...The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel that takes a different spin on the stereotypical American dream. To say “through the novel, Fitzgerald puts across the idea that the American dream has been corrupted by the desire for materialism” would be accurate. Because “we see that Gatsby had a pure dream, but became corrupt in his quest towards that dream,” this is how the American dream was viewed as corrupt. Throughout the novel Gatsby displays many examples of how his quest towards the dream that was once pure, slowly becomes more and more corrupt. The first showing of corruptness in Gatsby’s dream, which is to marry Daisy, is his unethical means of obtaining a fortune. The stereotypical American dream is working hard for honest money. However, this is not the case for Gatsby. Gatsby attains his fortune through the illegal means of bootlegging. In the novel, the narrator Nick describes Gatsby, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a Son of God—a phrase that, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. 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” (The Great Gatsby Chapter 6 pg). This quotation shows how Nick saw Gatsby as trying to transform himself into the ideal person. He even goes as far as to...
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...When Nick Carraway came back from the east after the summer of 1922, he was disgusted with what he’d seen. Only one man was exempt from his disgust, that man being Gatsby. In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates an America society that contradicts everything America prides itself on which is lack of aristocracy and equal opportunity. The United states is a country that was so great due to the idea of the American dream, which the founding fathers of the nation built the country on. Fitzgerald utilizes deep characterization and symbolism to elaborate themes of the American dream to display what the American dream truly stood for and what it has become. Throughout the plot we come to recognize themes of American dream, through deep insight into characters and what they represent in the American society. After Nick...
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...23 December 2015 Corruption of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby Dishonest work is a major role in the novel, The Great Gatsby. Throughout Gatsby’s life he was always working for his American Dream. That doesn't mean everything he did was honest. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates the corruption of the American Dream through the illegal work of Gatsby, showing that, when one achieves wealth through illegal affairs and by doing dishonest work, one must prepare themselves for the consequences that pertain to that lifestyle. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Gatsby appears to be the embodiment of the American Dream until pieces of his past begin to come out. Early in the novel...
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...The Great Gatsby Essay On the outside, The Great Gatsby seems to be a story about a twisted love affair. Fitzgerald is showing the many changes happening during the 1920’s society, and how it affected the idea of the American dream. Fitzgerald shows the strive for the wealth, which defined the American dream in the 1920’s and which continues to defines as a desire for wealth and success today. In the book, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is showing the corruption of the American dream by throwing parties, making love and having money. After WWII, there was an economic boom which left people suddenly rich, and they were referred to as the “new money.” There quickly became a difference between the “new money” and the people who were previously wealthy. What used to “pursuit of happiness” is now the pursuit of money and greed. The “new money” people don’t like the “old money” people. Jay Gatsby throws parties throughout the summer to show of how much money he has. “There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer night.” ( ) This quote shows that Gatsby has a lot of money because he can afford to throw parties throughout the summer. Money is everything in the world today and it was a huge part in the world back in the 1920’s economy too. The Great Gatsby also symbolizes love throughout the story. There were love affairs between married couples and single people. The biggest affair out of all the characters was definitely Daisy and Gatsby. Jay Gatsby has the biggest...
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...Even though the characters search wholeheartedly for the American Dream in this novel, it is an unachievable goal that only leads to corruption of the people. Each individual character is negatively affected by the dream itself. Moreover, Fitzgerald created his characters to show the effect the Dream has on people. Fitzgerald accurately portrayed the era he lived in by creating characters that were obsessed with the idea of obtaining money, love, and their social status. “They’re such beautiful shirts, it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald, 89). Daisy says this when she was at Gatsby’s house, and he brings out beautiful silk shirts. Daisy doesn't actually cry purely because of the shirts’...
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...“The Great Gatsby” represents the American dream. Typically, the American dream is rising through the social ladder and obtaining wealth. This can be achieved in multiple ways. Unfortunately, wealth or wanting wealth can lead to corruption. Occasionally, if a someone wants to live the American dream, they will do anything to achieve it. Also, once living the American dream, some people think too highly of themselves. Next, corruption comes in many forms. Two include: corruption of the mind and corruption through money. Mainly, Myrtle, Tom and Gatsby fall into one of the two categories. Myrtle’s mind is corrupted, Tom mind is also corrupted, and Gatsby is corrupted by money. First, Myrtle’s mind is corrupted by Tom, a wealthy man. At the...
