantic. The visionary of the American Dream is the most coveted life during this time period, so Fitzgerald used this lifestyle to mock and expose the vices of others. Fitzgerald uses certain aspects of this lifestyle to show characters satirical impulsiveness or materialism, which ridicules them and the ideals of the 1920s. During the time period in which this novel took place, the American Dream was perhaps the most sought after lifestyle. The American Dream during the roaring twenties is the pursuit of wealth regardless of morals.
I. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the American Dream is depicted as a mirage due to its ultimate lack of fulfillment, outsider’s inability to obtain it, and the corruption it causes. A. Those who have achieved their idea of the American Dream are ultimately unfulfilled emotionally even though they possess tremendous wealth. B. The American Dream is a mirage, and thus unattainable as it limits success of an individual by their class and ethnic origin. C. Not only is the American Dream exclusive and unfulfilling, but it also causes corruption as those who strive for the American Dream corrupt themselves in doing so and the old rich hide behind their wealth in order to conceal their immoralities.
The Corruption of The American Dream in The Great Gatsby In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates society in the 1920’s and the desire for the people with in it to achieve the American Dream, which embodies the hope that one can achieve power, love and a higher economic/social status through one’s commitment and effort. The novel develops the story of a man named Jay Gatsby and his dream of marrying what he describes as his “golden girl”, also known as, Daisy Buchanan, his former lover. Fitzgerald explores the corruption of the American dream through the Characters; Myrtle, Gatsby and Daisy.
The novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitz Gerald embodies many themes. A major in the story is the pursuit of can be labelled the American Dream. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low on the economic or social level, and working hard towards prosperity and or wealth and fame. By having money, a car, a big house, nice clothes and a happy family symbolizes the American dream. The Great Gatsby shows what happened to the American Dream in the 1920’s, which is a time period when the dreams became corrupted for many reasons.
An important theme in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the corruption of morals because of wealth. It doesn’t matter if one comes from old or new money, wealth will corrupt the morality of even the humblest. The first example of wealth corrupting morals is in the indifference to infidelity between the married Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. The next example of wealth corrupting morals is seen in Jordan Baker’s actions to keep her luxurious lifestyle. Third, Jim Gatsby’s pursuit of wealth lead to the corruption of his morals.
The American dream states that any individual can achieve success regardless of family history, race, and/or religion simply by working hard. The 1920’s were a time of corruption and demise of moral values in society. The first World War had passed, and people were reveling in the materialism that came at the end of it, such as advanced technology and innovative inventions. The novel The Great Gatsby exploits the theme of the American Dream as it takes place in a corrupt period in history. Although the American Dream seemed more attainable than ever in the 1920’s, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby demonstrates how materialism and the demise of moral values in society leads to the corruption and impossibility of the American Dream.
