The American Dream- The Great Gatsby
The American Dream- The Great Gatsby
The so- called American dream is a theme that is presented throughout the Great Gatsby; in fact, many would agree that it is one of the main points that drive the novel. This idea of the American dream is quite simple; a person, when he works hard, will gain what he wants. The idea was of self-reliance, of the pursuit of happiness and of changing one’s life to something better, but which, as most things do when humans are involved, was corrupted, focusing mainly on the materialistic aspects of life, aka: money.
Fitzgerald shows the 1920’s in America as being a hypocritical society, consisting of greed and empty pursuit for material things. This was the period of Jazz music and the repeated mentions of jazz during Gatsby’s parties links the jazz music with the upper class societies and their constant need of materialistic possessions and pleasure. Money was a major factor in the 1920s societies (as seen in the Great Gatsby) and flaunted at almost every turn; the over-the- top parties thrown by the rich, the expensive houses and cars, all were results of the corrupted “American dream”. The economic boom after the war stoked this materialistic dependency, and created a different type of social divide; the “old money” (money was passed down through family) and the “new money” (people who worked in order to gain money and came from undistinguished backgrounds).
The “old money”, or the aristocratic families, in the Great Gatsby look down upon the people of “new money”. Tom Buchanan obviously doesn’t get along with Gatsby, nor do his friends; in chapter 6, when Tom and his friends stop for a drink at Gatsby’s place, they barely mask their contempt towards him. Mr. Sloane pointedly refuses to hold a conversation with Gatsby and is furious when he is invited to a party later on. Though Gatsby tries to fit in with these high class societies by throwing these extravagant parties and having expensive belongings (the car, the hydroplane,
The so- called American dream is a theme that is presented throughout the Great Gatsby; in fact, many would agree that it is one of the main points that drive the novel. This idea of the American dream is quite simple; a person, when he works hard, will gain what he wants. The idea was of self-reliance, of the pursuit of happiness and of changing one’s life to something better, but which, as most things do when humans are involved, was corrupted, focusing mainly on the materialistic aspects of life, aka: money.
Fitzgerald shows the 1920’s in America as being a hypocritical society, consisting of greed and empty pursuit for material things. This was the period of Jazz music and the repeated mentions of jazz during Gatsby’s parties links the jazz music with the upper class societies and their constant need of materialistic possessions and pleasure. Money was a major factor in the 1920s societies (as seen in the Great Gatsby) and flaunted at almost every turn; the over-the- top parties thrown by the rich, the expensive houses and cars, all were results of the corrupted “American dream”. The economic boom after the war stoked this materialistic dependency, and created a different type of social divide; the “old money” (money was passed down through family) and the “new money” (people who worked in order to gain money and came from undistinguished backgrounds).
The “old money”, or the aristocratic families, in the Great Gatsby look down upon the people of “new money”. Tom Buchanan obviously doesn’t get along with Gatsby, nor do his friends; in chapter 6, when Tom and his friends stop for a drink at Gatsby’s place, they barely mask their contempt towards him. Mr. Sloane pointedly refuses to hold a conversation with Gatsby and is furious when he is invited to a party later on. Though Gatsby tries to fit in with these high class societies by throwing these extravagant parties and having expensive belongings (the car, the hydroplane,