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

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The Toxic American Dream of The Great Gatsby The novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, focuses on the American Dream. In the novel Gatsby, Daisy, and Myrtle strive for their idea of the American Dream. However, the dream they sought betrays them. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the American Dream, and its pursuit, poisons the characters and causes their downfall. Myrtle, trapped with a husband she loathes in The Valley of Ashes, dreams of a wealthy life. This results in her affair with Tom, Daisy’s husband, and her obsession with him. Myrtle longs for the life Daisy has, and her jealousy grows throughout the novel. Her American Dream is what she perceives Daisy’s life as. Toward the climax of The Great Gatsby, Myrtle’s …show more content…

Daisy dreams of a surplus of wealth where she doesn’t have to worry or do anything. This dream makes her leave Gatsby as, “she wanted her life shaped now, immediately — and the decision must be made by some force,” (Fitzgerald 151). Daisy’s obsession with the perfect life free from troubles and woes, lead her to a turbulent life full of troubles and woes. Her unfaithful husband, Tom, constantly mistreats her, slowly poisoning her mind, causing her to make an unfixable mistake and kill Myrtle. Her mistake was life caused by years of being willingly blind to Tom’s actions, allowing them to be forgiven and forgotten for the sake of the American Dream. In an article discussing the roles of the characters in The Great Gatsby, Hermanson states, "Daisy is one who lives for the moment, and for whom glimpses of tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that are terrifying lapses of a willful blindness to such matters" (Hermanson). In Daisy's desperate pursuit of the American Dream, she chooses to be blind to the future trouble it will cause her. When Daisy married Tom she knew it would only bring her misery, but she turned a blind eye to it. However, she bottled up everything, allowing it to wear her down and slowly drive her insane, showing how achieving the American Dream doesn’t guarantee happiness. In Samuel’s article, he argues, "Daisy...lack the inner resources to enjoy what their wealth can give them. They show the peculiar folly of the American dream" (Samuels). Daisy lacks what is needed to enjoy the "benefits" of the American Dream, showing the foolishness of it. Daisy always strives for more, never being satisfied with what her dream has given her. This lack of satisfaction and internal happiness keeps her from enjoying the American Dream. Daisy is in an unhappy marriage and no amount of wealth changes that. Without internal happiness, Daisy attempts to

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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the characters Gatsby and Daisy on pages 95-96 to prove that the American Dream is ultimately unattainable though diction, tone and figurative language. The final goal that Gatsby had left to do was to obtain Daisy and the passage that was selected was one of the pinnacle moments of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship rekindling. It is important to note that Fitzgerald creates a tone that is not exactly too hopeful. The descriptions include words such as “ghostly heart, illusion, and doubt” which is placed to foreshadow that Gatsby will not obtain Daisy despite having moments such as this with her.

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In F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald efficiently utilizes characterization of Tom to illustrate that possessing wealth comes at a cost such as violence and arrogance, thus destorying the general idea of the American Dream. Within this novel, it is clearly shown that Tom wants to keep his two lives with both his wife and mistress separate. When either of them discuss eachother, Tom becomes visibly irritated and upset. When Tom and Myrtle held a small party, Myrtle began to shout,” Daisy! Daisy!

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Daisy has always wanted happiness, and it seems she has obtained that happiness when she married Tom Buchanan. However, as the novel progresses, it becomes incrementally apparent that Tom and Daisy’s relationship is not ideal, but in fact far from it. Tom tends to be abusive towards Daisy and cares very little about her. “She never questioned that he (Tom) is a wealthy WASP” (Schreier), and Daisy thought she gained everything by marrying Tom; wealth, love and happiness which are all parts of the American Dream. However, when Daisy is reunited with her old love, Gatsby, she had a sudden epiphany.

