The Failure of the American Dream in the Great Gatsby
The failure of the American dream
The American dream is an ideology which characterized America at the start of the twentieth century. It was the idea that everybody should reach success without regarding their social status. The dream was based on America’s declaration of independence which said that “all men are created equal”. This means that everybody should have the possibility to get rich and people should earn thanks to their ability to do things and not because of their name.
Social status is one of the most important topics in “the Great Gatsby”. It is shown firstly by the different places in which the characters live(East egg-West egg-valley of ashes), by the money they throw around and to what extent they can pass over the law. As it is also said in the book, one’s richness can be understood by the things you talk about. The book is the example of how people worship materialism. It shows that money has no values, the huge gap between rich and poor and that in a society like the one of the early years of the twentieth century people could become rich only by breaking the law… It can therefore be said that the failure of the American dream consists in the fact that money becomes the only thing people think about and upgrading their social status is their primary aim that prevails over every moral they have. The failure of the American also represents the reality of life showing that dreams remain dreams and nothing is as perfect as in our imagination. The American dream can be therefore be a boost to work hard and try one’s very best in succeeding in life and in finding what makes us happy, and that mustn’t necessarily be becoming incredibly rich.
The book shows how the dream was wrongly interpreted by the American population. In reality, it was brought to the country by the American settlers. They didn’t mean that one’s purpose in life must be richness and power, but settling in the society and live
The American dream is an ideology which characterized America at the start of the twentieth century. It was the idea that everybody should reach success without regarding their social status. The dream was based on America’s declaration of independence which said that “all men are created equal”. This means that everybody should have the possibility to get rich and people should earn thanks to their ability to do things and not because of their name.
Social status is one of the most important topics in “the Great Gatsby”. It is shown firstly by the different places in which the characters live(East egg-West egg-valley of ashes), by the money they throw around and to what extent they can pass over the law. As it is also said in the book, one’s richness can be understood by the things you talk about. The book is the example of how people worship materialism. It shows that money has no values, the huge gap between rich and poor and that in a society like the one of the early years of the twentieth century people could become rich only by breaking the law… It can therefore be said that the failure of the American dream consists in the fact that money becomes the only thing people think about and upgrading their social status is their primary aim that prevails over every moral they have. The failure of the American also represents the reality of life showing that dreams remain dreams and nothing is as perfect as in our imagination. The American dream can be therefore be a boost to work hard and try one’s very best in succeeding in life and in finding what makes us happy, and that mustn’t necessarily be becoming incredibly rich.
The book shows how the dream was wrongly interpreted by the American population. In reality, it was brought to the country by the American settlers. They didn’t mean that one’s purpose in life must be richness and power, but settling in the society and live