Concept Of The American Dream Like Gatsby example essay topic

"The American Dream is invariably seen to fail. Discuss " The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen as one of the greatest American writers, admired by his contemp aries and by modern audiences of today. Fitzgerald was very much in tune with the early twentieth century American culture. He is credited with capturing the 'Jazz Age', which he described as "a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken". Fitzgerald observed the culture around him with a critical eye. Despite being able to depict America like few others could, many see Fitzgerald's writing as an indictment on its values.

Works such as The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Absolution (said by Fitzgerald to be an introduction to The Great Gatsby) are regarded as attacks on the concept of the American Dream and that Fitzgerald believed it to be futile. This disillusionment is most starkly and tragically explored in The Great Gatsby. The character of Jay Gatsby could be perceived as the embodiment of the American Dream. He comes from a poor working background, where he is James Gate, and reinvents himself into the wealthy popular figure of Jay Gatsby. He represents the idea that "anybody can make it in America". After Gatsby's death, his Father shows Nick his 'schedule' from when he was a boy; SCHEDULE Rise from bed 6.00 a.m.

Dumbbell exercise and wall-scaling 6.15 - 6.30 "Study electricity, etc. 7.15 - 8.15 "Work 8.30 - 4.30 p.m. Baseball and sports 4.30 - 5.00 "Practise elocution, poise and how to attain it 5.00 - 6.00 "Study needed inventions 7.00 - 9.00 "GENERAL RESOLVES No wasting time at Shafter's or [a name, indecipherable] No more smoking or chewing Bath every other day Read one improving book or magazine a week Save $5.00 [crossed out] $3.00 per week Be better to parents This schedule tries to include all the things he believes will make him perfect; intelligence, ingenuity, sporting prowess and physical perfection. His 'general resolves's tribe for moral integrity. Gatsby uses these idealized American values of what people should be like, to try and escape his family's poverty and become successful. "Gatsby's imperishable dream repeats the pioneers' dream of creating a new life for themselves".

He throws off his background, reinvents himself and become the ideal American. "I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people - his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.

He was a son of God - a phrase which if it means anything, means just that - and he must be about His Father's business, the service of vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end". However, Gatsby knows that he is "a poor boy who has made phenomenally good... and has arrived at the fringes of exclusive society" and he tries to compensate for this. Nick and Gatsby live in the West Egg, where self made people, with 'new money' live.

The East Egg is home to people such as the Buchanans, who look down upon the inhabitants of West Egg. Gatsby wants to appear 'old money' to seem more impressive, so he does nothing to dispel the varied myths about his past or the 'Oxford' rumours and puts on affectations such as "old sport". His lavish parties display his wealth and popularity, but despite being surrounded by people Gatsby is essentially very lonely". I glanced back once. A wafer of moon was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell".

Ultimately, the real reason that Gatsby amasses such wealth and cultivates his popularity, is to win back Daisy. Daisy Buchanan, like many of Fitzgeralds' characters, is superficial and emotionally shallow. However, Gatsby knows that she will be impressed by money and describes her in terms of wealth", 'Her voice is full of money', he said suddenly" Gatsby knows that the only chance he has left with Daisy is to dazzle her with his material possessions. Daisy, tellingly, maintains her composure when she is reunited with Gatsby after four years, but breaks down over his collection of expensive shirts". He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-coloured disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher - shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue.

Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. ' They " re such beautiful shirts,' she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. 'It makes me sad because I've never seen such - such beautiful shirts before. ' " Daisy Buchanan, despite her dubious morality, is Jay Gatsby's dream.

"She represented his quintessential American belief that he could achieve the impossible, achieve any dream, and create his own reality". This is why Gatsby's dream will always fail. He is completely detached from the real world, "Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby is the biggest twentieth century dreamer of them all". He cannot understand that things have moved on since he first met Daisy. Gatsby is hopelessly optimistic and the lines of reality for him are blurred. He believes what the American Dream tells Americans, that whatever the odds, it is possible to achieve anything".

'I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past. ' 'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!' " The American Dream confuses and merges material wealth and emotional happiness. It suggests that all that one needs for spiritual fulfilment is wealth; that to be rich means to be happy. Parallel to this is Gatsby's story.

His American Dream is Daisy, who he believes will bring him emotional happiness. In order to attain her, and therefore happiness, he must achieve the traditional dream of wealth. Despite Gatsby having achieved this, the real world and the corruption of people like the Buchanans, ruin his plans". His tragedy lies in the impact of reality upon his dreams". Gatsby achieves the American ideal of materialism, but is never emotionally fulfilled. Nowhere in this novel, is anybody made happy by wealth.

The character of Jay Gatsby is "an heroic personification of the American romantic hero, the true heir if the American Dream". This is because the concept of the American Dream, like Gatsby, is doomed to fail. America sets up within its culture impossible ideals which can never be lived up to, just as Gatsby sets himself a goal based outside reality. The idea of the American Dream is to dream it, not to live it. It is something to keep striving for, something to hope for, not something to become a reality. Gatsby's illusion is his belief in a reunion with Daisy.

This is why he strives, why he becomes the 'poor boy made good'. When his ideas clash with reality, his dream is tainted. "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion". The American Dream is simply that; a dream.

Through the tragedy of Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows us what happens when fantasy and reality are brought together. Despite seemingly having everything, Gatsby has nothing. His material wealth cannot compensate for what he lacks emotionally. Like Jay Gatsby, the American Dream will always fail when it is shattered by reality.

Bibliography

Deborah L. Madsen, American Exceptionalism, Keele University Press, 1998 Leslie Field ler, Love and Death in the American Novel (3rd Edition), Penguin, 1982 Thomas Sta voli, Scott Fitzgerald: Crisis in American Identity, Vision Press, 1979 Brian Way, F.
Scott Fitzgerald and The Art of Social Fiction, Arnold, 1986 Neil Campbell and Alistair Kean, American Cultural Studies: An Introduction to American Culture, Routledge, 1997 Ann Massa and Scott Donaldson, American Literature: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Newton Abbot, 1978 Marius Bexley, The Eccentric Design: Form in the Classic American Novel, Columbia University Press, 1959 F.
Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1993.