Shreyer's View Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

No matter who you are or where you have come from, you have undoubtedly heard of the American Dream. The idea that no matter who you are or where you have come from, you can do whatever it is you desire in America. What was once one the main driving forces for immigrants to flock to the new world, has slowly changed over the years, but still holds its value in the eyes of those who are looking for a promising new place to live. The American dream might not hold the same awe inspiring sound that it once did, but for many generations before ours, it was a beacon of hope that helped build the foundation that the United States was built on. And still today the American dream might not be as achievable as it once was, but it is still an important symbol to the American ideology.

The Amer­i­can Dream is a lifestyle: the thought that if you put in hard work, you will gain wealth. Through this wealth, you will have happiness. In the nov­el The Great Gats­by, Jay Gats­by is quintessential of The Amer­i­can Dream: he start­ed off dirt poor and with dedication, he made himself into something; a rags to riches story. As The Dec­la­ra­tion Of In­de­pen­dence states: 'All men are cre­at­ed equal, that they are en­dowed by their Cre­ator with cer­tain un­alien­able rights, that among these are Life, Lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of Hap­pi­ness.' In oth­er words, ev­ery person in America has the right to re­al­ly make them­selves in­to some­one, even if you start with nothing. A nobody from nowhere can turn themselves into somebody from somewhere. Nick Car­raway, our narrator, appeared to be si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly en­tranced and re­pulsed by Jay Gats­by's ded­i­ca­tion and be­lief in The Amer­i­can Dream. So, F. Scott Fitzger­ald's opin­ion on the American Dream can be hard to decipher. The American Dreamer will work very hard to achieve inflated dreams that never turn out the way they intended them.

The American dream is not as easy as people say it is. The American Dream is being able to afford the necessities you need, without having to struggle and suffer just to put food on a table for their families. People think it’s easy to live the American Dream, but little do they know that there are people out there struggling to support their family. The American Dream is difficult to achieve but very possible if people could find the opportunity and available to them.

The American dream is a term used in a lot of ways. Although research has shown that American dream can’t be attainable by most people, closer examination shows that it can be attainable by the following reasons. As Daniel J. Mitchell stated in New York Times im January 1st, 2015 “The United States is not a perfect country, but the American Dream is still a reality.” By that he meant that even with America’s Grow rate, poverty, unemployment rate in the past years and still going Americans can still chase their American dreams

First off, the American dream isn’t accessible to impoverished families in the U.S. The American dream involves having money to occasionally blow on entertainment or extra purchases. But for 50 million Americans, according to the Huffington Post,

"The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream." In this quote, by Azar Nafisi, it explains how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and it that if you don 't compromise you may suffer. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American Dream is one the many themes in this book. The American Dream that most people in this book obtains to have is wealth, statist, a fun social life, and someone to lust. It is the life we all strive to have until we obtain it and see it 's meaningless composure. As a result of an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overall cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The character Jay Gatsby is the best character to show the American Dream and its awful outcome.

A lingering question to many of the less fortunate in America pertains to the existence of the so-called “American dream.” Does this American dream exist and is it attainable? The American dream inspires many immigrants move to America, hoping to better their lives and those of their families. However, in the novel, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich’s attempt achieve the American dream deems it not possibly attainable. Likewise, today, in the twenty-first century, the American dream is still not attainable. Ordinarily, no one would go through such physical and mental challenges to achieve a just barely attainable dream, but many of disadvantaged families still do, even today during the twenty-first century.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of the American Dream. Written in 1925, the book tells the story of a man named Jay Gatsby, whose main driving force in life is the pursuit of a woman called Daisy Buchanan. The narrator is Gatsby’s observant next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway, who offers a fresh, outsider’s perspective on the events; the action takes place in New York during the so-called Roaring Twenties. By 1922, when The Great Gatsby takes place, the American Dream had little to do with Providence divine and a great deal to do with feelings organized around style and personal changed – and above all, with the unexamined self . Fitzgerald focused on the shift in the American Dream - from being the idea of self-fulfillment, dignity and comfort that is achieved through hard work, to being equated with the pursuit of wealth and power, and identifying happiness with having money. The novel depicts the rise and fall of the concept and describes the causes of its decay.

Over time, the American Dream has changed drastically. It used to be working harder to earn a better place in life. It was working hard order to earn a better place in life, as it should be. However, in today 's society for most Americans the Dream is earning that higher place in life while hardly working to truly achieve it. The American Dream seems to have different interpretations in the different types of people, for Americans, they believe in earning a lot while not working hard for it, for many immigrants, they still believe in working for what they desire.

The American Dream is the opportunity for all Americans to live a life of personal happiness and material comfort, but is it actually achievable? F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is a story of characters working hard to achieve the American Dream, but ultimately they are unable to ever realize their perfect life. The novel makes a strong naturalism argument about the rigid class system in society and the disillusionment of the American Dream.

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, which is a belief that anyone, regardless of their social class and the situation they are born into, is given opportunities to achieve their own version of success. It is emphasized that American dream is achieved through sacrifice and hard work, not just by chance. This meant to motivate Americans to attain prosperity and happiness. However, there is an ironic interplay between idealism and materialism in this statement of American Dream; the dream suggests hope, opportunity and equality, but in reality, it is to become rich and of higher social status, which is only

The second half of the twentieth century would be a time of both turbulent and simple change for the world and the United States. Hippies would rise as well as dictators, and a wall. Presley and Lennon would change the world when Castro and Franco did. Cuba gained new allies, and so did the US. There was a war in Korea, and one in Vietnam. A president resigned for the very first time, and a terrifying disease struck the world. There was a new type of war that wasn’t fought with bullets, and the internet was breaking through. And during the second half of the twentieth century, a man named John Fitzgerald Kennedy would inspire an unknown, largely untested America as it went through some of the most hellish years of its existence.

F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby portrays many themes, however the most significant theme relates to man 's unsuccessful attempts at the American dream. The Great Gatsby shows how not one by many characters fail at achieving their American dream. The American Dream as defined by James Truslow Adams in 1921, "life should be better, richer, and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each regardless of social class or circumstances of birth”. The desire to strive for what one wants can be achieved if one is willing to work hard enough. The dream is represented by the ideas of a self sufficient man or woman, who is willing to do anything to achieve the goal of becoming successful. The Great Gatsby shows what happened to the American Dream in the 1920’s, a time period when dreams became corrupted for many reasons. The desire for a luxurious life, the hope for happiness, and the ambition for something unachievable and work together to ruin the American Dream. The Great Gatsby shows a time when the American Dream is failing, humanity is corrupting it by their wants of possessions leading to the all out demise of the American Dream.

The Great Gatsby, written in 1924 by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in my opinion, focused on the

The Great Gatsby is not simply a story of Jay Gatsby’s undying and misguided love for a Daisy Buchanan. The novel, The Great Gatsby, encompasses a number of themes, the most significant one is the disillusionment and corruption of the American dream. The ability to obtain prosperity such as happiness, or a car is what comprises of the American dream. It is a belief that anyone who is self-sufficient, or who is a hard worker can obtain this dream regardless of their social standing. In the book, the facade of a dream appears to be at the tips of Gatsby and Myrtle’s fingers but this “pursuit of happiness” sentiment is in actuality impossible. In The Great Gatsby, the characters strive to reach their own ideas of the American dream, a dream which is unattainable due to the expectations of others, the cost of success and their false ideas of reality.