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...The American Dream is the aspiration to obtain wealth, status and power based on the desire of self-betterment through self-reliance and accomplishment. F Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, is an effective critique on the corruption that surrounds the American Dream. It is also a commentary on the warped view of Western hedonism and idealized lifestyles. The dream is portrayed strongly through the characters, depicting undignified ways to obtain wealth, the amoral social interactions and the illusion of affection and false fellowship. Thus exposing the unscrupulousness, self-absorption and disillusionment that lie at the wake of the American Dream. Fitzgerald critiques on the ideal of ‘self-made’ men (financially) and how through sheer desperation, men stray from conformity and followed a deviated path in order to reach wealth. The American Dream is the belief that regardless of one’s socio-economic background, an individual could still reach financial triumph through hard work, education and drive-which has been the belief of the American society. According to American sociologist Robert K. Merton, American society has generated common desires and pressures for material possession-which is how success was measured- those who fail to succeed by conformity or valid means, resort to devious acts to do so. Fitzgerald comments on this aspect of his society through the portrayal of Gatsby in the novel; who employed unorthodox ways of obtaining wealth in order to gain his incommunicable...
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...Death of the American Dream In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the American dream withers away like a rose in the hot sun. The green light, through its unattainability, symbolizes Gatsby’s yearning for Daisy, money, and favorable reception. The corruption the American dream has on James Gatz represents destructive tendencies the pursuit of the American dream has on people's moral character. The American dream is unachievable, nothing can be so perfect as one could imagine. The American dream dies throughout the book and is untouchable because the fact that it will never live up to expectation. The green light represents our constant desire to achieve the American dream, as Nick describes it, “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. . . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (182). In these concluding words of the novel, Nick returns to the motif of the past to dreams of the future. Using metaphors, Fitzgerald describes the current as tearing them backward as they attempt to push on toward the green light. The futility of their journey emulates the inability to achieve the American dream, no matter the effort or timeless hope put in. In a very similar manner, the green light is physically sought out by Gatsby. Nick sees Gatsby, “stretched...
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...The idea of the American Dream has been around for as long as literature in America has been.The American Dream; an idea that an individual can come to the United States, from anywhere on the planet. People coming to the United States with nothing but his or her name, and the clothes on their back, can become successful and wealthy through hard work and determination, over the course of time. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a classic example of a rags to riches man, but learns the hard way that money and materialistic things cannot fill one’s need for happiness. Not only that, but F. Scott Fitzgerald also portrays the corruption of an individual's American Dream through their foolish pursuit of wealth and physical...
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...“The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays a world filled with rich societal happenings, love affairs, and corruption. Nick Carraway is the engaged narrator of the book, a curious choice considering that he is in a different class and almost in a different world than Gatsby and the other characters. Nick relates the plot of the story to the reader as a member of Gatsby’s circle. He has ambivalent feelings towards Gatsby, despising his personality and corrupted dream but feeling drawn to Gatsby’s magnificent capacity to hope. Using Nick as a moral guide, Fitzgerald attempts to guide readers on a journey through the novel to illustrate the corruption and failure of the American Dream. To achieve this, Nick’s credentials as a reliable narrator are carefully established and reinforced throughout the story. The American Dream is a sensitive and beloved topic in American culture. Discussing its failure and corruption needs to be done gently and morally. Fitzgerald understood this, and therefore acknowledged the need of a kind and cordial narrator within a materialistic society. Enter Nick Carraway, who on the first page lets readers know “In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments” pg 7. This statement already serves to set Nick up as a decent and honest man that can be trusted. To back up this statement Fitzgerald included a short section regarding Nick’s family and background. The Carraway’s claim themselves to be loyal Americans. However, when...
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...The American Dream, fueled by ambition and hopes of success, can often be exposed as a nightmare in disguise. Set in the roaring twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby demonstrates such a point, criticizing the American Dream as well as the dishonest values of characters attempting to achieve this dream. When Nick Carraway moves to Long Island's West Egg, home to the newly rich, he is not expecting to get dragged into an atmosphere of depravity and deceit. Next door lives the elusive Jay Gatsby, a self-proclaimed Oxford man who throws extravagant parties at his mansion with the sole intention of reuniting with Daisy Buchanan, his lost love and true desire. The American Dream was traditionally the belief that anyone, regardless of background, has the opportunity to be happy and successful through hard work, yet as America evolved, the dream did too. The once virtuous ideal modernized into a plot for materialistic power. By the end of the novel, Fitzgerald is trying to project the idea that the American Dream is not only an unattainable ideal, but in addition, corrupts those who seek to obtain it. Firstly, Gatsby's unrealistic dream of Daisy is used to portray the unattainability of the American Dream. In Gatsby’s mind, Daisy is perfect in every aspect and the object of his greatest desire. He becomes so engrossed with the image of Daisy from his memories, that even she herself cannot fulfill his expectations: "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy...
