Preview

Fitzgerald's Satire on the American Dream in the Great Gatsby

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
476 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Fitzgerald's Satire on the American Dream in the Great Gatsby
The American Dream is dead. This is one of the main themes, if not the main theme in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. In the novel Fitzgerald gives us a glimpse into the life of the high class during the 1920’s through the eyes of the narrator, a moralistic young man named Nick Carraway. It is through his dealings with high society that readers are shown how modern values have transformed the American Dream's pure ideals into a scheme for materialistic power and self-betterment, how the new world of high society lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support this message, Fitzgerald presents the original aspects of the American Dream along with its modern face to show that the once impervious dream is now lost forever to the American people.
This world takes a look at the fact that the rich and powerful were able to get away with whatever they want and simple ideals were forgotten. As the average American in the 1920s became more captivated with wealth and everyday luxuries, some began satirizing the hypocrisy and greed they observed. Fitzgerald conveys these observations with the general hopelessness of the book. Gatsby is one who is most hopeful to the American Dream, he embodies the belief in it, but he soon finds out that the very wealth and recognition that he so coveted was what caused the destruction all his beliefs.
F. Scott Fitzgerald credits the destruction of the American Dream to wealth, privilege, and the lack of humanity that those aspects create. Money is clearly identified as the main culprit in the dream's death. It becomes easily entangled with hope and success and replacing their positions in the American Dream with materialism. This is shown through Gatsby's use of illegal practices and underground connections to make money. His lavish parties, huge mansion, and giant collection of clothing all represent his corruption. His use of status and privilege is demonstrated when his traffic violation is ignored by the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In The Great Gatsby Scott Fitzgerald says that the American Dream is in decline. This causes Gatsby to strive for riches because he wants to get the girl of his dreams. While she is shocked by his material things he loses her later in the story. While many of the wealthy people in this story are described as cruel, Gatsby was given a different description. Instead, they said that he turned out alright in the end. Then they went on to say that what had corrupted Gatsby was the amount of wealth that he had.…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Millions of people come to America to pursue the goal that has been named, “The American Dream”. That dream, as defined by Jonathan Yardley in “Gatsby”: The Greatest of Them All is: “the quest for a new life, the preoccupation with class, and the hunger for riches”. Although many believe that they have achieved the true meaning of this statement, they have only ruined many other aspects of themselves while trying to reach their final goal. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald extraordinarily portrays the character of Jay Gatsby as one who has truly been killed in the pursuit of the American dream.…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fitzgerald essentially argued against the definition of the American dream stating that it should really revolve around the idea of self-realization, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. He portrayed the the corruption of money and in materialistic values in the pursuit of the so-called “American dream.” This materialistic values emerged as a result of consumer culture as seen in Document 17.2 and Document 17.3, which displays the advertisement of a bicycle and an automobile being massly produced and widely sold at relatively cheaper prices, attracting new acquisitive and greedy consumers. Furthermore, in Document 17.5, Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, reinforces the mass growth of greed and materialism in America, uttering the iconic phrase, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter--to-morrrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…” This key element in the novel presents the same idea, stating that people pursuing the American Dream will work harder, expand their ambitions, and reach out for the green light or their dreams just as Jay Gatsby did, but similarly they will never achieve their true desires and dreams. This idea correlates with Document 17.1,…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Any American is taught a dream that is purged of all truth. The American Dream is shown to the world as a belief that anyone can do anything; when in reality, life is filled with impossible boundaries. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives us a glimpse into the life of the upper class during the roaring twenties through the eyes of a moralistic young man named Nick Carraway. It is through the narrator's dealings with the upper class that the reader is shown how modern values have transformed the American Dream's pure ideals into a scheme for materialistic power, and how the world of the upper class lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support Fitzgerald's message that the American dream…

    • 1474 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The 1920’s could be described as “a great time to be rich” in America. It was a time where the rich got richer, and the poor worked to better their lives. It was a time of hope; when people strived to achieve the American dream of money, family, and happiness. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, attempts to uncover the truth of the American Dream. It follows the experience of Nick Carraway and his meeting with the one and only Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is perceived as one trying to live out the American Dream - a man with great ideals determined to achieve the unachievable. It is through his pursuit of Daisy that Fitzgerald is able to show that the Dream itself is truly indeed unrealistic and corrupted by materialism.…

