Fitzgerald And The American Dream Essay, Research Paper
. The American Dream promises prosperity and fulfilled desires as rewards for hard work
and self-reliance. The American Dream is often considered to go hand and hand with
good-naturednis. However in F. Scott Fitzgerald s novel The Great Gatsby were are introduced
to another perception of the American Dream. That some may believe that the American Dream
goes hand in hand with goodness and excellence, however others take the dream to be purely
materialistic. Fitzgerald shows through conflict and symbolism that Gatsby s desire for material
wealth instead of goodness and excellence causes his downfall.
Gatsby is obsessed with a material goods. “[The car] was a rich cream color, bright with
nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and super-boxes
and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns.”(68)
The car is supposed to be a positive representation of the American Dream. However it is a car
that kills Myrtle Wilson when Daisy runs her over. This indirectly lead
The weath and prestiege that the car is supposed to represent is turned into a symbol of
corruption.
The character of Jay Gatsby is a symbol of corruption also. He is a romantic dreamer who
seeks to fulfill his life by earning his wealth as a mobster. Gatsby does not change much in the
course of the novel because his whole life is devoted to the fulfillment of a romantic dream
created that is inconsistent with the realities of society. At a very early age Gatsby vowed to love
and to marry Daisy Buchanan. His lack of wealth led Daisy into the arms of another more
prosperous man, Tom Buchanan. Gatsby believed that he could win Daisy back with money, and
that he could get the life she wanted if he paid for it. He wanted to do away with time in order to
obliterate the four years Tom and Daisy had together. Gatsby wanted to repeat the past, “I’m
going to fix everything just the way it was before. She’ll see . . .”.(117) Gatsby’s romantic
disregard for reality changes the American Dream with his dream that love can be recaptured if
one can make enough money.