The American Dream in The Great Gatsby Essay

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel about the American Dream. In The Great Gatsby, the dream is that one can acquire happiness through wealth and power. To get his happiness Gatsby attempts to reacquire the love of his lost sweetheart, Daisy. The main problem with Gatsbys dream is that Daisy is all ready married. Gatsby's personal dream symbolizes the larger American Dream, The pursuit of happiness, Jay Gatsby longs for the past. Surprisingly he devotes his adult life trying to recapture it and dies in its pursuit. The Great Gatsby, a twentieth century novel, is based on the American dream and how people will do anything humanly possible to accomplish it even if they end up losing themselves along the way.

Fitzgerald creates an age that is characterized by people surrounded by money but they had no reason for living. Gatsbys inner vision is an example of this in the way that he comes from this poor boy who couldnt afford clothes or even food to eat. After he gets out of the army and works to become a millionaire, but discovers he still isnt happy. Gatsby has many parties in his mansion in hopes that one day the word would get to Daisy Buchanan, the love of his life, and lure her into attending one. In which case, Gatsby would get the opportunity to profess his infatuation with her and show her how wealthy he has become. Tom and Daisy Buchanan are surrounded by money but neither of them is happy because they have no dreams and no reason for living. They are both having an affair with someone else, but theyre so wrapped up in this life that they dont want to risk having to leave it by marrying the person they truly love. So they stay unhappy in a place where they have money as comfort instead of people. As Luis Auchincloss states, He has no friends, only hangers-on, no intellectual interests, no real concern for people.

Additionally, Fitzgerald describes an age that is surrounded by determination, but lost in an illusion. To understand Gatsby one has to look at not only his true life, but the life that he tried to create for himself. The truth is that he came from poor beginnings and created a fantasy world where he was rich and powerful. Even in his youth Gatsby was not content with what he had. He wanted money, so he managed to get it. He wanted Daisy, and she slipped through his fingers. So, even when his wealth and stature are at their greatest, he will not be content. He must have Daisy. Yes, there is love. But more than that there is a drive to posses her because that is what he wanted for all of those years. She was part of his image for the future and he had to have her. And although Gatsby seems very kind, he is not afraid to be unscrupulous to get what he wants. When he wanted money, he was more than willing to become a bootlegger. His drive is what makes him who he is, good and bad. And it is this drive to posses Daisy, to become rich, to become the man that he thinks he needs to be ends up ruining his life. Just as Marius Bewley says, the problem of determining the hidden boundary in the American vision of life at which the reality ends and the illusion begins.

Fitzgeralds age is one that is captivating but morally unattached. Unlike Nick, Tom is arrogant and dishonest, advancing racist arguments at dinner and carrying on relatively public love affairs. Daisy, on the other hand, tries hard to be shallow, even going so far as to say she hopes her baby daughter will turn out to be a fool, because women live best as beautiful fools. Marriage in the 1920s is not the same as it is today. Throughout the whole story marriage is never taken seriously. The reason why Tom remained with Daisy was because she defined his social standing. This also goes to show how important appearances were to these people, no matter how fake those appearances truly were. At the same time that Tom was using Daisy for her money, Daisy was using Tom. Nick reveals that Daisy does not need Tom in the same way that he needed her. She needed Tom to remain emotionally stable. Truth be known, Daisy was using Tom as a support barrier, so she'd never feel as alone and as abandoned as she did when Gatsby left her to fight in the war. Its the same with Gatsby, he isnt able to focus on the present because he is so focused on getting the past back which gives him no future because he isnt even living in the present. Richard Lehan states, Americans lost their honorability because they couldnt accept their dreams were out of reach.

The Great Gatsby is based on the American dream and how people will do anything humanly possible to accomplish it, even if they end up losing themselves along the way. In the end no one really cared about Gatsby, and in the end his money meant nothing. To some people the American dream is to make money; to some people it is to become famous. To Gatsby, it was to be married to Daisy. Gatsbys dream was forbidden to start with because she was married. Gatsbys dream was diluted because he wanted things to be as they were in the past. And finally, Gatsbys dream was his own death, in that the rest of his life was spent trying to relive the past. His dream consumed his life so much that it had changed him to the point where he was no longer a human. He was more of a zombie who was driven to do anything it would take to realize his dream. The Great Gatsby, as he came to be known, was just a young boy who wanted love more than anything else in life. His strong ambition and immoral ways to achieve his dream took him to his grave. His life in this story is one of constantly wanting what other people have, whether it is money, social standing, or another mans wife. It is my belief that is what F. Scott Fitzgerald wants us to take home with us; the dangers of coveting what other people have.