...work and determination. Each person has their own version of The American Dream and their attitude of achieving it can vastly vary. In the novel, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author displays The American Dream through a corrupt love and the idea of becoming wealthy and having the ability to acquire anything. Jay Gatsby does not truly love Daisy, rather he sees her as an object he must acquire in order to achieve his personal vision of the American Dream. First of all, Gatsby wants success and views Daisy as the means to achieving it. Second, Daisy is treated and viewed as a possession that Jay Gatsby has to attain under any circumstances to fulfill his American Dream. Lastly, Gatsby is trying to set up an image and reputation for...
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...The American Dream is defined as a happy way of living that can be achieved by anyone that works hard. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel that portrays the decline of the American Dream in the 1920’s. Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, the protagonists in the novel, as well as Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s wealthy husband, symbolize the corruption of the American Dream. Gatsby portrays the corruption of the American Dream through the way he makes his fortune, and by doing everything specifically to impress Daisy. Daisy exposes the American Dream as a fraud because she marries Tom for his wealth. Tom represents the wealthy person that never needs to work hard to be successful because he inherits billions of dollars from his father....
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...history, many have debated what qualities make a person great. Historians have deemed both kings and peasants as successful. Nations have thought of war generals and peaceful protesters as heroes. Scholars have thought of educated and illiterate persons alike as revolutionary. Yet, greatness can be questionable, like with the character Jay Gatsby from the Great Gatsby. In the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows greatness in Gatsby through his charisma and his determination. One of the qualities about Jay Gatsby that made him a person worth admiration was his charisma. In his time with Dan Cody, “[his]... vague contour... had filled out to the substantiality of a man”(77). He learned how to be rich from old money, so when he finally got his fortune, he had that classiness as well. Nick Carraway recounts that, “[Gatsby's smile] understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey” (38). Unlike the majority of wealthy people can be, Gatsby does not try to intimidate people to make himself seem...
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...The Great Gatsby People spend a portion of their lives trying to better themselves. Many people set goals as motivation for something they would like to achieve. Having goals was definitely a factor in the lives of Jay Gatsy, Tom Buchanan, and Nick Carraway. Jay Gatsby has the goal of being a success and getting Daisy for his own and admitting she has never loved Tom. Tom Buchanan has the goal of running down Gatsby and proving his illegal ways. Nick Carraway also has the goal of being a success but his main goal is to keep his morals and honesty. All three men work to achieve their goals. Some succeed fully while some only succeed partially. The goals of these three men play a major role in the novel The Great Gastby. Jay Gatsby had the goal of becoming a success and getting Daisy for himself and having her admit that she has never loved Tom. Jay Gatsby has only partially met his goals. Jay Gatsby met Daisy when he was a poor solider with the name of James Gatz. At first he thought of her as just a woman to use but than he discovered he loved her. She was part of the blue bloods and her social class did not approve of them together, her parents would not even let her say goodbye to him when he left for war. Gatsby knew in order to have Daisy he would have to make himself rich and successful. This motivated him to change his name to Jay Gatsby and make a whole new person out of himself. Gatsby became involved in illegal activities such as bootlegging and became rich. He than...
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...Fitzgerald illustrates the common characteristics of perseverance, hard work, and wealth in 1920s America through the protagonists of The Great Gatsby and how those certain ideals inevitably clash. In a time period swelling with the prospect of wealth and aspiration, The Great Gatsby twists the common ideals of the 1920’s by illustrating the iniquity of these prospects. The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, plays the role of the wealthy cultural icon, throwing grand parties while being adored by many. His intentions, however, resonate on a deeper level than simply rising above in social status. All that Gatsby does is based around winning the heart of his deep-rooted love, Daisy Buchanan. While Daisy is beautiful, her beauty is not what mesmerizes...
