American Dream in The Great Gatsby (Essay Sample)

📌Category: American dream, Books, Philosophy, The Great Gatsby
📌Words: 913
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 19 February 2022

Life, liberty, individualism, the pursuit of happiness, and making yourself a fortune, the “American dream”. We all heard about the American dream from a young age and many of us dreamed of having it. We dreamed of being rich, famous, popular, being the most popular around, walking the walk and talking the talk, and for most of our lives, we saw it as something that was in reach, just beyond our fingertips. If we only push that much harder we can achieve such a lifestyle because hey, it’s America, anything is possible. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby takes that idea and stomps on it, portraying the American dream as something that most people will never come close to achieving and even those who do are rarely happy or even content. Fitzgerald masterfully guides us through a tale of a man who has it all, Jay Gatsby. He has raucous parties and is always the man of the hour, but as we find out through the lens of our narrator, Nick Carraway, Jay still is missing something, or more specifically someone. We see how even though Jay seemingly has it all, he wants more, and he wants things that can’t be reasonably achieved. Fitzgerald shows how we let money corrupt us, how we always want what we can’t have, and how the so-called “American dream” is a thing of the past.

Money is one thing that we all want and seemingly never have enough of. How many times have you longed for a new materialistic possession but lacked the funds for it, all too many. But some lucky few, like Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and Daisy and Tom Buchanan, have a large sum of wealth. But if they have these magical pieces of paper that make problems go away and make new, exciting things appear in our lives, why are they all so morally corrupt and sad? This is one of the issues tackled by Fitzgerald that shows that money isn’t the solution to our issues. Take Tom Buchanan for example, a wealthy man with a wife and a daughter. He looks to have it all, the house, the lifestyle, the picturesque American family, and the way of life. So why is it that Tom is cheating on his wife with a poor woman (Myrtle) from the slums? Why does Daisy go to Jay Gatsby? Why does Tom resort to violence when Myrtle taunts him about his wife “Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand” (Fitzgerald, 38). This is one of the ways that Fitzgerald shows that money can be a good thing, but too much of a good thing can corrupt us especially when it comes to money. He shows how Tom uses his money to rent an apartment for extramarital adventures. For the average person, this is simply out of the question, who can afford a second living space just for flings? Gatsby throws what was considered obscene parties for the time and flaunts his wealth. Fitzgerald shows how income inequality was rampant in the 20’s “There are the old money Buchanans, the new money Gatsby, the bond-businessman Nick who is subsidized by his father; and then, on the other hand, there is the floundering, beaten-down George Wilson, and, among many others alongside or lower down from him, the “Finn” who works in Nick’s house as a maid—he never refers to her by name.” (Cain). This shows how disconnected they are from the rest of society, seeing themselves as better, and more deserving of everything than the poorer people of the time. Nick never even refers to his maid, who is being paid by him to do things for him, by her actual name. They lack the decency to use something as simple as a name. 

I’m sure “Finn” would’ve loved to be called by her name but unfortunately, we want what we can’t have. Jay Gatsby is a perfect example of this. Jay Gatsby has it all, the cars, the house, the parties, and the fame even if it is fairly local. But even though he has it all he wants what is out of his reach, Daisy. He and Daisy had somewhat of a stint in another life but that came to an end and Daisy got married. Gatsby longs for Daisy as he stares at her house at night. “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (Fitzgerald, 93). He is infatuated with her and stares at a light just to think of her. The light, in my opinion, is a symbol of hope and safety. He is hopeful that he can have Daisy once again in his life and that having her would be somewhat of a net. Even if he falls and loses it all he would at the very least have Daisy. He has everything and is known for throwing fantastic parties, but even still Daisy causes him to become anxious and stressed, “She didn’t like it, he said immediately … She didn’t like it, he insisted, she didn’t have a good time” (109). Gatsby wishes Daisy “go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you” (110). I think he throws the parties to attract Daisy to his house, see what all the hustle and bustle is about. Tom has an affair, Daisy has an affair, they have the money and the means to have nearly anything they want and they still go for what they cannot have. This is one way Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream, he shows that the pursuit of happiness can be futile when it is being “aided” by money. We commonly associate the two when talking about the American dream so Fitzgerald shows that they are not the same. You can be happy and have money, but you can’t just have money and expect happiness.

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