The Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And The American Dream

Paragraph 1: I believe that Fitzgerald was demonstrating the views and values of the time in regards to the American Dream in the 1920s through characters in particular such as Nick and Gatsby who contrast. Nick and Gatsby are similar in the fact that they both have the desires/goals to live out the perfect life being the American dream. But where they differ is the way in which they live out their aspirations. Nick’s moral sense sets him apart from Gatsby who is consumed in the idea of the perfect life with Daisy. He builds up to much of an expectation of her and ultimately gets let down resulting in an American nightmare. My identified concern for the novel is ‘Can the American dream cause an American nightmare?’. Fitzgerald challenges and
Gatsby is a prime example of this as he seeks out Daisy for her values not for her as an individual, he is ultimately clouded by a false reality that he wishes he could live out but can’t. In chapter 5 Fitzgerald demonstrates to the reader through his ever evolving characterisation of Gatsby that Gatsby’s idea of himself and Daisy is out of sync with the reality of the situation being that Daisy’s attitude towards Gatsby has changed and that of their differences in social statuses. Fitzgerald portrays the decay of social morals and values due to the idealisation of the American dream into a American nightmare through Gatsby’s opulent parties that he threw every Saturday night hoping Daisy would one day show up. this resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as there was an unrestrained desire for money and pleasure which over threw any kind of moral
An identified concern from both the written and visual text would be the attack both Fitzgerald and Luhrmann place on the wealthy and how they are unified by their money, We see two types of wealthy people in the Great Gatsby. We see the Buchanan’s who were born into wealth. The term "old money" is used both in the text and film to identify people who don't have to work to gain their means. Then we have Gatsby who has only just recently acquired his money. Not only does he work for a living, but he comes from a low-class background. Fitzgerald and Luhrmann critique the way in which both types of wealthy societal groups behave due to the ways in which they acquired their money. Fitzgerald and Luhrmann use characterisation and setting in particular to show a distinct difference in the two types of wealthy people. As mentioned before in both the written and visual text people of means acquired from being born into the right family are of “old money” and those who have acquired it of their own hard word is referred to as “new money”. Characters such as Daisy are characterised as a selfish and shallow and is a woman who believes people have to be worthy of her devotion, we can identify this kind of behaviour both in the film and text and are able to differ between the likes of Daisy and Gatsby for