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...The Great Gatsby In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay and Nick are portrayed as very different characters. Throughout the story, we come to realize that they are much more similar than we originally thought when first starting the novel. Fitzgerald is very subtle when it comes to comparing the two; he doesn’t tell the reader the ways they are and are not alike. In the novel, there are many similarities and differences between Nick Caraway and Jay Gatsby. Although Nick and Gatsby are vey different referring to the way the live now, they do in fact have a lot in common. For example, they have very similar backgrounds. They both came were born and raised in the Midwest, and have both ended up in West Egg, even though East Egg is much more glamorous. West Egg is considered home to the middle class, and even though Jay Gatsby is much higher than middle class, he has still found himself living there anyway. When it comes to Daisy’s husband, Tom, Nick and Gatsby seem to have the same view of him and they are similar in how they handle him; that is until Daisy admits she doesn’t want to be with him. When Tom acts like a jerk, both deal with it and act gentlemen like towards him; rather than calling him out on the things he does. One large similarity the two have is the fact that they seem to go above and beyond when it comes to pleasing others. One example of this is the fact that Gatsby made his house...
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...toxic. The Great Gatsby not only includes all of those kinds of love, but many more. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald not only writes those loves, but shows how easily they can crumble down. Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby have one of the most confusing relationships in The Great Gatsby. They meet at one of Jay Gatsby's extravagant parties and Nick seems to admire him. ‘"They're a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You're worth the whole damn bunch put together”(45). Nick held Gatsby on a higher pedestal that all the attendants at Gatsby's rager, which starts a his admiration for Gatsby. When Gatsby realizes that Nick has relations with Daisy, Nick's cousin, he seems to really want a friendship from Nick, yet Nick is still wary of Gatsby, not even friends with him until Gatsby proves that he is the man he says he is. Their friendship was rocky for the most part, Nick didn't actually trust Gatsby the whole book. Even less so when it is revealed that Gatsby was not who he said he was. When Gatsby dies, Nick states that he never really thought of him as a friend in the first place, even though he was one of the few who attended his funeral. Their friendship was tainted by lies and trickery, yet it wasn't all much like Jordan and Daisy’s friendship. Jordan and Daisy were friends when they...
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...thinking. Today we will be comparing Jay Gatsby from Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and the mother in the short story “Borders” by Thomas King. These are two very refreshing characters with striking similarities and differences. It is evident that both the mother and Gatsby contrast immensely as both characters perceive and react to identity in distinct ways. In the short story, we learn that the mother is proud of her Blackfoot heritage, as she refuses to be labeled as Canadian or American when crossing the border with her son to visit her daughter in Salt Lake City. She believes that only she has the power to define who she is and as a result, the mother continues to push...
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...Application of Marxism on The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald Marxist literary critics tend to look for tensions and contradictions within literary works. This is appropriate because Marxism was originally formulated to analyze just such tensions and contradictions within society. Marxist literary critics also see literature as intimately linked to social power, and thus their analysis of literature is linked to larger social questions. Since Marxism is a belief system which can be used to analyze society at the grandest or most detailed level, Marxist literary criticism is ultimately part of a much larger effort to uncover the inner workings of society 1. Title of the Book – The Great Gatsby: Gatsby became rich because, most probably Cody – the owner of the yatch, left him money but at the same time he is was committed to earning money at an early stage in his life. And the adjective Great added to the word noun, accounts for Fitzgerald reason why a man could be called a great that is he struggled hard to achieve the love of his life by trying to raise his stature. The word “Great” is added to emphasize the fact that he rose from rags to riches, and this fact should be respected and valued. Nick: “I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception...
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...The Deterioration Of The American Dream The Great Gatsby, a novel by Scott Fitzgerald, is about the American Dream, and the downfall of those who try to reach its goals. The attempt to capture the American Dream is used in many novels. This dream is different for different people, in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is that through wealth and power anyone can acquire happiness. To get this happiness Jay must reach into the past and relive an old dream. In order to do this, he must have wealth and power. The dream also brought about the idea of being a self-reliant man, a hard worker, and making a successful living for yourself. The Great Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream in the 1920s, a time period when a lot people with tons of wealth and the need to show it off had corrupted the dream. When the American Dream is combined with excessive wealth it becomes nothing more than selfishness. Jay Gatsby, the main character of the story, is one character that longs for the past. Surprisingly, he spends most of his adult life trying to recapture it and, finally, dies while trying. In the past, Gatsby in love with the attractive young Daisy. Knowing he could not marry her because of the difference in their social status, he leaves so that he can reach her standards and later hopefully rekindle what they once had. Once he becomes rich, he moves near Daisy, "Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay (83)," and throws extravagant parties...
