American Dream in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald :: essays research papers

Essential Question: What is the American Dream? America is the land with the most dreamers. America is the land of opportunity and equality. In America your dreams can be fulfilled if you work hard to achieve your goals. The American dream to most is, to be wealthy and to be able to afford anything. Wealth is a plus in life because you can afford expensive items that do not necessarily have a use, but it does not necessarily matter how hard you try or how much you spend you can not buy happiness. Although being wealthy can make you seem happy on the outside, on the inside you would not be as happy as you seem. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author shows how being wealthy will not make you happy. Many people have voiced their opinions of the America dream. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author tries to show you that wealthiness is a luxury not the American dream. And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby?s wonder when he first picked out that green light at the end of Daisy?s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dreams must have seemed so close that he can hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. (Fitzgerald) To put in simpler terms sometimes your American dream can be so close that you can taste it but it is not close enough to bite it. F. Scott Fitzgerald portrayed his view of the American dream through a character named Jay Gatsby. In the novel Jay Gatsby?s American dream was to get an old girlfriend back by showing off his wealth, but all he got was a bullet that killed him. In the novel he also states that everyone has an American dream and sometimes surpasses it in the process of grasping it. Gatsby It is believed that every person has a dream to accomplish in life but only those who believe can achieve them. ?No man e`er was glorious who was not laborious. Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it? (Franklin). Franklin believed that you can only spoil yourself if you can afford to.