The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

Dreams will forever be dreams; they will be a reminder of how the perfect life will always slip through your fingers. “The American dream” is a central concept introduced in The Great Gatsby. It represents the hopes clung to by people of the 1920’s, hopes for a better future, full of success, wealth, and prosperity. Fitzgerald criticizes this notion as one of senseless beliefs that drive people into obsession with the misery of their current life. In particular, he uses three characters to portray the American dream: Myrtle, Gatsby, and Daisy. These three, from vastly different social standings, serve to enlarge his message to the population. Americans' are vain; they harbor resentment towards their present, as exemplified by Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, through Myrtle, Daisy, and Gatsby who all grasp towards elusive goals of greed, disillusioned with their

Fitzgerald intertwines Daisy to material objects such as clothes to emphasize the over consumerist world-view of Americans’. When Daisy goes to visit Gatsby’s house she is overcome with sorrow at the sight of his belongings: “It makes me sad because I've never seen such--such beautiful shirts before”(99). In a time of grief and reconnections there is an inexplicable heartbreak the reader feels for Daisy at the recognition that she longs for him again. However, Fitzgerald chooses to portray her anguish over Gatsby’s shirts, not Gatsby himself. He subtly undercuts the grieving tone with Daisy’s conceited nature. She is crying over the beauty of the shirts he owns, a testament to the value she holds towards lavish items. Fitzgerald chooses to accentuate Daisy as a _____“Daisy…lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses…” (115). Fitzgerald describes Daisy here as