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The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

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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 …show more content…

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

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Fitzgerald symbolizes disillusionment through Gatsby’s material world suddenly feeling unfamiliar and revealing his vulnerability beneath the mask. Without Daisy and the persona he had created, he could no longer rely on his idealized perception of the world and was left feeling insecure and without hope. Disillusionment and the destruction of idealization causes an ultimate degradation of the sense of self and the

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409 Words | 2 Pages

Gatsby represents the American Dream, the ideal that through hard work and determination that Americans could be prosperous, however this appealing ethos was practically unachievable. Gatsby personified his American dream to ‘achieving’ his relationship with Daisy, which Fitzgerald then manifested this dream as unattainable. Gatsby’s shirts that he throws to Daisy symbolises immense wealth. Furthermore, the carelessness of throwing his expensive shirts demonstrations how Gatsby was willing to sacrifice everything for Daisy’s love.

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Scott FItzgerald’s message throughout The Great Gatsby expresses that money will always hold a higher value in life than someone’s happiness. Daisy and Gatsby finally see each other after many years of being separated. Gatsby has Nick and Daisy come over which then he proceeds to lead them to his room where he starts throwing shirts at her. She starts crying over the “beautiful shirts”, but it has a double meaning under that. As Daisy is shown more throughout the book, she shows us how she cherishes money more than her own happiness.

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Everything he does and has done was for her. He moved to West Egg to be across from her and holds all his parties hoping one day she will come. The same quote “There such beautiful shirts, It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald 92) shows his shallowness. By bringing Daisy to his house and showing her his clothes, he knows she will be impressed and acquire a desire for him. He is using his material possessions and wealth to try and lure Daisy back to him, by doing so he is manipulating Daisy to “fall” back in love with him.

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During chapter 5, Gatsby is showing Daisy his house and ends up flaunting to her all the designer clothes he has. Insisting if she wanted one expansive brand over the other, to the point that Daisy begins to cry. Showing how one may not view the idea of the “American Dream” the same as another individual. The significance of this is the fact that both characters want a “better life”, yet seem to not have the same interpretation of the “american dream as daisy begins to cry at the fact that she knows that her “better life” is staying with Tom for the sake of her daughter, but Gatsby’s idea of the better life is having daisy be with him and to live a even more luxurious life. Correlation to how today’s idea of the “american dream” differs from person to person.

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Symbolizing Gatsby’s love for Daisy, he throws these parties only for his unquenchable need for her compassion. Although Gatsby grew up having nothing, once he met Daisy, his only goal was to impress her and change everything in his life to accommodate for her needs. Daisy, on the other hand, sees how wealthy Gatsby was and every little item he has that represents wealth. When she walks into Gatsby’s bedroom and sees all of his shirts, “it makes [her] sad because [she’s] never seen such — such beautiful shirts before" (Fitzgerald 92). Daisy’s only desire in life is that she is wealthy, so she will do whatever possible to achieve that.

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The American Dream suggests that every American citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work. One of the major ways that Fitzgerald portrays this is by alluding to outside events or works of literature specifically from that time period. Another major relationship that develops in The Great Gatsby is between Tom and Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald alludes to things such as the World’s Fair and “The Love Nest” to display the eventual dismantling of Tom and Daisy’s relationship. Both of these separate plots consolidate under the idea of Gatsby trying to become the epitome of the American Dream, as seen through his strive for a “perfect life.”

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"It makes me sad because I've never seen such—such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald 55). Gatsby's shirts are said to be green, symbolizing the shirts as materialistic objects, and Daisy in awe by their magnificence. Her response to the shirts, however, reveals her true moral since it demonstrates a higher value on materialistic wealth rather than real humans and connection. It’s not Gatsby's love for her, but the wealth that brings her to tears. Throughout the book, she is shown in more examples being a gold digger who revolves around green money, and changing love interests rapidly solely because of

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Daisy becomes sad and cries out because she has “never seen such…such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald 92). Though it is evident that Gatsby does obtain nice shirts, Daisy is ultimately crying at the realization and regret that she could have been with Gatsby. She sees his wealth and considers her mistake of marrying Tom when she could have been happy with Gatsby. This is what Gatsby wants, for Daisy to see the man he has become and consider a life with

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Daisy had thought of leaving Tom because Gatsby has such beautiful “shirts.” “Suddenly with strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily... They’re such beautiful shirts…” (Fitzgerald 98). Love becomes just another aspect of the obsession that manifest in so many of the

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1661 Words | 7 Pages

Also this is evident in Daisy’s infatuation with Gatsby’s shirt collection: “They’re such beautiful shirts. It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such- such beautiful shirts before” (118). Fitzgerald allows us a glimpse into Daisy’s materialistic nature as she is completely fascinated and awestruck with clothes. Daisy’s American Dream consists solely of procuring items leading to her own moral decay. The examples that show cons of both Gatsby and the woman he is obsessed with suggest that he’s not the ideal hero the readers are looking

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772 Words | 4 Pages

"The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream." In this quote, by Azar Nafisi, it explains how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and that if a person doesn’t compromise they may suffer. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American Dream is one the many themes present. The American Dream that most people in this book hope to have involves wealth, status, a fun social life, and someone to lust after. It is the life they all strive to have until they obtain it and see its meaningless composure.

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1738 Words | 7 Pages

Fitzgerald uses clothing and fashion as a comparison to the “American Dream” because it is forever changing and its value is different to every person. Daisy herself is a metaphor of the “American Dream”, she being dressed in white symbolizes the “purity” of the “Golden Dream”. Gatsby spends his whole life trying to reach her, like the green light, but in his eyes he is never successful. Even though to many people Gatsby has achieved the American Dream he himself is not content because of his obsession with destroying and preserving his past. He would never be happy with his wealth or having Daisy, unless she said that she only ever loved him, and he came from old money.

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780 Words | 4 Pages

In an attempt to win Daisy back from her lifestyle of “Old Money”, Gatsby becomes excessively greedy with his money. While he himself may not care about wealth, he knows Daisy does. Therefore, when Daisy comes to his mansion, he flaunts his expensive shirts. “‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.’”

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1373 Words | 6 Pages

But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there—it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at his camp was to him” (158). The phrase “breathless intensity” characterizes Gatsby’s reaction to seeing such wealth, and the word “air” expresses a sort of intangibility of her wealth. The juxtaposition between Gatsby and Daisy’s perspectives, “breathless” versus “casual,” allude to an insurmountable gap between the idea of the self-made man and the difficulty of actually achieving upward class mobility in America. Here, Fitzgerald suggests that true wealth and class also require a comfortability and casualness toward luxury as evidenced by his comparison of Daisy’s house to Gatsby’s tent. Even when Daisy is ready to leave Tom and Gatsby has the extravagant lifestyle, he is not satisfied.

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