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The American Dream In The Great Gatsby Analysis

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Everybody has an American Dream. For most people, their American Dream is to obtain the most money that they can. Their dream is to be rich and famous. This dream was the same for Jay Gatsby. His dream was to get rich so he could end up with Daisy. However, Gatsby made the mistake of believing that money could buy a woman’s love. This is a main theme in the book because the falsehood of the American Dream often leads to the pain and agony of others or yourself because money cannot buy you happiness. In The Great Gatsby, the goal of all of the main characters was to be rich. Some were born into rich families, such as Tom. Gatsby was not. He had to work to go from rags to riches. As mentioned before, his American Dream was to be with Daisy. To achieve this dream, he began to work to be rich because he thought this would make her love him. Frederick C. Millett says that, “Gatsby’s dream is tarnished by his material possessions, much like America is now with our obsession with wealth.” Gatsby was so hooked up on trying to gain as many material things that he couldn’t focus on the real meaning of love. His American Dream failed because he was so focused on making as much money as he could that it corrupted his life. The American Dream is never truly going to be reached because no one can have a certain amount of money and be happy with it. There is always a thirst for more. Judd Taylor backs this up by saying, “Americans easily assumed that spiritual satisfaction would
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Gatsby Essay Montana Renno Period: 2 Mrs. Gwizdala The American dream is a specific idea in which every American has an equal opportunity to succeed with hard work and determination. The Great Gatsby portrayed several truths of “The American Dream” shown through Fitzgerald’s characters. Throughout The Great Gatsby it becomes evident the American Dream cannot be obtained unless one was born into wealth. Jay Gatsby, the main character, was not born into wealth, but earned it through hard work.

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Reaching a higher class and wealth are aspects of success that many aspire to achieve. Although that may be true, in reality, as a person begins to expand their goals toward the American dream, they tend to spiral downward and crash in the end. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, pertains to an ambitious character; falling short of the American dream, resulting in a tragedy. Specifically, the book follows a young man named Gatsby and his dream to finally meet the love of his life, Daisy, who he hasn't seen in five years. Gatsby goes to great lengths in order to grab Daisy’s attention, by throwing lavish parties, which he had to achieve by becoming a bootlegger.

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Everybody has an American Dream. For most people it is being rich. Jay Gatsby makes an effort to achieve his American Dream by gaining as much money as he can to obtain Daisy’s love. He made the mistake of believing that money can buy happiness and the love of others. However, the hollowness of wealthy people and the destructive nature of lies and deceit hinder Gatsby’s ultimate goal.

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The view of the American Dream is different for everyone. The Epic Journey, by James Truslow Adams, views the American Dream as a dream of attaining one’s fullest stature regardless of one’s social status. Similarly, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s American Dream relates to Adam’s dream but limited to materialistic wealth- a dream that seeks for motor cars, higher wages, and to impress the people of high status. Both Adams and Gatsby believe that everyone has an equal chance of achieving their dream. Adams says “The dream is that dream of land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement”.

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Gatsby was a man who came up from essentially nothing by gaining his money through bootlegging and other illegal acts in order to gain a reputation in society. Gatsby’s constant desire to accomplish more in his life demonstrates the corruption of the American Dream. It is evident that Gatsby has had a thirst for the American dream since a young age, this is shown when Gatsby’s father says: “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind?

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Instead of following the American dream of ‘pursuing happiness’ Gatsby focuses on using his assets to bring consummation to an otherwise empty life. This perversion of the American dream serves only to improve his 'image ' to a society that initially rejects him when he is impoverished. It is Gatsby 's belief that wealth makes him a "son of God," a deity that carries out his "Father 's business" through the "vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty" (89) of possessing material objects irrelevant to happiness. To get these earthly treasures, he exploits the “Land of Opportunity” and dabbles in illegal activities, a practice akin to modern corporate scandals. The true purpose of the American dream is lost upon Gatsby, as it makes "no sound" of warning upon his conscience, fading into an omen that becomes "uncommunicable forever" (100).

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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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The story and themes from The Great Gatsby are still relevant in today’s American society. The biggest part of the American dream is to become successful. However, a lot of Americans just define being successful as being wealthy. “‘Her voice is full of money,’ he said suddenly.

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The Great Gatsby, written in 1924 by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in my opinion, focused on the American Dream and the problems with that vision. In contrast to all the other themes of the book, it seemed to be rather uplifting on the surface but when you look into the details it can paint a pretty disgusting picture of the American Dream in the 1920’s chiefly and the American Dream for all Americans throughout time in general. In the following, I will be discussing the American Dream in a whole over the course of the entire novel, using a specific quotation, and focusing on Gatsby. As we focus on the American Dream in the Great Gatsby, we must look in general across the entire book. We really first start to see foreshadowing to this theme in the second Chapter with George Wilson and Myrtle Wilson, one making a living as a mechanic/gas station operator, the other making money by being in an affair with Tom respectively.

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Gatsby’s Failure of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby Dreams are seen as a positive way to keep people going forward through their lives. However, dreams can blind people and not let them to see the truth. The novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes the idea of The American Dream of not being able to be achieved. Gatsby is one of the characters in the novel that tries to achieve The American Dream. The pursuit of the American Dream brings negative results to Gatsby because he becomes greedy, unrealistic, and dishonest, which shows that chasing dreams can destroy one’s life.

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Part of the American dream is finding love and raising a family. Gatsby’s hard work was fueled by the dream of Daisy. Gatsby had never loved a girl like this one. He was so infatuated with her that he even said, “Her voice is full of money," (Fitzgerald). Gatsby loves his money and ultimately just to hear her voice brought extreme emotion to him.

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There are many themes exist in the novel of The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. The most significant theme in this novel is the American dream. The meaning of the American Dream is someone who starting low on the social level or economic, which then working hard and try their best towards wealth and fame. In other word, it stand for one’s independence to strive in order to achieve desired wealth and fame with hard work, but it ends up being more about selfish and materialism pursuit of pleasure. American dream is achieve when a person having a car, money, big house, happy family and nice clothes.

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