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Why Is The American Dream Unattainable

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54 percent of American adults believe there is an American dream, but 28 percent think it is unattainable. The 20s were a time of prosperity with the economy rising, with many get-rich-quick schemes that made people strive for their American dream. Gatsby was able to use the prosperity of the time to get rich and climb the socioeconomic ladder, which led him to have his American Dream within reach. In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald there is a constant similarity between Gatsby’s American Dream and that of most people in the 20s because the novel shows that people will do anything to get to their American dream no matter how corrupt it is, most American dreams equate with social status, and the attempts to reach the American dream …show more content…

As unfortunate as it is, that tends to happen for most American Dream, and it is depicted all throughout the novel. A perfect example of this is Gatsby’s dream which was left unattainable due to his death. “He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (Fitzgerald, 2004, p. 136). There was nothing that could deter him from reaching his dream, until his unfortunate demise at the end of the novel. At the beginning of the novel he is first seen reaching out to the light and it is sort of ironic how the book ends in the same spot, but with Nick standing there looking out at the dream that once was attainable that is no longer even imaginable. Most dreams are unattainable, so living a life only geared towards that goal is an unsustainable way of life. “‘The theme of Gatsby,’ Bewley flatly states, ‘is the withering of the American dream’”(Decker, 2009). American dreams, as lovely as they sound, should just stay as dreams. It’s not a sustainable lifestyle to try and reach that goal and most wither before being able to accomplish the dream. Even Myrtle’s dream was not achieved before her death. She wanted to live a lavish life and her husband was trying to do that for her by moving out west but she was killed before they even got to move. In theory, the American dream is great but in reality, it just leads to

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