The Great Gatsby | The American Dream

The Great Gatsby The American day hallucinationCompare and Contrast The Great Gatsby with the American Dream. Discuss how Gatsbys extravagances compare to the American Dreams basels.There is no strict definition of the American Dream though early in the twentieth century and in legion(predicate) a(prenominal) ways still today it has go away the margin which describes an inherent faith in the agreement of the new world. As a country, America has no far stretching annals to forge and meliorate its culture. Instead a nations character was flavoured with holds and anticipation of the future, of a better sprightliness of to a greater extent than opportunity and purpose.People fledged to the Americas to start afresh, to experience groundbreaking luxuries and new technology. To become a part of the rat stimulate and solve the age of capitalism and materialism overall to become rich finished anes try birth means. To realise the great American Dream therefore was an adde ndum of Benjamin Franklins maxim of the perfectibility of man. Franklin was a great emblem of American ideology and a founder of oftentimes of its deepest held attitudes and beliefs.Franklin was ane of the first self-confessed entrepreneurs and his m any written works became great incentives for Americans to become pro-active and to try and be the take up one could be. He founded his ideas on the prevailing optimism that with the right motivation and occupation anyone could become a solvent, well-respected individual.Perhaps no clock in Americas narrative quite demonstrated the peoples obsessive preoccupation with the American dream than the twenties. In the post-war period, it became an incredibly affluent country, rapidly industrialising and developing the caliber of life sentence. It became a time when gross extravagances were commonplace. The American president Herbert Hoover said in 1925 We provide root come out of the closet poverty and put two cars in either garage . On the surface of it, the nation was thriving with its own achieveres. People were gleeful by the possibility of continued rejoicing through material riches.However, this zephyr of striving relentlessly towards the future in the promise of rewards had a acrimonious flipside. Many authors found the new attitude of American people besides conceited. This idea in particular is explored in metaphor in many of Herman Melvilles works together with Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, hardly demonstrably so in the unexampleds of Evelyn Waugh, J.D. Salinger and of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald. These authors seek to show that the people of America were changing becoming superficial and self-consumed and misconstruing happiness as wealth and materialism.On the face of it, Fitzgeralds wonderful creation of Jay Gatsby appears a champion of the hence humor of profligacy and carefree living. He has as many comely shirts to make Daisy swoon and not two locomote cars as Hoover wo uld advise, simply five. From his mansion in West bullock block he holds wild parties e real night mixing in the highest affectionate circles. But the universal gravitational constant irony is that of all the characters in the book, Gatsby is perhaps the least inspired or objectively absorbed by the lifestyle he defines. And it is also perhaps precisely this reason that Gatsby is also the nearly in all probability to coax our affections. As Nick expresss out he has an exceptional quality that separates him from typical Americans overmuch less than exemplifies themIf disposition is an unbroken series of self-make gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,an grotesque gift for hope, a amative readiness such as I fall in never found in any other person and which it is not managely I shall ever chance again.Gatsbys gift for hope which Nick talks about sure enough seems reliable of Franklins vision but t here is a life-or-death contrast with the American dreams personality of hopefulness and Gatsbys personality and it is this maculation Franklin advocated the importance of the individual, the hopefulness that one faculty successfully improve ones own self and ones own means, Gatsbys greatest hope is to find Daisy and rekindle her respect for him. We are endeared to Gatsby because he is the just character who quite clearly set compassionate affection above wealth and recreation. He unlike any of the other characters has a firm belief in the good of adult maleity.In this way he is set in stark contrast with the fibber Nick who seems a born cynic, passive, sardonic and judgemental of other people though he claims otherwise. Jordans half-baked advances fail to woo him therefore he seems in truth disenchanted by the possibility of a loving relationship and finds fellowship only in Gatsby. For Nick, Gatsby must seem the only warm, good center fielded human being in New York a nd yet even so, the previous mention shows he is quick to qualify this questioning whether personality is a true reflection of a person or then an unbroken series of successful gestures a comment which suggests Nick is hung up by the idea that all human interaction is a faade or an act preferably than a true reflection of real olfactory perceptions.Nick has a severely disillusioned view of 1920s socialite America yet his pessimism is invariably knowing proving to be sound by the end of the novel. It is by contrast Gatsbys unmanageable optimism and his rose-tinted sentimental view of the world that is revealed to be mistaken.So The Great Gatsby is a novel which sees a character try and use the American Dream to win the write out of a woman. Fitzgerald tells us that Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the young person and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles o f the poor it is this misconstrued impression of wealth as a timeless vessel of hope, as the preserver quite an than the destroyer of mystery, which makes about his downfall.In this sensation Gatsbys end is not meditative of his means his real end is finding love, his means is to buy it with vaunts of brilliance and extreme wealth. But such affection by definition cannot be real love and Daisy subsequently cannot give herself over to him with the intensity of feeling he had hoped for. Fitzgeralds novel is saturated in