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John Gatsby's Pessimistic Attitude Towards The American Dream

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The Ultimate Goal
Humans are ambitious creatures always evaluating their living standards and looking for better situations. Despite the differences in their sects, their ethnicity, their principles, their goals and their intentions, they all have one ultimate aspiration. Perhaps what haunts them the most is the strive for happiness. However, they all seem to ignore the importance of life satisfaction in their quest for happiness. In consequence, time is lost and millions of dollars are wasted as people go to extreme measures, sometimes risking their own security to pursue happiness, and yet most of them never achieve it. True happiness stems from an ability to adapt and find satisfaction within one's surrounding circumstances.
Having the mental capacity to adjust to any circumstances leads to a clear path to happiness. Enduring hardships and recovering quickly is one example of adaptation. Melissa Moody, from the documentary "Happy," was run over by a car in a tragic accident that destroyed her beauty leaving her with a completely distorted face. Instead of responding negatively to the sudden changes she faced, Melissa …show more content…

Gatsby's strive for his dream leads him from poverty to wealth, to the heart of his beloved and, ultimately, to his death. This quote reflects the novel's pessimistic attitude towards the American Dream. The author John Steinbeck seems to have a similar view as Fitzgerald view of the American Dream. In his essay “Paradox and Dream," he critiques the deepest aspirations of Americans; their obsession with being financially secure. Americans tend to be "a restless, a dissatisfied, a searching people," because they cannot find satisfaction in their lives. “ We find our time searching for security, and hate it when we get it.” Americans will never be happy until they achieve satisfaction. Searching for the American Dream means dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction implies never finding

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