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...The ‘American Dream’ has existed since the funding of the United States. Typically, the dreamer chooses to rise from being poor to being wealthy, while accumulating things such as love, status, wealth, and power. The dream has grown through the years and time periods, even though it was based on freedom, self-reliance and the desire to be something greater. In the past the dream was for someone to go out west for land and to start a family. It has turned into a very materialistic vision of a big house, nice car, and living the easy life. As represented in the novel The Great Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby, the American Dream was more focused on instant gratification of material things and needing material things as an indication of success. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a renaissance man; a man who has it all but started out with nothing. His plan was to achieve his dream. He was so blinded by his possessions, in front of him, that he could not see that money could not buy love or happiness. Fitzgerald demonstrated how a dream can be corrupted by one’s focus on accruing wealth, power, and expensive things. Gatsby’s dream was “ambiguous, contradictory, romantic in nature, and undeniably beautiful while at the same time grotesquely flawed” (Hearne 189). His American Dream had become tarnished and corrupted by the culture of money and opulence that surrounded him. Gatsby was ‘new money’, and...
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...F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes the American Dream in his novel , The Great Gatsby. He shows the readers that during this time period the American dream was centered on riches, material wealth, youth and selfishness. People show no regard towards strong moral values and chose material wealth. Hypocrisy and corruption are a way of life for the elite high-class society. Tom is hypocritical in his possessive views of his relationship with Daisy. Gatsby and Wolfsheim’s morals are corrupted by their money-god, and the value of life disappears in all of their lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald believes that the American dream is nothing but a defective illusion and people will always be suppressed from accomplishing true achievement. Meyer Wolfsheim is a...
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...The Great Gatsby: The Corruption of the American Dream through Materialism The American dream is an ideal that has been present since American literature’s onset. Typically, the dreamer aspires to rise from rags to riches, while accumulating such things as love, high status, wealth, and power on his way to the top. The dream has had variations throughout different time periods, although it is generally based on ideas of freedom, self-reliance, and a desire for something greater. The early settlers’ dream of traveling out West to find land and start a family has gradually transformed into a materialistic vision of having a big house, a nice car, and a life of ease. In the past century, the American dream has increasingly focused on material items as an indication of attaining success. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a self-made man who started out with no money—only a plan for achieving his dream. He is so blinded by his luxurious possessions that he does not see that money cannot buy love or happiness. Fitzgerald demonstrates how a dream can become corrupted by one’s focus on acquiring wealth, power, and expensive things. Gatsby’s dream “is a naïve dream based on the fallacious assumption that material possessions are synonymous with happiness, harmony, and beauty” (Fahey 70). His American dream has become corrupted by the culture of wealth and opulence that surrounds him. Gatsby is a “nouveau riche,” and his romantic view of wealth has not prepared him for the self-interested...
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...Alex Hinton American Literature[->0] Sunday, April 1, 2012 The American Dream: A Raisin in the Sun vs. The Great Gatsby Word Count: 514 The American Dream is the national culture of what we believe as a society and as Americans to be success, prosperity, and freedom. Aspects of the American Dream can be found in the play A Raisin in the Sun and the novel The Great Gatsby. The two pieces of literature are very different and represent two distinct eras and lifestyles. A Raisin in the Sun takes place in the 1950’s and centers around a very poor family living in a poor neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. All the members of the family share an interest in wanting to have a better life although, a “better life” is defined differently by each member. The concept of a “better life” is one that is weighted heavily in the American Dream. Lena Younger and her husband had dreamed of an improved living condition when they were first married. When they first rented their apartment they believed it would be temporary and that they would move up the social chain and have a house of their own. Therefore, the American Dream in Lena’s eyes is having her own house with her own garden. Walter’s idea of the American Dream is much more materialistic than his mother’s. He dreams of having a large house and lots of money. In the novel The Great Gatsby the American Dream is presented differently. The Great Gatsby centers on a group of individuals who live in New York in the 1920s. The...
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