We all have dreams. Everyone can say that there has been a time in their life where they have yearned to acquire or achieve something. Dreams can be about everything or anything; however, depending on the dream, it can sometimes be devastating to one’s morals and personality. A lot of times it is the body’s vivid and frequent imagination of dreams that lures oneself to their desires. Once a person’s desire has been fulfilled they may attempt to recreate and relive them over and over again. This obsession can have severe consequences by affecting the reality of one’s life. In American Gangster and The Great Gatsby the protagonists have underestimated the power of imagined desires. Frank, a leader of a Harlem gang in American Gangster, quickly …show more content…
Frank started out as a driver for the notorious Bumpy Johnson, a gang leader in Harlem. He taught Frank all the important ways including ways to get money. When Bumpy Johnson died, Frank inherited the gang and it began Frank’s desire for more power than his predecessor. As the driver of Bumpy Johnson Frank knew very little about his operations and he knew less how it felt to be wealthy. Frank knows that either “you can be successful and have enemies or you can be unsuccessful and have friends” (Scott). Frank goes to Vietnam to acquire the purest heroin from the source to eliminate the wasteful middle man to obtain the highest possible profit. He quickly establishes a monopoly on the drug trade in New York, selling a better product at a lower price than his competitors (Hiram). When Frank knew he was at the top of the drug world he did not stop shipping in illegal cocaine even though he was filthy rich. He wanted to dominate the entire market and to show his prowess. Due to his lack of foreshadowing Frank gets caught by the police and his dreams are over. Frank and Gatsby both have wealth on their minds that seeks to the failure of their goal. Both Frank and Gatsby expected wealth to resolve all the problems in their lives; however, they found out that with money comes great problems. Money becomes ones happiness; therefore, being able to successfully achieving their …show more content…
Gatsby tried extremely hard to get Daisy back that he did everything possible. When both Gatsby and Daisy first fell in love, Gatsby had nothing more than the clothes on his back. Gatsby became rich in order to afford all the articles he thought Daisy would find attractive. “Gatsby bought [a] house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 85), changed his name, and changed his personality to have a greater chance for Daisy to fall in love with him. In the end, Gatsby made friends with Nick, Daisy’s cousin; conversely, it still did nothing to change her mind. Gatsby’s dream was to reunite with Daisy and live a married life, as it turned out it was the exact opposite. Gatsby brings everything that Daisy wants and even changed many aspects of his lifestyle to accommodate Daisy, but the fact is that Daisy decides who to love. All the fantasizing and trying to achieve the dream made Gatsby lose sense of what is true unconditional love. Gatsby naïvely believed that Daisy will love him because he has everything that Tom has and even extra.Considering Gatsby’s trouble finding love, Frank did not fare better. Frank loved many people, but this was his downfall. Frank wanted to change Harlem from the bottom-up. He respected and loved “[his] business, [his] wife, [his] mother, [his] family…[and his] country” (Scott). Frank worked for no one, but himself, and made sure that his family was taken care of first.