Jay Gatsby's Quest for the American Dream Essay Example

Living the American Dream is like winning the lottery. This is what The American Dream should be like. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a modernism and satire fiction book. Set withinside the Jazz Age, Jay Gatsby, a man of well-known people, lives in a world of riches. To pose a question, did Jay Gatsby obtain the American Dream? Jay Gatsby achieved the American Dream.

Jay Gatsby has a knack for showing off his riches. “While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue.”(92)  For this, Jay Gatsby has become debatable whether or not he achieved the American Dream. Although Gatsby does come from North Dakota he was never rich at the beginning of his life in the real world. Gatsby brings on his “American Dream” way of life and the ‘want’ to begin his life closer to wealth. He got here to all of this wealth because of hard work and crime. The perfect American Dream has been relatively accomplished. 

The American Dream had come to full terms of realism when he threw the most lavish parties and how everyone, including the police, knew him and granted him full rights to respect. "Anyhow he gives large parties," said Jordan, changing the subject with an urbane distaste for the concrete. "And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy."(49) He was only known around town because he is so rich and lives an elegant and extravagant life. “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.”(20)  Therefore, this made him happy and contributed to the American Dream Gatsby wanted. The green light represents Gatsby’s obsession with love and his hopes to reconcile with Daisy which leads to also representing the American Dream, a dream that anyone can live the life they wish for if they work hard. The green light represents money, wealth, power and love, which is everything Gatsby wishes he had to live the American Dream. This makes it real for Gatsby and what he desired to create for himself because he knows he can obtain The American Dream. 

Daisy Buchanan is another example of how The American Dream was made real for Gatsby. Love makes anyone possibly do anything to get the woman or man the person wants. Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to forestall.“I knew the moment I kissed her my heart would be married to her, so I waited just a moment longer, and then I let myself go.”(110) Gatsby never stopped looking to make Daisy love him and go back to him after she would have left Tom. For this Gatsby worked hard to make an impression on Daisy. He went through so much and sacrificed the entirety in the end.

The American Dream can lead you through all sorts of barries and sacrifices you need to make. Jay Gatsby, in no way, stopped persevering to have that perfect American Dream lifestyle he desired. The American Dream was achieved by hard work and mental fights. Although an obstacle of Jay Gatsby with the American Dream was him wanting the approval of others. This now did not stop him from getting to his perfect life. In conclusion, Jay Gatsby has achieved the American Dream.