The Great Gatsby 4

A big house, nice cars, 2.5 kids, a dog, a beautiful devoted spouse, power and a ridiculous amount of money. That is the classical American Dream, at least for some. One could say, an outsider perhaps, that Americans strive for the insurmountable goal of perfection, live, die and do unimaginable things for it, then call the product their own personal American Dream. Is having the American Dream possible? What is the American Dream? There is one answer for these two questions: The American Dream is tangible perfection. In reality, even in nature, perfection does not exist. Life is a series of imperfections that can make living really great or very unpleasant. Living the American Dream is living in perfection, and that by definition is not possible, thus deflating our precious American Dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald proves this fact in The Great Gatsby, through his scintillating characters and unique style. Characters in books often mirror the author’s feelings towards the world around them. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald suggested the moral decline of the period in American history through the interpersonal relationships among his characters. The situations in the lives of the characters show the worthlessness of materialism, the futile quest of Myrtle and Gatsby, and how America ‘s moral values had diminished- through the actions of Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and Gatsby’s party guests. Despite his newly acquired fortune, Gatsby still cannot afford his one true wish, therefore he cannot buy everything which is important to Daisy. "..Their love is founded upon feelings from the past, these give it, notwithstanding Gatsby’s insistence on being able to repeat the past , an inviolability. It exists in the world of money and corruption but is not of it." (Lewis 48 ) In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the uses of literary technique of symbolism to reflect what life in the 1920’s was like, through Fitzgerald’s

Cited: Bruccoli, Matthew J. ed. New Essays on The Great Gatsby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985. Fitzgerald, Scott F. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953. Miller, James E. Jr. Boats Against the Current. New York: New York University Press, 1964.