ENG4U 28 March 2011 The Unachievable Dream “Life‚ Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" is one of the most influential and famous phrases in the United State’s Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence encapsulates the original conception of the American Dream – the notion that every individual‚ regardless of their social upbringing‚ could have the opportunity to reach their full potential and live a comfortable lifestyle. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby takes place during the
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The Broken American Dream of the 1920s An accurate name for the 1920s is the roaring twenties. This was a decade full of social transformation and industrialization. Through this shift‚ a degradation in social moral occurred. A victim of this shift is the character J. Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Gatsby is “corrupted by values and attitudes that he holds in common with a society that destroys him”(44). Through this mutual and obscured social moral‚ Gatsby seems to obtain a destructive
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Dreams Whether lavish and extravagant‚ or humble and mundane‚ they’re something that everybody has‚ but not everybody gets. Dreams are often sought after with such great desire for the possibility of it coming to existence‚ that all rational ideas are pushed aside and reality is warped. The essence of this is perfectly captured in Jay Gatsby’s character of Scott Fitzgerald’s‚ The Great Gatsby and can be likened to Laura Wingfield of Tennessee William’s‚ The Glass Menagerie‚ and the narrator of Hunger
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The American experience is dreaming. People prefer to dream about their fantasies rather than face their sad depressing reality. In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald‚ the main idea is people tend to come up with unachievable goals in order to replace happiness with wealth. Gatsby spends his life wooing over a lost love from his childhood. As nick thinks about Gatsby’s life‚ he comes to the realization that Gatsby never truly had a chance at taking Daisy completely away from Tom‚ “He
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fantasize about a world living in the moment of the successful American dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s publication‚ The Great Gatsby‚ was an ironic treatment of the idea of success in America. The excessive use of Fitzgerald’s color imagery shows how the American dream inspires hope‚ yet is unattainable. Fitzgerald uses the color blue to illustrate the dreams of an unachievable side of reality. Gatsby‚ an East Egg entrepreneur‚ makes a fortune for the purpose of attaining
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The ‘American Dream’ in The Great Gatsby It has been said that “people are so busy dreaming the American Dream‚ fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be‚ that they’re all asleep at the switch‚ [the American man has lost his focus]” <www.thinkexist.com>. What exists behind the vision of the American Dream is a paralleled unreality. Humans are dreamers‚ and desires often create beliefs in people’s minds that lead them to strongly believe in a successful outcome. Unfortunately
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The Effects of a Dream in The Great Gatsby The American 1920s was an epoch marked by declining moral standards and extravagantly pretentious shows of wealth. The luxurious parties‚ artificial palaces‚ and irresponsible alcohol consumption of the ‘20s were all visible in the changing concept of the American Dream. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s symbolic novel‚ The Great Gatsby‚ James Gatz is consumed by his desire to obtain this materialistic American Dream. Gatz‚ the ambitious son of shiftless farm people
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The Great Gatsby and The American Dream The American Dream is a way of life. The idea that if you work hard you will get lots of money‚ which in turn will make you happy. In the famous novel The Great Gatsby‚ Jay Gatsby is the ultimate symbol of The American Dream. He started from nothing and worked his way up to the top. As The Declaration Of Independence says ‘All men are created equal‚ that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights‚ that among
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THE GREAT GATSBY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM The Great Gatsby‚ by F. Scott Fitzgerald‚ is an excellent demonstration of life among the new rich during the 1920s‚ with people who had freshly accumulated an immense amount of fortune but had no subsequent social networks. The novel is a fascinating account about love‚ money and life during the 1920s in New York. It demonstrates the society and the accompanying principles‚ values‚ and dreams of the American population at that time. These principles‚ values
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The Great Gatsby: Corruption of the American Dream Historian James Truslow Adams says that “the American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man‚ with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately‚ and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely‚ but a dream of social order
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