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The Great Gatsby: A Story Of The Corrupted American Dream

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The Great Gatsby: A Story of the Corrupted American Dream Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, better known as F. Scott Fitzgerald, was a famous member of what is known as the “Lost Generation”, a group of literary figures who left America due to discontent with the country in the early 1900s. Fitzgerald was born in 1896 and frequently moved around the country over the course of his life, working many different jobs but never becoming successful or wealthy. In his late teens, he joined the United States Army and fell in love with a girl at the camp where he was stationed, but she refused to marry him due to his economic instability. He later married her after the war and became a writer, although that incident changed his views on American society. As a heavy alcoholic who was constantly in debt, Fitzgerald moved to …show more content…

In 1926, he wrote The Great Gatsby, a novel which criticized American culture and the concept of the American Dream. In 1940, F. Scott Fitzgerald died with little writing success, however, his literature became popularized after his death (Brucolli 2). As a member of the “Lost Generation”, Fitzgerald did not believe in the common American belief that “...every man, whatever his origins, may pursue and attain his chosen goals, whether they be political, monetary, or social” (Pearson 1). He felt that average Americans were disillusioned and misled in their constant strive for wealth and materialism. F. Scott Fitzgerald accurately shows the problems with the concept of the American Dream through the characters and plot of his novel The Great Gatsby, separating the realistic opportunity from the theoretical during the 1920s, and he

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Francis Scott Fitzgerald once stated, “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart and all they can do is stare blankly.” Throughout his famous work, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrayed the American Dream. Contrary to the ideology of the “Roaring Twenties” society, he described the American Dream as a delusion. People of the era focused on materialism in order to boost their wealth and status and forgot the importance of their relationships. Several characters within the novel sought to gain a higher status in society.

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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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F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote his novel, The Great Gatsby, to represent the rise and fall of the American Dream, an ideal worshipped during the 1920s. The author places the rich and wealthy lifestyle on a higher level while he shows the dramatic consequences of moral and social decay amongst the characters within the story. As each turning point is revealed by the author, the American Dream slowly crumbles in the selfish hands of those who feel as if they are the most important people. The importance of the many symbolic elements in The Great Gatsby, play a role in revealing the underlying themes of the American Dream and the experience that each character has, mainly Gatsby. It also shows the ongoing clash between love and wealth, and social and

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Fayez Yasin Mrs. Owens English III Honors - G6 12 February 2024. The American Dream in The Great Gatsby The misleading shine of the American Dream frequently hides the deep disappointments that settle beneath in a bright world of illusions and aspirations. Within the bright but morally rotten background of 1920s America, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby explores this precise division, revealing the hollowness behind the American Dream as people navigate the complications of money, love, and societal expectations.

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The American Dream, the belief that everyone has freedom and the opportunity to achieve their own version of success, played a huge role in the development of our country. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, the idea that the American Dream is attainable and beneficial is seriously challenged. The novel, set in the 1920s, a time of prosperity and growth, allows readers to explore the consequences those striving to reach this status face. Fitzgerald uses wealth, social status, desire, and the development of characters to challenge the American Dream ideology.

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Everyone has a dream that they wish to pursue and achieve. For some, it is wealth, and for others, it is a life full of happiness. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald tells the story, through the character Nick Carraway, of a man whose end goal was to have the American Dream. While many believe the American Dream is to reach a high status and wealth, for Gatsby, his American Dream was to be with his true love, Daisy Buchanan. In the beginning, Gatsby and Daisy were lovers, but Gatsby went off to war.

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For hundreds of years, American women have faced generations of societal oppression. From the Salem Witch Trials in the 1690s to women’s suffrage in the 1800s, women have been shut down by the patriarchal society. From the early foundations of American society, women have not been offered the same opportunities as their male counterparts. The American Dream and its promises were not directed towards women, even if not directly stated. The American Dream is hypocritical by not providing equal opportunities for women and men to achieve the great promised lifestyle.

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Great Gatsby Close Reading America is known as the land of opportunities and achieving dreams. People have been migrating to America ever since it was discovered, however, the major wave of immigration occurred from the 1880s to 1920. The American dream is the belief that if someone tries hard enough, then they can reach their dream and attain their own version of success in society, it is achieved through sacrifice, risk-taking and hard work. However, this is not always the case. In 1925 the famous American author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel the great Gatsby, which illustrates the corruption of the American Dream.

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Us as humans may believe we work hard, thrive, have dedication, improve their daily life, achieve happiness, wealth, and have “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This is known as the “American Dream.” In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Gatsby wants his life to be extraordinary and wants the best for who he loves. This definition relates to me because I want to be able to live my life to the best of my ability.

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The Corruption of The American Dream in The Great Gatsby In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates society in the 1920’s and the desire for the people with in it to achieve the American Dream, which embodies the hope that one can achieve power, love and a higher economic/social status through one’s commitment and effort. The novel develops the story of a man named Jay Gatsby and his dream of marrying what he describes as his “golden girl”, also known as, Daisy Buchanan, his former lover. Fitzgerald explores the corruption of the American dream through the Characters; Myrtle, Gatsby and Daisy.

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The Oxford dictionary defines the “American novel” as a novel that shows the culture of the United States at a specific time in history. A true American novel encompasses the true dream of those living in America at that particular time. Some of these themes included man’s relationship with nature such as Tarzan, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Other criteria of these novels are, racial and class issues, a change of moral, danger, a quest for betterment, not fitting in, and a journey. In the 1920’s, Jay Gatsby’s American Dream was to become a wealthy, mysterious heroine obsessed with love.

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The American dream states that any individual can achieve success regardless of family history, race, and/or religion simply by working hard. The 1920’s were a time of corruption and demise of moral values in society. The first World War had passed, and people were reveling in the materialism that came at the end of it, such as advanced technology and innovative inventions. The novel The Great Gatsby exploits the theme of the American Dream as it takes place in a corrupt period in history. Although the American Dream seemed more attainable than ever in the 1920’s, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby demonstrates how materialism and the demise of moral values in society leads to the corruption and impossibility of the American Dream.

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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 ideal and the real reflect the novel’s major themes the American Dream and the corruption of the wealthy by showing that in the 1920’s the reader would need to know social and economic changes to determine what’s real and what’s not. The reader would need to know the real facts of history in that time and also they would need to know what the stories - which people tell you to make the story more believable - mean. The Decline of the American Dream is a theme that describes how people in the 1920s could not catch their dream because they were corrupted by easy money and an overall relaxing of social values. In The Great Gatsby, we see Gatsby who cannot capture his elusive dream because of Daisy, corrupted by easy money, and the relaxing of social values.

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