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. The Great Gatsby tells the sad story of Jay Gatsby's unstoppable pursuit of the American Dream in the luxury and excess of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald creates a striking portrait of the hollow promises and moral decay that come …show more content…
At a critical point in time in the book, Gatsby boldly proclaims, "Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” (Fitzgerald 117), summarizing his passionate conviction that gaining money grants someone the replication of a perfected past. This claim highlights the American Dream's deceptiveness, a subject that runs throughout the entire book. In addition to forming Gatsby's character, his unstoppable pursuit of the American Dream offers a moving critique of the period's socioeconomic conditions. In the words of Wu and Shen, "Gatsby's relentless pursuit of the American dream, as well as the class factors alluded to behind his tragic end, have sparked widespread reflection, making it an ideal text for studying the class structure and mobility of American society during this period" (Wu and Shen 9). This passage highlights Gatsby's function as a symbolic figure, producing thought about social class relations and transforming The Great Gatsby into a fascinating investigation of the class division in American culture during the Jazz Age in the 1920s. Fitzgerald's masterful depiction of Gatsby's goals sheds light on the fine distinction of the American Dream and provides a thought provoking