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The Great Gatsby and The American Dream

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The Great Gatsby and The American Dream
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 these are Life, Liberty and the pur­suit of Hap­pi­ness.’ In oth­er words, ev­ery Amer­i­can has a right to re­al­ly make them­selves in­to some­one, to fol­low the Amer­i­can Dream, to be Amer­i­can. Nick Car­raway, the nar­ra­tor, seemed to be si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly en­chant­ed and re­pelled by Jay Gats­by’s re­li­gious ded­i­ca­tion and be­lief in The Amer­i­can Dream. So Fitzger­ald’s opinion on The Amer­i­can Dream is not eas­y to interpret through the nov­el.
Fitzger­ald por­trays The Amer­i­can Dream as pos­i­tive since it gives hope to those who fol­low it. Nick re­counts the time when he spot­ted Jay Gats­by gaz­ing sea­wards to­wards a green light, which, he learned lat­er, re­mind­ed him of his dream to have Daisy. Gats­by be­lieved in the green light, the or­gas­tic fu­ture that year by year re­cedes be­fore us. The green light is the glow­ing bea­con sym­bol­is­ing Gats­by’s as­sured hope of gain­ing Daisy. Nick recog­nis­es the pos­i­tive mean­ing this dock light held for Jay Gats­by yet al­so reg­is­ters that, in re­al­i­ty, that light is slow­ly fad­ing away, along with Gats­by’s dream. ‘Be­lieve’ is usu­al­ly a pos­i­tive word, one to de­scribe your faith in the un­proved. Is it mere­ly a coincidence that the light is green? Pos­si­bly not, green means go, it is a pos­i­tive colour and most of all - green means hope. But there is a dark side. Green is the colour of en­vy and sus­pi­cion - which are traits in fol­low­ers of The American Dream, and

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