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The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

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America in the 1920s is notorious for the wild parties thrown by the extremely wealthy and top one percent of people. These parties would often last the entire weekend and sometimes went even longer. Nothing symbolizes this roaring 1920s lifestyle more than the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald in which follows a man named Jay Gatsby who is a very wealthy man with a very vague story about how he came into his wealth. Even though Gatsby has all of these materialistic possessions he is still chasing after his love from many years ago, he became stuck in the past after pining after this love and he ultimately began a chain of events which resulted in his own death. In Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is biggest contributor …show more content…

If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.” (FItzgerald 169). Consequently Gatsby knew he was chasing something that may never come to fruition and he knew the cost of doing so but he kept fighting since he knew he was chasing the only thing he felt that was worth living for. Gatsby wants to go back to the simpler time, back when the world was warmer to him and not the cold unforgiving world he lives in now. Gatsby is fighting a losing battle trying to swim upstream this is no better represented except by the last line of the novel, ¨So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald 189). This line has a lot of symbolism in it especially relating to following a dream which is seemingly always upstream. Gatsby feels as he is trying to fight for a dream which is somehow in front of him upstream but also stuck in the past. He is stuck with the dilemma of not knowing if he was to live in the past to see Daisy again or if he has to persevere and fight

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Gatsby on the other hand cares about getting Daisy back and tries to repeat the past. Fitzgerald claims that, “can’t replace the past… why of course you can!” (116). In this quote Gatsby is trying to convince himself that you can repeat the past and that him and Daisy would be able to pick up from where they left off five years ago. When a person wants to repeat the past it never turns out the same and everything gets

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1983 Words | 8 Pages

Gatsby was determined to get Daisy back because he believed if he had what Tom Buchanan had he could get Daisy back because she never loved him. Jay Gatsby is never going to be accepted by the upper class because he was once a part of the lower class. They thought that he was a bootlegger, that was the only reason why he had money. Gatsby tried so hard to get Daisy but even with all of his efforts he could never get her, he even lost his life trying to get something that he can never have. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby the character of Jay Gatsby conveys the theme that the American dream is unattainable.

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Gatsby has himself wedged between a rock and a hard place, and what I mean by that is he either gives up on his dream before actively pursuing it or he faces defeat after false hope leads him

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923 Words | 4 Pages

He comes back from the war looking to gain his ex-girlfriend’s heart again but creates an illusive dream of Daisy that no girl could ever fulfill. Gatsby comes back from the war and gets involved in underground work to get himself to the same class as Daisy even though he knew that Daisy could not be with a man who did such work since it would ruin her social reputation. Fitzgerald originally portrays Gatsby as being an intelligent man with a lot of money in which he can throw major parties and everyone will know him as a mysterious and intelligent man. As the novel draws closer to the edge, Gatsby is driven closer to the edge of insanity. Fitzgerald portrays the truth of Gatsby by exploiting him for not being happy or satisfied but shows that he was missing love the whole time.

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1058 Words | 5 Pages

Gatsby represents a person who hard works in order to achieve his dream, but is unable to because of his social class and time. Gatsby refuses to believe that time can’t change because internally he wants things to go back like how they use to after he has gained something that use to be a weakness that prevented him from marrying

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He was basically living every mans american dream he had wealth,status,and some sort of power,but his life didn't seemed to be complete. In chapter 1 he reaches towards his dream in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Fitzgerald writes, “…he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away…” The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is a significant symbol of gatsby’s dream, which is Daisy.

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Gatsby got lost in that push and forgot that his desires had long since been fulfilled. “And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” (Fitzgerald 180)

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F.Scott Fitzgerald is an American novelist and a short story writer. He is the author of the famous novel “ The Great Gatsby”, which is written in the 1920’s. The period of the 1920’s is well known as the roaring twenties due to lack of morales and the lowering of standards and expectations, people intended just to have a good time not caring about the outcomes of their and how they will effect their lives. Fitzgerald wants to prove in his novel the death of “The American Dream” it’s just a myth. The author of this novel shows the death of the american dream through the events surrounding Gatsby, and Daisy.

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837 Words | 4 Pages

It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." (page 189). This quote describes Gatsby's desire to fulfill his hope of winning Daisy back using his wealth. He wants to erase the space between his past and where he is currently so he and Daisy can be happy together.

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This indicates that Gatsby was a man who believed in the “orgastic future” and a world that was superior to the one he found himself in. Furthermore, Gatsby 's attempt to pursue the American Dream is seen through his struggle to reach for the “green light” which symbolizes Gatsby 's dream of being with Daisy, This is demonstrated when: He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness (5).

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Gatsby made a goal to reunite with the woman he loves and he worked for his dream. “Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.” Gatsby didn’t reach his dream right away, neither does anyone else. Trying harder to be better and perseverance is the way. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

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"I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before, he said, nodding determinedly. She'll see" (Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby had an idea in his head about Daisy and would not let it go. His need to repeat the past, the perfect image he had of Daisy, and the unrelenting need of completing his task of gaining back Daisy is awful for him and the people around him. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Gatsby's obsession with the past is what ultimately led him to his death.

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772 Words | 4 Pages

And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (Pg. 182). Dreams tie to places or people previously in everyone’s lives, or tirelessly enduring optimism that blinds and obscures the truth. However, Gatsby shows that although these qualities may hold people back, it is one’s past that shapes their future. Through the love, heartbreak, money, fame, liquor, and revelry, Gatsby keeps hope for his future with Daisy. It is the disconnect between dreams and reality that causes the wishes of the past to swell up like waves on the bay and threaten to capsize the vessel of hope bearing the emblem of

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of the American Dream. Written in 1925, the book tells the story of a man named Jay Gatsby, whose main driving force in life is the pursuit of a woman called Daisy Buchanan. The narrator is Gatsby’s observant next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway, who offers a fresh, outsider’s perspective on the events; the action takes place in New York during the so-called Roaring Twenties. By 1922, when The Great Gatsby takes place, the American Dream had little to do with Providence divine and a great deal to do with feelings organized around style and personal changed – and above all, with the unexamined self .

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923 Words | 4 Pages

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

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