The American dream can be completely different for two people depending on their financial status and beliefs. The story The Great Gatsby is about a man that started with a humble background who then became an extremely wealthy business owner that needed money to attract a woman named Daisy. “A Raisin in the Sun” is about a black family that was not wealthy, but received a check that was split among the family members. Due to the endings of both texts, they show that money is not important to attaining the American dream. Mama, from the text “A Raisin in the Sun”, did not value money, yet reached her American dream. “Some of it got to be put away for Beneatha and he Schoolin’... maybe we could meet the notes on a little old two story …show more content…
“Gatsby had a humble past, but would lie about his past in order to show how great he was. Gatsby said he fought in World War 1 and was an Oxford student for a few years in an attempt to show Daisy that he did a lot in his past and was not truly a poor man” (Fitzgerald, 1925). Gatsby has created a false image of himself in order to regain Daisy’s interest in him. He has put so much value on money that he has to lie and illegally make money. Gatsby believed that becoming wealthy would lead him to his American dream of getting Daisy’s love and did not achieve it because he put too much focus on money instead of thinking about how Daisy feels now. Mama and Gatsby have completely different viewpoints on money and the American dream. Mama uses her money to support herself and her family while Gatsby uses his money to attract Daisy. “When the world gets ugly enough - a woman will do anything for her family” (Hansberry, 1958, pg 8). This quote shows how Mama will do anything for her family even if she has to lose all of her money, her family the most important to her. Gatsby’s ambition was to get enough money to entice Daisy into loving him. “Gatsby went through difficult times and has done illegal acts in order to achieve Daisy’s love” (Fitzgerald, 1925). Illegally selling alcohol and lying about his past shows his value for money was most important in achieving his
Gatsby's tragic flaw lies within his inability to see that the real and the ideal cannot coexist. Gatsby's ideal is Daisy. He sees her as perfect and worthy of all his affections and praise. In reality she is undeserving and through her actions, proves she is pathetic rather than honorable. When Daisy says "Sophisticated-God I'm sophisticated" (18), she contradicts who she really is. The reader sees irony here, knowing she is far from sophisticated, but superficial, selfish and pathetic. Gatsby's vision is based on his belief that the past can be repeated, "can't repeat the past? Why of course you can" (111)! The disregard for reality is how Gatsby formulates his dream (with high expectations), and the belief that sufficient wealth can allow one to control his or her own fate. Gatsby believes youth and beauty can be recaptured if he can only make enough money. To become worthy of Daisy, Gatsby accumulates his wealth, so he can rewrite the past and Daisy will be his. He establishes an immense fortune to impress the great love of his life, Daisy, who can only be won with evidence of material success. Over the five years in which Gatsby formulates this ideal, he envisions Daisy so perfect that he places her on a pedestal. As he attempts to make his ideal a reality things do not run as smoothly as he plans. Daisy can never live up to Gatsby's ideal, though
There are many similarities involving the main characters in the books The Great Gatsby and A Raisin in the Sun. For example, they are similar because their entire lives revolve around money. Also, they define their lives by determining what social class they live in. Another main likeness between the two is that they reside in large cities. Which leads to problems that people in rural communities wouldn’t have. On the other hand, they also have major differences. One is wealthy, the other lives in poverty. Jay Gatsby lives in a paradise-like community in New York, while Walter Younger and his family live in the slums of Chicago. Another difference between them is their race. Jay, being a white, is a well respected individual in his part
She was a girl with wealth, connections and means—everything a seventeen-year-old boy could aspire to one day attain. It is this illusion that Gatsby falls in love with, not Daisy, and he dedicates his life to become a man that could parallel Daisy in both social status and wealth. “So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” (98) Though Gatsby appears to be blinded by material possession and unethical in his means to acquire it, Fitzgerald sets him up to be the hero of the novel by contrasting his virtue to the sea of corruptness and material greed that made up the ambitions of most young folks in the 1920s. True, he made his money through illegal means, but his incredible sense of loyalty is striking against the dishonest, scheming American society. In the novel, it is clear that Gatsby is unfailingly loyal to everyone he loves, from his father to Dan Cody to Daisy, who he dedicated “five years of unwavering devotion” (109) to, even if they were not loyal to him in return.
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is also someone who is blinded by his greed. “Her voice was full of money”, Gatsby says about Daisy, his love interest. In saying this, he means that she is full of wealth, status, and notoriety, all things that Gatsby craves. Gatsby is an ambitious man who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He is a man who believes that money and possessions alone will allow him to get what he truly wants: the love of his life, Daisy. However, Gatsby is so blinded by his greed that he joins the mob to grow his fortunes and commits acts as unspeakable as murder. Daisy's discovery of this convinces her to stay with Tom, as Gatsby is likely to be arrested and therefore lose his wealth. Had Gatsby gone about his business in a moral way, he would have most likely won Daisy back. However, his ambition and desperate need for Daisy blind him and convince him that any immoral act is excusable and necessary to achieve his goals. Gatsby is a man with good intentions, but in the end, he allows his greed to get the best of
I hypothesized that Gatsby 's failure arose from his deluded and futile dream of Daisy. Gatsby 's failure is that he continues to pursue Daisy, who is unwilling to break her marriage, and forces a confrontation that escalates and eventually ends in his death. This dream, which drives him to his failure, arose from his obsession with Daisy and the American Dream. During Gatsby 's life, a social belief existed in the form of the American Dream. The American Dream was a belief held by many that any individual can reach their dream should they choose to work towards it. In most cases, this meant money. However, for Gatsby, it was not enough to simply be wealthy, although he did acquire great wealth, but rather to accommodate Daisy 's background of old money. With the American Dream influencing Gatsby, when he met Daisy and fell in love with her, it became his everything to marry her. However, this dream became an illusion because of the reality that she had moved on. He grew a delusion that he could break the Buchanan marriage as he believed that she did not and had never loved Tom. The futility of Gatsby 's dream accounts from
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Gatsby, a younger man around thirty years old lives in the West Egg of New York City, the side that represents new money. Throughout the story Gatsby pursuits to win over Daisy to attain happiness by showing off his social status and wealth by throwing large parties and showing off his material items because Daisy can not be without them. Gatsby is willing to do anything to be with Daisy and keeps pushing to be with her even though she is out of reach and unattainable. Gatsby ends ups dying and Daisy continues to live with her husband Tom while they are kept together by their same desire for money. Gatsby’s American Dream is out of his reach and unattainable but he continues to pursue his own dream with his wealth
Gatsby, after having met Daisy, does everything in his power to make a lot of money from the nothing he had through illegal means. When Gatsby made a lot of money through his business, he moved into a large wealthy house right across the bay from Daisy to impress her. He throws large, extravagant parties in the hope that Daisy will come over to one of them, which Fitzgerald also uses to illustrate how people pursued only their pleasure with parties and alcohol even though it was banned. Later when Daisy meets with Gatsby, he shows her his house and Fitzgerald emphasizes that all Gatsby cares about is how Daisy sees it and how Daisy just sees the wealth, “He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real” (Fitzgerald, 91).
