The American Dream in The Great Gatsby
In the novel, the American dream plays a relevant role in the composition of the story. Many people such as Daisy and Tom Buchanan live their life in order to be successful and wealthy. Although, the people who strive for wealth end up miserable, unhappy, and lie to each other. Thus, Gatsby hopes to achieve happiness and love instead of only success. Fitzgerald hopes to show that the American dream is only successfully achieved when you have happiness and a wholesome life and not just focused on greed. In today's society, many people focus on success instead of Fitzgerald's idea of the dream. Thus, does wealth or happiness determine the American dream in today's society? Today, the majority of people strive to be successful no matter the consequences they must go through. Although what is the point of this success without happiness? The American dream is now more focused on wealth instead of happiness just like the majority of people in The Great Gatsby. However, this need for triumph has no incentives unless you are satisfied with the people around you and your well-being.
Fitzgerald was able to show readers that happiness is the only way to achieve the American dream. The ability to have freedom and many opportunities should cause Americans to aim for their goals and use their liberty to achieve the American dream. Thus, while society puts the focus on success and wealth, the main goal to strive for should be happiness and contentment to achieve the American dream.
Hi, I really enjoyed your blog post!! I agree with your statement about Gatsby because although his initial dream was pure, as it became harder to achieve, it also became more corrupted because of the methods he used in order to get money for Daisy's love. I also think that the corruption of the dream and the greediness of the wealthy corrupts the dreams of others. Even though George and Myrtle Wilson were poor and initially got together to pursue their dream of love, Tom ruined that because of Myrtle's greed which resulted in the destruction of the Wilsons. This ties along with your thesis of how greed corrupts the Dream. Overall, I really agreed with your post.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point about how people value success and wealth instead of happiness in today's society. Fitzgerald, mostly points this out in Gatsby, you are correct. I also think that Fitzgerald wants the dream to be more about happiness, but at the same time he doesn't really believe it exists. This is demonstrated when Gatsby is killed because it showed that even though he was trying to achieve happiness, he failed in doing so. He wanted to point out that even if you try your hardest, the dream can't be achieved because it doesn't exist.
ReplyDelete-this is lianne btw sorry i'm using another computer
I really like how you wrote your article, you basically took different sides of the dream and explained them, I agree that the American Dream to fully be accomplished needs to be with happiness, love and any materialistic possessions one wishes to have, but in today's society too many people are focused on wealth rather than happiness and that's what bring everything downhill.
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