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Great Gatsby as Fitzgerald’s explanation of an American Reality which contradicts the American Dream…

    • 1582 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    As we could see, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows us the dark side of the American Dream in his novel The Great Gatsby. Many things have changed since the 1920s, people's beliefs, people's point of view on the government, and modernism have made the American Dream change for many people in the U.S. The American myth of a self-made man, is gone for many people. F. Scott…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout his novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald continuously reiterates his belief that what we view as “The American Dream” is dead, and has been corrupted by wealth, rather than standing for its original ideals of freedom and equality. Fitzgerald brings this nightmarish world of reality to life using imagery, diction, and symbolism in order to prove to his audience that what was once perceived as an attainable goal, is held just out of grasp by the people that did not have to fight to reach it.…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The ideal of the ‘American Dream’ has hardly changed over the past century. The dream is a unique American phenomenon. It represents a nebulous concept that is exemplified by a number of American values. Many deem wealth and success to be the means to this paradigm. When stability, security and family values also become part of the suburban lifestyle, the American Dream comes close to becoming reality. Nick Carraway, the candid narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby analyzes the legitimacy of this principle through the inevitable downfall of Jay Gatsby. The novel takes place during the ‘roaring twenties’ in two sophisticated, affluent Long Island neighborhoods. The people in these neighborhoods epitomize the superficiality and arrogance that distorts the American Dream. Fitzgerald utilizes this environment and its people to examine the negative attributes of the American Dream that eventually withered. So the ‘American Dream’ wasn’t dramatized in this book.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Roaring Twenties brought in an epoch of extravagance and luxury. Besides material goods, people started pursuing the American dream of a stable life with a family. The main character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, Jay Gatsby, is also fascinated to enter into the rat race of achieving the perfect “American Dream”. He wants daisy back and for that he tries to lure her with his wealth. But just like the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Gatsby’s American Dream crashes. By depicting the failure of Gatsby’s dream, Fitzgerald proves that the American dream is an illusion. This dream of finding fortune, love and happiness is idealistic even when one resorts to unethical ways to obtain it. Like others, Gatsby fails to realize this fact.…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a major theme is the American Dream versus Gatsby's dream, the ideal dream, and the corruption and destruction of the dream. Fitzgerald reveals that the American Dream was transformed from a pure idea of security into a scheme of materialistic power. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald showed the perseverance and hope the founding fathers had. Though the American Dream was corrupted, Gatsby's was not. It was the "foul dust" who were corrupted that ended Gatsby and his dream. Gatsby was living the dream purely, but the corrupted people in his life, like Tom and Daisy Buchanan, destroyed Gatsby's dream.…

    • 984 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Great Gatsby

    • 1184 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the theme can be separated into two major aspects. First, love versus money- criticizing the corruption of the American dream, and second, “sight and insight”-the perception that there is no all seeing presence (higher accountability) in the modern world. The American Dream is not dead it is, however, very corrupted.…

    • 1184 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Gatsby

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Since the birth of the nation, America has been placed on a pedestal for others in foreign land to admire, yearn, desire, and crave. This land has been viewed as the place where milk and honey flow, a land of plenty and where dreams can become reality. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays the concept of the American dream during the 1920’s to modern times. By focusing on the “dreams” of the characters and the actions that they take to try to fulfil those dreams, Fitzgerald is able to reveal the truth about the American dream. Fitzgerald’s revelation shows how it has morphed during the Roaring 20’s and how it relates to modern day interpretation.…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Great Gatsby

    • 1734 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald writes about the dominant theme of the corruption of the American Dream by materialism. The rise of materialism in the Roaring Twenties shows how people would involve themselves in illegal activities just to achieve their vision of the American Dream. Most of the time people’s view of the American Dream was a fantasy and never truly obtainable.…

    • 1734 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Great Gatsby

    • 1828 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The American Dream promised Americans that no matter what origin born into, an individual can succeed in life on the sore basis of his or her own skill level. Written about the 1920’s, Great Gatsby tells the story from Nick Carraway’s perspective as he introduces readers to the time period of glamour, wealth, and for some, depending on the American Dream. In Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses literary devices to criticize the change in morality of the roaring twenties, which old values expressed in the American Dream are destroyed by the corrupt vulgar pursuit of wealth.…

    • 1828 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays