Examples Of Self-Made In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream has been part of our culture since the dawn of our nation. The idea of equality and being self-made is part of the country’s identity, and many prospective immigrants come here following that idea. As nice as the American Dream sounds, how it plays in real life can be a different story. This is why F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes this idea in his novel The Great Gatsby. In it, the author criticizes how being self-made is not as simple as hard work and that equality isn’t something that is true for everyone. The first point that Fitzgerald criticizes is the idea of being self-made; that the rich start out in rags and work their way to the top through hard work. One contradiction to this that the author makes is the idea of
“old money”: Families that have wealth passed down from generation to generation. People like Tom never worked hard to get their wealth, which he considers himself superior because of his money being inherited. Another way the author criticizes this idea is how the self-made people got their money. Gatsby, who started out poor in North Dakota, made his wealth dishonestly by bootlegging. Somebody as true and pure as Gatsby has defied the American Dream by getting rich through illegal means. Both Tom and Gatsby contradict how the American Dream of being self-made is supposed to work. The second point of the American Dream that Fitzgerald attacks the idea of equality and that everyone is equal. After reading the book Rise of the Colored Empire, Tom claims that “...if we don’t look out the white race will be -- will be utterly submerged.” and that “It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.” Tom believes that the white race is superior to all of the other races and that they should suppress the minorities. This is the very blatant example of how racial equality is far from being true in the 1920’s. The question of what is the American Dream is relevant more today than ever before, with the fight for women’s rights. Everyone deserves to be a part of the dream, but F. Scott Fitzgerald knows that that is not always possible. There is always going to be people who did nothing more than winning the birth lottery to get in their elite position, and those same people will resent others who are not as fortunate as them. That does not mean we can stop trying to change our country, and make the American Dream into the American Reality.