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F. Scott Fitzgerald emulates the American Dream as something corrupt, and not easy to achieve. The American Dream is made up of a long social ladder, and it is often impossible to be accepted at the top of this social ladder. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as the epitome of the American Dream.
However, there is a fine line between what many of us think is the American Dream, and what Fitzgerald thinks is the American Dream. One must be able to differentiate between Gatsby's ideal American Dream, and the ideal American Dream of others. What is the American Dream? The American Dream can be perceived in a number of different ways. It is optimism for the future. Some people start out with nothing, work honest and hard, and sometimes never achieve anything.
There are also people that have their family's financial support to educate them. Finally, there is the illegal way of achieving the American Dream. Gatsby felt that the illegal way was the most appealing to him. There are a number of passages that lead us to infer Fitzgeralds view of the American Dream. On page six in the middle of the second paragraph, Nick drops the first innuendoes that lead us to conclude to infer Fitzgeralds view of the American Dream. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction-Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the creative temperament- it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No- Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short winded elation's of men. In that passage, Nick feels sympathy for Gatsby.
He feels sympathy for Gatsby because Gatsby's American Dream is to be wealthy, and to be accepted into Daisy and Toms social class. That social class is exactly what Nick scorns. You see I think everythings terrible anyhow, she went on in a convinced way. Everybody thinks so-the most advanced people.
And I know. Ive been everywhere and seen everything and done everything. Her eyes flashed around in a defiant way, rather like Toms, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. Sophisticated-God, Im sophisticated! (Bottom Pg 21 continue to Pg 22. ) Passage two, Daisy is describing the social class of which she is apart. She spoke in a circumlocution style. She tried to portray herself as being very sophisticated by using an excessive amount of words.
She believes that no one else in the world matters but her, showing total irreverence to others. Meanwhile, she does not realize that she is speaking like a dolt. Her supercilious statement in the passage is cacophonous. Jay Gatsby's goal is to be accepted in this diabolical and mendacious social class. Why would anyone want to be apart of this social class? This was Gatsby's American Dream.
The only way Gatsby would have a chance at winning Daisy's heart would be to enter this elite social class. I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors eyes-a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all humane dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. (Pg 189 middle of first paragraph. ) Fitzgeralds view of the American Dream is best expressed in that passage. There is a similarity between the dream of the Dutch sailors and the dream of Jay Gatsby. When they both came to West Egg, it was as if they were starting their lives all over again.
They booth came to West Egg with a dream, and that dream was the American Dream.
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Research essay sample on Jay Gatsby American Dream