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In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the reality of the American Dream. Throughout the novel, he uses Daisy to represent the American Dream. In chapter eight, after Daisy crashes the car, “she vanish[es] into her rich house… leaving Gatsby nothing” (149). Daisy is depicted as soulless; she is willing to let Gatsby take the fall for her faults. In order to remain the American Dream, Daisy must appear blameless to society; therefore, the common man must always take responsibility for her mistakes.

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Regardless of Daisy’s marriage, Gatsby develops a relationship with her, before eventually falling victim to the American Dream, failing to secure Daisy

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The desire for a luxurious life is what lures Myrtle into having an affair with Tom. Or Gatsby’s vision of a Happy life with his true love Daisy. The Characters decisions harms their future without them attempting to do so which in turn destroys their vision for the American Dream. When Myrtle first got married to George Wilson, she thought that she was crazy about him and thought that they were happy being together. Myrtle says, “The only crazy, I was was when I married him.

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The American Dream suggests that every American citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work. One of the major ways that Fitzgerald portrays this is by alluding to outside events or works of literature specifically from that time period. Another major relationship that develops in The Great Gatsby is between Tom and Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald alludes to things such as the World’s Fair and “The Love Nest” to display the eventual dismantling of Tom and Daisy’s relationship. Both of these separate plots consolidate under the idea of Gatsby trying to become the epitome of the American Dream, as seen through his strive for a “perfect life.”

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The author explains that Gatsby did all in his effort to get better for Daisy, but ended up dying in the midst of it. The author depicts this by stating, “Furthermore, his success obviously doesn’t last – he still pines for Daisy and loses everything in his attempt to get her back” (Wulick). The author also brings in the idea of George and Myrtle Wilson trying to achieve the American Dream. It is mentioned that George wants a better life just as much as Myrtle does. However, Myrtle seeks a better life through Tom and having him buy her materials.

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She chooses the extravagant lifestyle that Tom is capable of providing instead of patiently waiting for her true love. The self-centered desires she displays demonstrates the lack of authetic love she promised Gatsby. Instead, she marries Tom “without so much as a shiver”, demonstrating her hedonistic mindset (76). Since Tom treats Daisy with minimal care, she thoughtlessly dives into an adulterous affair with Jay Gatsby. With no severe intentions towards marriage, she always “ought to have something in her life” to fulfill her heart (79).

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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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Through the empty lives of three characters from this novel—Myrtle, Daisy, and Jay Gatsby—Fitzgerald shows that chasing hollow dreams leads only to misery. All Myrtle wants is a perfect and luxurious life. The

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Just as the American Dream- the pursuit of happiness- has degenerated into a quest for more wealth, Gatsby’s powerful dream of happiness with Daisy has become the motivation for lavish excess and criminal activities. He used his dream to escape from his past, but then was stuck on hold for when he lost Daisy the only part of the dream he really cared for. Gatsby made a dream just for Daisy so she could be apart of his, but saw the meaningless of it when she didn’t choose him in the end. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….

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The Disillusionment of the American Dream is evident in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The main characters that exhibit this through their lives are; Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson and Mr. Jay Gatsby. All of these characters hold on to their dream, but all of these characters are somehow let down. The first character, Daisy Buchanan, has the dream of love. She grew up in a very wealthy home.

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When Daisy finds out Myrtle is interested in Tom, Daisy kills her by running her over while driving a car, to prevent her from continuing to develop feelings for her husband. After the incident, Gatsby explained that a “women rushed out just as we were passing a car coming the other way” (110) when he was in the car when Daisy was driving. With Daisy being apart of the upper class because of being with her rich husband Tom, the death of Myrtle symbolizes how the upper class continually shatters the hope that the middle and lower class may have for achieving the American Dream. After Daisy ran over Myrtle with the car, she immediately thinks about herself and how she will attempt to avoid the consequences, despite that she just killed a living human being. Following this horrific event, George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband, goes after Gatsby to hunt him down and execute him, and at this time in the novel, Gatsby’s pool is tainted with a “red circle” (162).

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