The Decay of American Dream in The Great Gatsby
The Decay of American Dream in The Great Gatsby The American Dream is a worldwide known idiom and it emphasizes an ideal of a successful and happy lifestyle which is oftentimes symbolized by the phrase “from rags-to-riches”. It originated out of the ideal of equality, freedom and opportunity that is held to every American. In the last couple of decades the main idea of the American Dream has shifted to becoming a dream in which materialistic values are of a higher importance and status. The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 during the “Jazz Age”. Jay Gatsby is a parvenu who worked himself his way up. He is the main character and he has a quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan and he has a need for materialistic things. Nevertheless, the only business plan he had was a vision of achieving his dream. When Jay Gatsby becomes part of the upper class society, the luxuries that he has blind him from realizing that money cannot buy him fortune, nor love. Therefore, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes how the American Dream can become corrupted if the dreamer’s focus is on obtaining fame, power and wealth through materialism. Jay Gatsby’s dream is a “is a naïve dream based on the fallacious assumption that material possessions are synonymous with happiness, harmony, and beauty” (Fahey 70). He is the title character and protagonist of the story, who throws lavish parties at his mansion in West Egg every Saturday night. Gatsby is an ambitious and self-driven man who pursues his dreams by any means necessary – may it be legal or otherwise. He is crazy and obsessed with achieving the wealth and social status he thinks is necessary for winning over his past love, Daisy Buchanan. When Gatsby met Daisy in Louisville, he was not too much of a wealthy man, but for him it was important to act like one. Fitzgerald writes, “[Gatsby] let [Daisy] believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself” (149). After the relationship fell apart,
Cited: Fahey, W. (1973). F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.