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Great Gatsby -- the American Dream
The Great Gatsby is a novel that uses the theme of the American Dream in a number of ways, and it is not a stretch to explain that F. Scott Fitzgerald was showing the dark side of the elusive American Dream. The themes used in The Great Gatsby revolve around those issues in the Roaring Twenties that were linked to the newly wealthy people; and Fitzgerald uses those themes to present the flaws in the American Dream. This paper points to some of those passages in the novel that relate to the American Dream.
The Great Gatsby's American Dream Themes
Tanfer Emin Tunc presents an essay in the book appropriated titled The American Dream in which he points to how the concept of the American Dream is woven into Fitzgerald's novel. Fitzgerald uses the protagonist Jay Gatsby to "…exemplify the rise and fall of the American Dream," and the novel also traces what Tune calls "the arc of a life as it begins in wonder, reaches for the stars, confronts society's spiritual emptiness and gratuitous materialism and ends in tragic death" (Tunc, 2009, 67).
The narrator, Nick Carraway, is turned off by the terrible destruction...
But soon Carraway realizes that moral decay is more prevalent that hopefulness (i.e., the American Dream); in fact Fitzgerald refers to Long Island as a "wasteland." The social environment in New York is polluted with the likes of Gatsby, whose pursuit of the American Dream (money) was made possible by his part in the trafficking of illegal booze (during Prohibition), trading in stolen securities and bribing police officers. This approach to achieving the American Dream of course is a corrupt one -- achieving great wealth through organized crime -- and by presenting Gatsby this way, Fitzgerald was criticizing the concept of the American Dream.
Gatsby wears silk shirts (part of his American Dream is to be flashy), and when Gatsby throws dozens of expensive silk shirts onto a table, Daisy realizes that all those shirts reflect Gatsby's obsession with the American Dream. Knowing Gatsby is phony, she cries, and says, "They're such beautiful shirts…It makes me said because I've never seen such -- such beautiful shirts before" (Fitzgerald, 61). Daisy's voice is "full of money"…
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Phoenix, OR: Interactive Media Publishing. 2012.
Tunc, Tanfer Emin. "The Great Gatsby: The Tragedy of the American Dream on Long
Island's Gold Coast." From The American Dream, Eds. B. Hobby and H. Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009.
Gatsby had built up this incredible illusion of what Daisy really was, and had gone off the deep end in throwing himself after her. Weinstein (p. 25) quotes from pages 102-103 of the novel: "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion." It is typical of Fitzgerald to
Even after Daisy commits murder, Gatsby remains unmoved in his emotions towards her. What's more, he assumes responsibility for her actions. Or consider the statement: ' Of course she might have loved him, just for a minute, when they were first married -- and loved me more even then, do you see?' (Fitzgerald, p. 133). Gatsby clings to this hope despite Daisy's professed loved her husband. Such explanations indicate
Characters in the Great Gatsby -- the American Dream A. Nick Carraway is the narrator in this novel and plays a very important role 1) Nick is the readers' source of description and information about the other characters, especially Gatsby, Daisy, 2) Nick is an honest person in the beginning of the novel, but the more he becomes involved in the relationships with Tom, Daisy and Gatsby, and through his romantic relationship
Fitzgerald uses white to describe Daisy, and it is fairly certain he used white to depict Daisy's original innocence. Daisy's car is white, her clothes are white and the paint on the walls of her house are white. However, toward the end of the novel Daisy has been corrupted by Gatsby and the whole social scene, and she becomes careless and destructive. A reader can surmise that Fitzgerald is simply
As we have already mentioned, the mood and tone for moral corruption in New York City was prime in the 1920s and while it may seem there are the rich and the poor, class distinction among the rich plays an important role in the novel. Gatsby's success will only carry him so far because of a dividing line that exists between the new wealth and the old wealth. This
Great Gatsby: A World of Illusion The 1920s were a time of change for America. The war was over and America was ready for some fun. The poor lived in a world of little opportunity and destitution, while the rich threw lavish parties in exquisite gardens. These parties were portrayed in magazines and the lives of the rich and famous were everywhere. These glimpses into the lives of the rich