How Does The Great Gatsby Reflect On The American Dream

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In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses literary devices and symbolism to reflect on the American dream. The ideal American dream is that everyone has equal opportunity to achieve success, and prosperity through hard work, determination, and motivation. The Great Gatsby is based on a society that is during the post-war period after world war I. Fitzgerald presents a society in which wealth, materialistic needs, love, and family have all become the social norm and the corrupt American dream. In the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’, Fitzgerald uses Jay Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson, and Daisy Buchanan to remark on the American dream through his use of symbolism and geographical locations to represent an American society. One literary device used to remark on the American dream was geography. Fitzgerald used geography as represented by the East …show more content…

In Daisy’s eyes the American dream is all that Tom Buchanan has; wealth, her idea of love, happiness, and her daughter when she is born. Daisy marries Tom instead of waiting on Gatsby to return because Tom is wealthy and at that point in time Jay Gatsby was not. “In February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstances than Louisville ever knew before… and before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at $350,000.” (Fitzgerald 75)
Daisy wants her daughter to be a beautiful fool because “That’s the best a girl can be in this world, a beautiful fool.” (Fitzgerald 17) She wants her daughter to grow up without dishonest and fraudulent behavior that is in the world. Daisy realizes what true love really is when Gatsby returns. She realizes that she could’ve married Gatsby and been wealthy if only she would’ve waited for him to return like he had asked. This realization ruins her happiness she thought she had when she married Tom Buchanan. Fitzgerald uses family to symbolize the American

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