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Yayayaya

Essay by   •  May 11, 2011  •  958 Words (4 Pages)  •  1,180 Views

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The American Dream, what is it really? Constantly changing with the times, and morals of the people; but in the end, we all want the same things. The Great Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream in the 1920's, a time period when the dream had been corrupted by the gready pursuit of wealth. This Dream that Gatsby and so many people in the Ð''roaring twenties' embody, consisted of endless possibilities, motivation & ambition triggered by jealousy, hard work and being self-sufficient, love and the hope that comes with it, and of course, money and wealth. The pursuit of the American dream was the inspiring motivation for accomplishing their goals and producing achievements,

however when tainted with wealth the dream becomes hollow and meaningless.

The American Dream is about motivation, and having ambition and hope that anybody can achieve his or her personal goals. Gatsby had a problem with his dream; his expectations were set too high. The fact that Daisy falls short of Gatsby's expectations is obvious. Knowing this, you can see that no matter how hard Gatsby tries to live his fantasy, he will never be able to achieve it. The green light is of great significance in the novel, The Great Gatsby. This symbol is depicted throughout the novel. It is first mentioned in the first chapter of the novel. At first, it was no more than a green light. When it is further examined it becomes more evident that this green light is not Daisy, but a symbol representing Gatsby's dream of having Daisy. Nick realizes what Gatsby doesn't "He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night." Nick is saying that Daisy and Gatsby had their chance, and it's over, it's behind him and there's nothing anyone can do about it, its life.

Hard work and being Independent, or self-sufficient are also shown as a part in the American Dream. Settings in this book show how some characters in The Great Gatsby desire independence. Nick went to the east to make money. He was from the Midwest, and even though his family was doing quite well in the money department, Nick wanted to make his own money. By going from the Midwest to the east, Fitzgerald shows Nick's desire to become self-sufficient. "I see now that this has been a story of the west, after all- Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all westerners and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly inadaptable to eastern life." In other words, after finding out what the east was really like, Nick lost his interest in being in the east and returned to his roots in the west.

Love was Gatsby's great downfall, but inevitable in order to achieve his American Dream. Gatsby came east looking for another type of wealth - Daisy's Love. Gatsby and Daisy had last seen each other about five years before, when they were dating. Then Gatsby had to go to fight in the Great War. While Gatsby was away in the war, Daisy met Tom, a wealthy man, and then married him. Daisy had always been rich and Gatsby thought that in order to get Daisy back, he needs to have money so that he would be able to give Daisy anything she wanted. He found out that Daisy was in the east so he followed her there to

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