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The American Dream In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

644 Words3 Pages

In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald published his most enduring novel: The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald portrays an unattainable lifestyle through the guy behind it all, James Gatz. Throughout the novel it becomes apparent that this idolized life of the “American Dream” is nothing but a simple illusion. The American Dream was thought to be the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any and all Americans, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. Basically, those things would be welcome to all, and with that dream in mind a certain mindset was upheld. Different decades are remembered for their certain attributes. For many, when they think of the twenties their minds go to an era of drama and scandals. One of the biggest …show more content…

The blues, and jazz quickly came about but people were not always fans of this everlasting music. For numerous Americans, jazz was “the music of demons, devils and things that go bump in the night”(Tipton). The majority of people in the twenties were appalled when jazz music played in their everyday lives. Much of the hatred towards this music spawned from racial oppression also happening at the time. Much of the new music was creative work and expressionism of African Americans who based their songs on their culture and heritage. Jazz music was looked down upon, like it was a step just too far …show more content…

The Great Gatsby has many opportunities to show how little cared for minorities truly were. This relates to how the majority of the population overlooked those who they saw as undeserving. “Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness — it stands out in my memory from Gatsby’s other parties that summer”(Fitzgerald. 78). This quote comes from a party scene at Gatsby’s house. The narrator, Nick, is speaking of Tom, a character known to be racist and genderist. Many of the people who hated aspects of jazz music were just like the character Tom Buchanan. “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion”(Fitzgerald. 72). This quote explains how Tom negatively views his own wife. If these are two people who are supposed to love each other, then it is only imaginable how random humans were treating other random humans. People who had never even met before were mistreating others based solely on the fact that they didn’t like certain

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