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Representation Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

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Representation Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a book published in 1925 that revolves around the life of Nick Carraway and his experiences of moving to the east. The story, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is focused on showing the American Dream. Which is the notion that there is “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.” Though how do the characters in the book represent the notion of the American Dream? Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to represent the American Dream and that people will go to great lengths to achieve it.
Before the argument can be made about Gatsby being a representation of the American Dream there must first be a description on what the American Dream actually entails. The American Dream is the ideology that an opportunity
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Then he meets Daisy, a rich young girl, who rejects him for being poor and wasn't willing to wait on him. Which is the main reasoning for Gatsby following the American Dream was so he could impress the people around him and therefore Daisy. In fact, the author symbolises the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock as a sort of “light at the end of the tunnel” that Gatsby is trying to reach. As a reaction to wanting Gatsby redefines himself, changing his name, the way he lives, and his background, following a path of self-definition and self-conception which are both a major part of the American Dream. In essence, Gatsby changes his whole life in order to change the way people look at …show more content…
Gatsby a man of tremendous wealth and power could have chosen anybody to be his wife he wanted Daisy. Although he failed to see that part of his attraction to her was because of what she represented for him: money and the upper class. In a way, Gatsby believes that if he can get her to love him, he can prove to himself that he belongs to the upper class. Though he learns too late that both Daisy, and, therefore, the American Dream, are unreachable goals. In conclusion, Gatsby follows the American Dream model to a point and is a perfect candidate for representing it. Though not in the storybook happy ending version, Fitzgerald wanted to show how hollow the idea of the American Dream is and how even if it is obtained its outcome would not be anything that a person would necessarily want which, in this case, was

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