What Is The Danger Of Dreams In The Great Gatsby

The Danger of Dreams in The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men
Why is it that people wake up each morning to endure the toughest of days? Why do individuals opt into a continuous cycle of dissatisfaction, never knowing when and if they will reach satisfaction? The concept of life is glorified. It is the fictitious vision of an ideal future that holds the power to push individuals to endure their realities. The adversities of the present are necessary in order to get closer to grasping a dream. Through hard work and perseverance, virtually anything is attainable. However, these popular mannerisms of thought and motivation are flawed according to modernists. Modernists believe that the realities of society lie in loneliness, confusion, and harsh

Multiple factors determine an outcome. Since an ideal future is not centered around loneliness, one’s efforts alone cannot lead to a desired outcome. Despite Jay Gatsby’s success in gaining wealth and status and despite his hard work to reach the aristocratic level of society, he is eventually abandoned at the end of the novel, left as a casualty in the mess made by society’s true and ruthless elite. The pessimistic nature of modernism reveals itself in the truth that dreams can die regardless of ambition and hard work. In the sad moment when Gatsby’s utopian world crumbles, Nick states: “No telephone message arrived…I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky…A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about…like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees” (Fitzgerald 161). Gatsby’s infatuation with his dreams allowed them to override his life like a disease, in the end killing his sense of purpose. Additionally, George’s realization that his best efforts would never be enough to ensure a good life for him and Lennie lead to the demise of their dream. George and Lennie’s future was not determined by their own efforts but was instead determined by society. Society deemed their dreams unrealistic and therefore impossible. Society made Lennie a burden, in turn killing George’s spirit and rendering him a man of loneliness. After George came to know that Lennie killed Curley's wife, both he and Lennie share a heartfelt last moment together that encompasses George’s true acceptance of the matter: “Lennie said, ‘I thought you was mad at me,