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The Great Gatsby American Dream Essay

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The Great Gatsby American Dream Essay
The United States of America was built upon the basics of hope of prosperity for all citizens that live here. Through hard work and dedication citizens would be able to thrive through economic classes in society and achieve this American Dream. However, throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald supports the belief that the American Dream is an idealistic concept. As the main character of Gatsby develops, the reader soon realizes that he pertains to a dream of success in wealth and love. Gatsby comes from a low income family that is unable to marry into higher social class and is hard for him to gain wealth. Soon before Gatsby leaves for war, he falls in love with Daisy, a wealthier and higher socially ranked girl than he. …show more content…
With these standards in mind, Gatsby decides to cleanse himself of this old dream that he wanted to pursue and stem into a new dream. However, the reader never knows what Gatsby’s new dream was due to George Wilson killing him as soon as he comes out of the water. The narrator states, “If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (Fitzgerald 161). Gatsby restricted himself to follow a certain dream that he lived by to succeed with strict standards. By the time Gatsby realizes that his dream was idealistic and unattainable, he had come out of the pool with a clean mind and a new dream but was killed shortly afterwards. Gatsby no longer supported his American Dream and Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to represent that although someone can thrive towards hope, they will just slowly lose true happiness. F. Scott Fitzgerald created the character Gatsby, in The Great Gatsby, to portray the idea of the hope and thrive for the American Dream. However, throughout the novel, Gatsby’s character builds into a person who becomes more realistic and gives up the American Dream to pursue his own happiness once again. Likewise, the American Dream cannot be achieved but rather should be used as an idea of opportunity of success for everyone in a perfect

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