Unttainable American Dream in The Great Gatsby Essay Sample

Wealth, power, and status: these are all qualities of the elusive American Dream. Gatsby has the wealth and the power, but he lacks the status of old money that is the key to what he wants: Daisy. Many nights, Gatsby looks across the bay that separates him from Daisy. He sees only the glowing green orb of light on Daisy’s dock, which entrances him. He connects his idea of Daisy to that light and reaches for it, longing for it, hoping to grasp on to it, but the light is not tangible, and his fingers can only brush against it. Just as Gatsby is only able to graze the green light, many people cannot grasp onto the American Dream of wealth, power, and status that they desire. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of the intangible nature of the green light—which in the narrative symbolizes Daisy—tells us that the American Dream was unattainable for many people during the roaring twenties.

The incorporeal quality of the green light connects it as a symbol of Daisy because Gatsby has created a version of Daisy in his mind that does not exist in the real world. When Tom confronts Gatsby and Daisy about their relationship, Gatsby says to Tom, “‘Your wife doesn’t love you,’ . . . ‘She’s never loved you. She loves me’”(130). When Gatsby speaks for Daisy he is not speaking for the Daisy of reality, who was in love with Tom when the two married, but for the Daisy he has dreamed about. The image Gatsby has of Daisy, as intangible as the green light, does not align with who Daisy is in reality. Later on, Nick remarks on how close Gatsby thought he was to being with Daisy. Nick says, “. . . I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it”(180). The green light represents Daisy, a dream that “ [Gatsby] could hardly fail to grasp”, but Gatsby does not realize that Daisy is not as close to him as he thinks since the two are separated by their different social classes. The Daisy living in East Egg is different from the Daisy he dreams of, and the immaterial quality of the green light signifies that Gatsby will never be able to hold on to his Daisy. The green lights’ insubstantial quality is a symbol of Daisy because the Daisy Gatsby dreams of does not exist in real life.

Just as Gatsby was never going to achieve a life with Daisy, the American Dream was unattainable for many people during the Roaring Twenties. After Tom reveals that Gatsby has been accumulating wealth illegally, Tom and Daisy arrive at home, but “They weren’t happy, and neither of them touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture . . .”(145). Gatsby never had a chance with Daisy because she has close ties to her social class, and Tom, that all of Gatsby’s wealth cannot break. Daisy may not be happy with Tom, but the security in being his wife and staying in her own social class provides contentment that Gatsby cannot. By the end of the narrative, the deeper meaning of the inability for people to achieve the American Dream is plain in the concluding sentence: “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past''(180). The green light, on a deeper level, represents the American Dream: the “orgastic future” that is unachievable as shown through the inability to hold an impalpable light. Boats push “against the current” that during the Roaring Twenties was the ramifications of World War I. The PTSD, substance abuse, and suicide the lost generation experienced prevented people from achieving the American Dream. Because of the state of society during the Roaring Twenties, chasing the American Dream was futile, just as Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy was in vain.

Throughout Fitzgerald’s work, his opinion that the American Dream is unattainable is shown through symbols such as the green light. But is that still true today? There are plenty of opposing arguments on the status of the American Dream, such as the op-ed pieces, “In Search of the American Dream” by Jonas Clark, that talks about the growing wealth gap, and “The American Dream is Alive and Well” by Samuel Abrams, that emphasizes family. The two opposing articles highlight the different lenses through which the American Dream can be viewed: wealth and status or family and community. Would Fitzgerald’s opinion on the American Dream have been different if he had seen it through the lens of family and community, or would he still have had the same negative outlook due to the devastating losses in World War I and the directionless nature of the lost generation in the decade following the war? While we do not know the answer, Fitzgerald’s portrayal of the Buchanan family, Tom and Daisy’s distanced and apathetic attitude towards their daughter, promotes the thought that his opinion on the American Dream would not change regardless of the lens through which he saw the American Dream.