The Death of the American Dream
Brett Merriman
ENGL 1111
Professor Myers
Project 3 Final
The Death of the American Dream The American Dream is an idealism born out of the earliest settlers of this country. These people strived for discovery and individualism, and embarked on the pursuit of happiness, in which a healthy homestead with a steady career was the embodiment. However, this “dream” experienced a shift in the early 20th century after the conclusion of World War One. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, placed in the post-war early 1920s, depicts this shift from an American Dream based on moral values and the will to survive and succeed to an America where crumbling social and moral etiquette transform the dream into a contest for wealth and decadence. It has become a race to gain perpetual riches which Fitzgerald argues is sinful among the American population– that one’s yearning for riches has an awesomely negative effect on society because the people are now more worried with acquiring capital and gaining social status lose sight of what is important in making this country strong and successful. Perhaps the most famous description of the greed experienced in society during the 1920s comes from The Bible, in which it states “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (Timothy 6:10)” This new generation embodies this verse in the fact that their “craving” for money has caused them to drift away from the original values that built this country and carried it through the well-mannered society of the Victorian age to where they now participate in a disengagement from what is morally right. The American Dream, as a result of the 1920s, has died.
Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota but spent most of his childhood in the Syracuse and Buffalo, New York area. Raised into an Irish Catholic family, he wrote The Great Gatsby and published it in 1925.
ENGL 1111
Professor Myers
Project 3 Final
The Death of the American Dream The American Dream is an idealism born out of the earliest settlers of this country. These people strived for discovery and individualism, and embarked on the pursuit of happiness, in which a healthy homestead with a steady career was the embodiment. However, this “dream” experienced a shift in the early 20th century after the conclusion of World War One. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, placed in the post-war early 1920s, depicts this shift from an American Dream based on moral values and the will to survive and succeed to an America where crumbling social and moral etiquette transform the dream into a contest for wealth and decadence. It has become a race to gain perpetual riches which Fitzgerald argues is sinful among the American population– that one’s yearning for riches has an awesomely negative effect on society because the people are now more worried with acquiring capital and gaining social status lose sight of what is important in making this country strong and successful. Perhaps the most famous description of the greed experienced in society during the 1920s comes from The Bible, in which it states “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (Timothy 6:10)” This new generation embodies this verse in the fact that their “craving” for money has caused them to drift away from the original values that built this country and carried it through the well-mannered society of the Victorian age to where they now participate in a disengagement from what is morally right. The American Dream, as a result of the 1920s, has died.
Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota but spent most of his childhood in the Syracuse and Buffalo, New York area. Raised into an Irish Catholic family, he wrote The Great Gatsby and published it in 1925.