The Evolution of the American Dream: The Great Gatsby by F. Scoot Fitzgerald

How does Fitzgerald relate Gatsby’s dream to the American Dream? What seems to be his message about the American Dream as expressed in the last two paragraphs of the novel?

Imagine living in a world where dreams that come to mind are highly reachable and come without a struggle, a place where fantasies come into play. Americans far and beyond believe the American Dream is something as simple as owning a home or starting a family, but for Jay Gatsby, that was simply not enough. As a man with implausible dreams, Gatsby thought differently when compared to others. His American Dream was not a job or a home, but rather a married woman who is known as Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby placed the sole focus of his life on Daisy, he became obsessed. Through a passage in The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald employs personification and diction to convey the idea that Gatsby was lost in the unique distortion of his own reality with Daisy.

The American Dream is pivotal to America's upbringing and culture. It has existed before America has. Its is the belief that a person could achieve success in America through hard work. The American Dream is somethings everyone wished to accomplish, and for good reason. However, the dream is increasingly getting harder to achieve than ever before. Be it for prejudice, persecution, social constructs, or even sexism. For some people, the American Dream is still a reality, but for others it will always be a dream.

The American Dream as it is defined cannot simply hold true without preservation of it’s ideals. An ideal is maintained by the people. Enjoying the benefits the American Dream promises requires each person to uphold its ideals among his fellows. If this were the case, the original definition might have been preserved. The problem is that other factors kicked in which prioritized wealth and status among people which interfered with the ability of others to pursue the dream. From there, the American Dream gradually changed from hard work to status.

The term “American Dream” is defined as an idea which believes that all people have the possibility of prosperity and success. The idea first came from James Adams, a noted American writer and historian. He claimed, “Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability and achievement.” Therefore, the core concepts of the American Dream were closely linked to hard work and opportunity.

Seeing something beautiful that will make one’s life much better makes a person insane in trying to get that thing for himself. In the 1920s, poor people would do whatever it needs to achieve their American Dream even if it was something terrible. That’s because they want to end their misery of living poor and live the life that they always wished. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the author uses the fact of Daisy marrying Tom because of his money while she loves Gatsby, Myrtle cheating on her husband with Tom looking to be rich, and Wilson starting his own little business looking for wealth, to show how the American Dream is impossible because it is based off of greed.

Nowadays, a large number of people migrate to the United States to work and achieve the American Dream. According to the Article “What is the American Dream?” by Kimberly Amadeo, “The American Dream was first publicly defined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams in Epic of America. Adam’s often-repeated quote is, ‘The American Dream is that dream of land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.’” There are many people that can have different perspectives when it comes to the topic of the American dream. Even though many people assume the American Dream is dead, it is a very controversial topic. The American Dream may have many different points of views, but it really does exist, after all, it takes an ambitious person to strive for success through hard work, dedication and determination.

In the United States' Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers "…held certain truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." This sentiment can be considered the foundation of the American Dream, the dream that everyone has the ability to become what he or she desires to be. While many people work to attain their American dream, others believe that the dream is seemingly impossible to reach, like F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby examines the "Jazz-Age" generation's search for the elusive American Dream of wealth and happiness and scrutinizes the consequences of that

In The Great Gatsby, the American Dream is shown in many ways. Gatsby is a character in the novel that knows himself what the American Dream is like. He found himself living the dream after he turned his life around from when he ran away, to when he rescued Dan Cody on the ship. Now, he is rich from his own hard work and is what I would call, living the American Dream.

Due to the modern-day circumstances of life in America, such as the salary of minimum wage, the corrupted economy, and the demands of everydayevery day life, I believe that the "American Dream" has become simply unachievable. A once inspirational and motivational set of ideals has turned into something that can now be described as out of reach.

Symbolism is a big part in how people express certain feelings or represent important items. The American Dream is a huge achievement that everyone wants to reach. Whether people want to admit it or not, it is a symbol all it’s self. It can be anything really, a great job, a family, white picket fence, even music or attending concerts of your favorite band. The American Dream is something that makes you so happy and what you can achieve or want achieve in your lifetime. The main AMerican Dream is money, a family, and happiness. In The Great Gatsby the american dream is a green light.There are several different colors for the different symbols in the book which are portrayed throughout the book often, and in the right context. Each character is put with that color and in different scenes for different reasons. Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Nick Carraway all portrayed the same color symbol; yellow which stands for death and or/ corruption.

What is your American Dream? The American Dream is the belief that anyone, in spite of where they were born or what class they were born into, can accomplish their own form of accomplishment in a society where upward success is imaginable for everyone. The 1920s was a time period of thrilling changes to America’s culture and way of life, but come the 1930’s American took punch and crashed into a great depression. The Author of The great Gastby, F. Scott Fitzgerald show what life is like during the 1920’s and the author of, Of mice and men, John Steinbeck's shows a whole different life when the Great Depression hits. The two authors both show how no matter how rich or how poor everyone has an American dream. In everyone’s eyes there’s a different dream, some dream big while others dream small, not one American dream is the same, but they all have a goal of becoming happy.

The elements of distortion in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, shows how the American dream should be or what is actually expected. In the 1920’s the over exaggerations for having an amazing American Life were “in”. The life of lavish and being known was what everyone wanted. Many people though did not have nearly anything and were looked down upon. The distortion creates illusions of the life that a person should be able to bare, but no one is that lucky, nor works hard enough. The distorted views contribute to his works to show the miserable realities of how those people live and a possibility of how they can turn out.

The American Dream has turned into a materialistic dream. The original idea and impression of the American Dream has evolved into one of materialism due to the decaying social

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby still remains a literary classic, almost a century after being published. While being named "the 20th century's best American novel" by modern library, it has lived up to the title by famously being referred back to by countless contemporary authors in the quests to explain themes of social politics, downsides of wealth and tragedy in general. The exploration of self morals pitted against society roles and duty to family have since been described in many acts of literature after Gatsby and it will continue to be the groundwork for many to come.