The American Dream, Grapes of Wrath
The great Gatsby takes place in the 20’s, a time of parties and finding happiness after WW1. The Grapes of Wrath takes place in the 30’s during the great depression and people are leaving their homes and lives to find work in California. Both times were very different economically, but they were the same in the terms of people striving for the American Dream of obtaining wealth and social status in the attempt of improving their lives. During the 20s, people wanted to escape the terrors of the war and during the 30s they were attempting to survive during the great depression. Both The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath do a great job showing peoples desires for the American Dream and the prevalence of failure rather than success that came from their efforts.
The Great Gatsby tells about a time in American history where a good portion of America wants to find happiness in wealth to forget about WW1. Gatsby doesn’t care about everyone that goes to his parties. Gatsby only throws parties so he can meet his love, Daisy. Daisy's dependence on men with wealth and status, and Gatsby's attempts at gaining it illustrate America's belief that money and extravagance are the easiest means of finding success and happiness. This statement from page 149 illustrates Gatsby's belief that his only means of captivating Daisy would be through deception. "He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her in under false pretenses. I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe he was a person from much the same stratum as herself that he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities he had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to blown anywhere about the world (p. 149, paragraph 2)."
The American dream depicted from The Grapes of wrath is very different from The Great Gatsby. In The
The Great Gatsby tells about a time in American history where a good portion of America wants to find happiness in wealth to forget about WW1. Gatsby doesn’t care about everyone that goes to his parties. Gatsby only throws parties so he can meet his love, Daisy. Daisy's dependence on men with wealth and status, and Gatsby's attempts at gaining it illustrate America's belief that money and extravagance are the easiest means of finding success and happiness. This statement from page 149 illustrates Gatsby's belief that his only means of captivating Daisy would be through deception. "He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her in under false pretenses. I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe he was a person from much the same stratum as herself that he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities he had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to blown anywhere about the world (p. 149, paragraph 2)."
The American dream depicted from The Grapes of wrath is very different from The Great Gatsby. In The