The Great Gatsby-The American Dream Essay, Research Paper
The Great Gatsby & # 8211 ; The American Dream
The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is about the American Dream, and the ruin of those who attempt to capture its illusional ends. This dream has changing significances for different people but in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is that through wealth and power, one can get felicity. To acquire this felicity Jay must make into the past and relive an old dream and in order to make this he must hold wealth and power.
Jay Gatsby, the cardinal figure of the narrative, is a character that longs for the yesteryear. Surprisingly he devotes most of his grownup life seeking to recapture it and, eventually, dies in its chase. In the yesteryear, Jay had a love matter with the beautiful and apparently guiltless Daisy. Knowing he could non get married her because of the difference in their societal position, he leaves her to roll up his wealth to make her economic and societal criterions. Once he acquires this wealth, he moves near to Daisy, & # 8220 ; Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be merely across the bay, & # 8221 ; and throws excessive parties, trusting by opportunity she might demo up at one of them. He, himself, does non go to his parties but tickers them from a distance. When his hopes don & # 8217 ; t demo true he asks around casually if anyone knows her. Soon he meets Nick Caraway, a cousin of Daisy, who agrees to put up a meeting, & # 8220 ; He wants to cognize & # 8230 ; if you & # 8217 ; ll ask for Daisy to your house some afternoon and so allow him come over. & # 8221 ; Gatsby & # 8217 ; s personal dream symbolizes the larger American Dream where all have the chance to acquire what they want. Subsequently, as we see in the Plaza Hotel, Jay still believes that Daisy loves him. He is convinced of this as is shown when he takes the incrimination for Myrtle & # 8217 ; s decease. & # 8220 ; Was Daisy driving? & # 8221 ; & # 8220 ; Yes & # 8230 ; but of class I & # 8217 ; ll say I was. & # 8221 ; He besides watches and protects Daisy as she returns place. & # 8220 ; How long are you traveling to wait? & # 8221 ; & # 8220 ; All dark if necessary. & # 8221 ; Jay can non accept that the yesteryear is gone and done with. Jay is certain that he can capture his dream with wealth and influence. He believes that he acted for a good beyond his personal involvement and that should vouch success. Nick attempts to demo Jay the defect of his dream, but Jay innocently replies to Nick & # 8217 ; s statement that the yesteryear can non be relived by stating, & # 8220 ; Can & # 8217 ; t reiterate the yesteryear? Why of class you can! & # 8221 ; . This shows the assurance that Jay has in resuscitating his relationship with Daisy. For Jay, his American Dream is non material ownerships, although it may look that manner. He merely comes into wealths so that he can carry through his true dream, Daisy.
Gatsby doesn & # 8217 ; t rest until his dream is eventually lived. However, it ne’er comes approximately and he ends up paying the ultimate monetary value for it. The thought of the American Dream still holds true in today & # 8217 ; s clip, be it wealth, love, or celebrity. But one thing ne’er changes about the American Dream ; everyone desires something in life, and everyone, someway, strives to acquire it.
A large house, nice autos, 2.5 childs, a Canis familiaris, a beautiful devoted partner, power and a pathetic sum of money. That is the classical American Dream, at least for some. One could state, an foreigner possibly, that Americans strive for the unsurmountable end of flawlessness, live, dice and do impossible things for it, so name the merchandise their ain personal American Dream. Is holding the American Dream possible? What is the American Dream? There is one reply for these two inquiries: The American Dream is touchable flawlessness. In world, even in nature, flawlessness does non be. Life is a series of imperfectnesss that can do life truly great or really unpleasant. Populating the American Dream is populating in flawlessness, and that by definition is non possible, therefore deflating our cherished American Dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald proves this fact in The Great Gatsby, through his scintillating characters and alone manner.
Fictional characters in books frequently mirror the writer & # 8217 ; s feelings towards the universe around them. In The Gre
at Gatsby, Fitzgerald suggested the moral diminution of the period in American history through the interpersonal relationships among his characters. The state of affairss in the lives of the characters show the ineptitude of philistinism, the ineffectual pursuit of Myrtle and Gatsby, and how America s moral values had diminished- through the actions of Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and Gatsby’s party invitees. Despite his freshly acquired luck, Gatsby still can non afford his one true want ; therefore he can non purchase everything that is of import to Daisy. “.Their love is founded upon feelings from the yesteryear ; these give it, notwithstanding Gatsby’s insisting on being able to reiterate the yesteryear, inviolability. It exists in the universe of money and corruptness but is non of it.” ( Lewis 48 )
In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the utilizations of literary technique of symbolism to reflect what life in the 1920s was like, through Fitzgerald & # 8217 ; s eyes. The image of Doctor T.J. Mecklenburg & # 8217 ; s eyes is used to mean an ever-watchful godlike figure. & # 8220 ; Just as Wilson comes half consciously to place the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg with God, so the reader bit by bit becomes cognizant of them as stand foring some sort of degage mind, dwelling gloomily over life in the black waste land environing it, and presiding fatalistically over the small calamity enacted as if in forfeit before it. & # 8221 ; ( Miller 36 ) The eyes non merely typify a godlike being but besides Fitzgerald himself and his negative positions of 1920s society. Fitzgerald & # 8217 ; s negative positions of society are besides portrayed through his word picture of certain invitees at Gatsby & # 8217 ; s parties.
The symbol of the two adult females dressed identically in yellow at Gatsby & # 8217 ; s party represent the values of the people of the 20s. The two adult females run into Jordan and Nick at Gatsby & # 8217 ; s party and are wholly self-absorbed. These adult females are merely concerned with what happens to them and the merriment that they have at the parties and wear & # 8217 ; t even ask the names of Jordan and Nick who they are so openly talking with.
& # 8220 ; Do you come to these parties frequently? inquired Jordan of the miss beside her.
The last 1 was the one I met you at, answered the miss in an qui vive, confident voice. She turned to her comrade: Wasn & # 8217 ; t it for you Lucille? It was for Lucille excessively. I like to come, Lucille said I ne’er care what I do, so I ever have a good time. & # 8221 ; ( Fitzgerald 47 )
Lucille admits that her general attitude toward life is that she does non care what she does every bit long as she has a good clip. Her full motive in her life is to bask herself. When all she was asked was if she came to the parties frequently she besides felt the demand to inform the remainder of the invitees of her fiddling anecdote. The ground that these adult females are declarative of the coevals is because of their self-involved characters and narcissistic nature.
Besides, the nutrient served at Gatsby & # 8217 ; s parties symbolizes the attitudes of most people populating in the 1920 & # 8217 ; s. At Gatsby & # 8217 ; s parties, most of the nutrient was merely show and no 1 truly ate it. Peoples display Large sums of expensive nutrient at parties to subtly remind the invitees how much money they have, which is precisely what Gatsby did and the nutrient was wasted. This unbelievable thriftlessness is representative of people who lived in the 20 & # 8217 ; s. They were so highly uneconomical because they assumed with all they had gone through, they deserved to be. After so many old ages of being unhappy and repressed from, among other things World War I, they thought it was okay to go unworried when so it was non.
Through Fitzgerald & # 8217 ; s usage of symbolism to depict the costumed characters of the 20 & # 8217 ; s the reader can larn to invariably and scrupulously analyze the people that they surround themselves with. The novel besides teaches the lesson of being true to one & # 8217 ; s self and following one & # 8217 ; s ain personal dream, non the one Americans are programmed to hold.
Bibliography
Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Macmillan Publishng Company, 1980.