Gatsby was so fixated on this woman that he was ready to do whatever he felt it took to get Daisy back. Without Daisy having to do or say anything, Gatsby changed his life from being a poor man in Louisville, to the richest man in West Egg, all in hopes of attaining Daisy. One thing I find funny about the pursued is that not only do they always get what they want, but they also get things they do not need. Gatsby noticed that Daisy was not the same person she was five years back in Louisville. “Her voice is full of money,” (120).
It was at this point that he realized if he wanted Daisy he would have to make his lies become reality. Consequently, Gatsby became a bootlegger and made his millions by scamming others and finding loopholes in the laws. This is all done for Daisy, he more than likely would have never done this if he had never met and “fallen in love” with her. Even after gathering all of his wealth Gatsby needed more so he began throwing extravagant parties in hope that Daisy would come to one. These parties represent the immoral ways of the 1920’s with alcohol and adultery. Gatsby tries his best to stay detached from the people who go to his parties and to keep his cool and calm persona alive. This life of lies causes Gatsby much distress throughout his life. Gatsby gave up looking for his own happiness in hope that Daisy would love him which he believed would make him happy. This would have been alright if Gatsby had not expected so much from Daisy. He placed her on a pedestal that she would never be able to live up to. Nick even warns Gatsby “ ‘I wouldn't ask too much of her’, I ventured. ‘You can't repeat the past.’” (Fitzgerald
Gatsby grew up in a poor home, and because of lack of money he was unable to marry the woman he truly loved: Daisy Buchanan. Eventually, Gatsby came back from World War One, and began a lucrative business bootlegging. Gatsby amassed all his wealth just for the possibility of reuniting with Daisy. In the end, Gatsby’s unrealistic dreams eventually
Gatsby became involved with organized crime, risking his life and freedom to provide Daisy with a luxurious lifestyle. His method to become rich not only endangered himself, but also his relationship thanks to how shallow, weak, and cynical Daisy is. She craves the security and comfort of an extravagant life, if one of those requirements are threatened,
Gatsby’s successful idea of the American dream was that he would finally be able to have the girl of his dream, Daisy. The only way he would be able to get Daisy was that if he was as rich or richer than her husband, Tom. In Gatsby’s younger age, he never had the wealth because of the side of town he came from. To become a rich man Gatsby worked harder and saved all his money, finally being able to talk to Daisy he saw the success of hard work paying off. Walter’s idea of the American dream was very different from Gatsby’s.
Gatsby is the main character in the book. For Gatsby, his American dream is to be with Daisy, who is his love for a long time. He made his wealth by his own hands to struggle to the upper class. He believes that if he has wealth and fame, he can have everything in the world including Daisy. But in the end, his dream has failed completely; he sacrifices his life for Daisy, who doesn’t love him much as Gatsby does. Gatsby has revealed that the enthusiastic people who really try hard to reach dream have been beaten by the corrupt society. Gatsby is one of those people who work hard to reach his goal, which was earning enough money for a better
Gatsby realizes that wealth is not enough to win Daisy, so he launches a full-scale campaign to become a part of the old rich. He recreates himself into what he believes is acceptable. He changes his name, creates a heroic war record, claims attendance at Oxford, and establishes a lavish lifestyle that will impress Daisy. Much of his background is fabricated or so vague that is cannot be questioned. His purchases are excellent but do not have the charm of family pieces. He clearly meets the criteria for upper class through his finances, but not in the way he earned or spent his money. Gatsby learns that his nouvenean riche status cannot buy him Daisy, the women he thought would be his destiny.
The American Dream coincides with wealth and status rather than happiness or family. In the novel, Gatsby is an example of “New Money.” Although he makes a lot of money in a brief period of time, he is still unaccepted by the upper class, which helps to prove that The American Dream is unachievable for him even though he has wealth and is successful (Fitzgerald 65). In contrast, Daisy is an example of “Old Money” since her safety and privileges are guaranteed by her wealth. This is shown as she marries Tom, regardless of her affection towards Gatsby, and ultimately chooses to stay with him at the end of the novel (75). This proves that upper class women in the 1920’s did not have much freedom to make their own choices as divorce was a controversial topic at the time. Similarly, Gatsby’s description of Daisy as being born wealthy demonstrates how he believes her voice is “full of money” (120). Such a metaphor enhances the