What Are The Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And The American Dream

The most distinguishable ‘vision’ of America can be translated as the ‘American Dream’. Both Fitzgerald and Miller explored the ideas around this same vision at two different times in american history to examine the success of society and looking into detail of how valid the ‘American Dream’ is. The term itself was first used by James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America. The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers. Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ is the epitome of the hypocrisy behind the American Dream. Sarah Churchwell sees The Great Gatsby as a "cautionary tale of the decadent
The American Dream is similarly linked to the literary works of another author, Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’.
The play ‘Death of a Salesman’ is centred around the dysfunctional and frustrated family of a salesman and how the pressures of capitalism can take a toll on domestic relationships. The American Dream with it’s combination of capitalist values connected to the religious ideas of manifest destiny, has become the defining myth of American society and is deeply embedded in the