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The Great Gatsby Research Paper

595 Words3 Pages

The Great Gatsby, The American Dream, and You The Great Gatsby, a tragic realist novel written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, contains themes generally centralizing on the American Dream. However, it seems that from my perspective one of the central themes of this work is how, even if someone achieves the “cookie cutter” life, which was the focus of the American Dream in the 1920s, they may still be unfulfilled due to the infiltration of class division within the upper class, making the American Dream essentially unachievable. One of the main examples of this concept in The Great Gatsby is the character Jay Gatsby, formerly known as James Gatz, and his relationship with another titular character Daisy Buchanan. This relationship helps to develop …show more content…

A situation that displayed the disparity was the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy in the novel. Throughout the novel Daisy seems to love Gatsby, but at the end of the book Daisy abandons Gatsby to stay with Tom even though she is unhappy with him and wishes to be with Gatsby. I believe that these ideas are expressed in this quote, “She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented place.” This quote shows how Daisy, though in love with Gatsby, could never truly love the atmosphere surrounding him, that atmosphere being the fancifulness and excess of new money. In contrast, Tom Buchanan is a man of old money, his attitude, sense of entitlement, and properness in manner and speech, exemplify the aspects of his personality. These aspects of Tom are part of the reason why Daisy chose to stay with him, his “old money” like tendencies grant him a certain status and respect in the communities he

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