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...important component in bringing life to the text. A unique point of view provides the reader with a subliminal value hidden within the text. Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” is fantastic in the way that it contains a narrator whose reliability is questionable. The narrator Nick Caraway is a first person peripheral narrator in which he witnesses the main character’s story and recounts it to the reader. He seems to be a reliable narrator to an extent in which he is biased especially with his judgment on the other characters in the...
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...Teacher May 18, 2015 The Great Gatsby Character Identification - Jay Gatsby Jay Gatsby is a young man, who went from having very little in his childhood in North Dakota to one day having more than he could ever imagine. Becoming extremely wealthy was not very hard once he had gained his knowledge from a man who had many strategies to get Jay to where he needed to be. Once he had a firm understanding on what had to be done to impress a girl het met before the war. Jay was involved with many under the table jobs starting clubs that served alcohol for young teens and adults. While running these clubs he had accumulated lots of extra cash that he could use to start his life he once dreamed of and could find the girl of his dreams. Jay Gatsby can be described in many ways. Gatsby is a very successful business man and had acquired millions of dollars. That is why I would describe Jay Gatsby as being very determined and successful entrepreneur. Jay Gatsby - Determined Jay Gatsby is very determined and will keep fighting until the end. Throughout the first few chapters he had one goal and it was to find the girl he fell in love with before he left for war. He was also determined to become wealthy and live in a big house. Gatsby wanted to become the man who would be loved by Daisy's parents because of his wealth. "Shiftless and unsuccessful farm people and his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all". Gatsby was not impressed by his parents...
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...The Great Gatsby Class study guide Prep – complete in your notebook 1. What was Prohibition? When did it become Law & when was it repealed? 2. What is Modernist literature and how does The Great Gatsby fit into this genre? 3. Who was F. Scott Fitzgerald? List 5 facts about him. 4. Define the ‘Roaring 20s” 5. Define the ‘Jazz Age’. 6. In your own words, define ‘The American Dream’ in terms of material wealth and philosophical terms. 7. Find a map of the location described in this book and print it off. (Include in your notebook) Reading Time line: Activity Complete Prep Read chapter 1&2 of The Great Gatsby Read chapter 3&4 of The Great Gatsby Read chapter 5&6 of The Great Gatsby Finish The Great Gatsby School and Due Dates Cerritos LBCC 4/12 5/3 4/19 5/5 ELAC Sat. 4/30 5/7 ELAC Mon 4/25 5/2 4/26 5/10 5/14 5/9 5/3 5/17 5/21 5/16 5/10 5/24 5/28 5/23 Chapter 1& 2 – Notebook entries Make a list of the major characters and your initial impression of each one. Describe each ‘egg’ in terms of location – what does the term ‘ashes’ represent? Describe the plot – what happens? Who does what? Chapter 3& 4 – Notebook entries Describe the party, which Nick attends, and his reaction when he meets Gatsby. What does Nick learn about Gatsby? How is Gatsby defined in the third chapter? Describe the connection between Gatsby & daisy. Why did Gatsby buy the home in the West Egg? Describe the plot – what happens? Who does what? Chapter 5& 6 – Notebook entries What...
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...Within F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby In The Great Gatsby, greed is the root of all evil that people in the American 1920’s society that weaves its ways through the lives of many. Gatsby’s greed is evident over his obsession over Daisy which leads to them to several rash decisions. Tom Buchanan cheats his lovers because of his desire for power. And Meyer Wolfsheim pulls Gatsby down with him over his criminal organization. From this, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, greed plays a prominent and dangerous role through Gatsby’s obsessive desire for Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan’s affair with Myrtle Wilson, and Meyer Wolfsheim’s obsession with crime. During The Great Gatsby,...
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...The Failed American Dreams of The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby invokes the American Dream and how important it is not only the titular character but to the many other’s who strive to achieve it. The American Dream originated in the early days of the American Settlement, which consisted of mostly poor people looking for bigger opportunities. Fitzgerald uses characterization in his novel The Great Gatsby to convey how the American Dream is not only unattainable for many, but also the idea that the pursuit the American Dream can lead to corruption. George Wilson is a man who desires the American Dream but he ultimately fails in the end. His pursuit is ( one of good intentions) a modest one in which he does not crave loads...
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