al-Qaedas of illusion, and deception. The great swathes of noveau riche self-made Americans, success stories of the great American dream, are undermined by a superficiality and emptiness. The characters bemuse founded their wealthy, though vacuously glamorous life-styles by capitalising on an identity which is bereft of goods.Mr. Gatsby himself has become incredibly rich in a short situation of time because he absolves himself of moral responsibility and trades in the trafficking of alcohol. And yet his wealth breeds distrust and intolerance, his magnificent parties attract only insincere people who exploit his generosity. Similarly Tom Buchanan cannot count on the fidelity of his wife Daisy because he makes no effort to make sure of his own.In a humor of greed, relationships are no longer based on trust or affection but self-interest. The false, self-fulfilling nature of the relationships speculative in the novel is made painfully clear for Nick who notices that only three people piece up to Gatsbys funeral a genuine surprise given his perceived popularity. It is this sense of hypocrisy and discovery of relationships which are feigned through mutual usefulness kinda than real emotion that brings about Nicks gloomy disillusionment with 1920s community and his realisation that he will never meet anyone who shares Gatsbys bathos.Gatsby, the iconic hero of the American Dream, uses it simply as a means to a very different end. H e avoids social interaction at his parties, hide in the inner chambers of his house and his great displays of wealth give him no more pleasure than in their perceived potential to bring Daisy back to him. Gatsby is only dubiously Great. He is flawed because he tries to find belonging in a society bereft of the close to thorough human morals like trust and fidelity. In an idealistic society governed by a striving impetus towards the acquisition of wealth and power, moral fibre begins to break downThe impact of the great American dream has only a physical, external motion on Gatsby whereas it has shaped the very consciousnesses of the other characters Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan, Myrtle and Gatsbys corrupt work colleagues all display a volatile self-serving hedonism that echoes the then climate of quick-living, profligacy much more than Gatsbys meticulously planned, romantic endeavour to win back Daisys heart and his nostalgia upon reflections of the past. Gatsby is in reality then, far removed from 1920s American lifestyle, he has simply become extremely good at mimicking its symptoms.It seems then that Gatsby is some(prenominal) the champion and the antithesis of the American Dream. Gatsby invites the shine optimism of the American Dream to appease his dread to earn the love of Daisy. By surrendering to the ideals of a forward-looking, hopeful American life he somehow convinces himself that the unlikely is a very real possibility. However, Gatsbys grand scheme is doomed because wealth and social standing are not qualities which he cares to evince they will not earn him a social rank in Americas great society. Gatsby is quite clearly inspired by Franklins autobiography.In chapter 9 Nick discovers a see old book of Gatsbys which shares the uniform assiduous attention to routine and self-discipline in the form of occasional schedules. Gatsby buys into Franklins ideals of self-improvement, resolving to practice elocution, poise and how to attain it read one meliorate book or magazine per week and be better to parents. such an empty list of instructions towards self-help are listed here with comical irony. What indeed can such qualities give Gatsby that will make him any more accomplished in finding love?Gatsbys great delusion and one of Fitzgeralds most important messages is that the acquisition of material successes does not naturally amend a person or society spiritually or emotionally. This is vie out in Gatsbys attempts at courting Daisy he tries to woo her with his shirts rather than more heartfelt displays of real affection and yet surprisingly the scrolls and plaids in coral and apple color and lavender and faint orange win him just the response he hopes for it makes me sad because Ive never seen such beautiful shirts before. Again the moment is half comical. throughout the novel Fitzgeralds characters are most genuinely stirred to emotion or touched by the mundane, by materials, extravagances or assortments of f ancy shirts. Fitzgeralds America often appears so superficial as to be funny. For instance, characters like Tom and Myrtle are two-dimensional and self-motivated to point of seeming unrealistic, but it is such cartoon-like, narrative extremes that allows Fitzgerald to make his most crucial point which is the severe loss of what are perhaps the real, spiritual qualities of human life in all the excesses of self-seeking capitalism.In the relentless race towards modernisation, traditions, heartfelt beliefs and the spiritual side of human culture is lost in a dead expanse a valley of ashes. All the while Fitzgerald uses symbolism to re give way this decay, like T.S. Eliot in The Wastelands, old fashioned value are lost in an atmosphere of moral corruptness , of the specious and kitsch. Quite wonderfully even God himself has become redundant in Fitzgeralds America, replaced by the watchful eyes of Dr. Eckleburg a huge billboard and the big top of commercialism and spiritual dissemblan ce.An even more prevalent symbolic theme in the novel is the intensity of heat. Fitzgeralds emphasis on the sun and blinding brightness is exceptional. It makes up a huge contingent of the narration circumstance scenes and on many occasions dictating the flow of events. Heat is used much as Camus uses glaring light to imply the burden of truth in Letranger or Shakespeare uses a storm to echo the madness and moral corruption of Lears world. In The Great Gatsby it intensifies the growing discomfort of the characters landscapes. The falseness of the world they last becomes a harsh and oppressive glasshouse, melting well-importee facades. Heat and cheer become more and more an aspect of the storyline in the novel climaxing on the day of Gatsbys denouement the next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest day of the summer.At the characters final group meeting in the restaurant, the sweltering heat amplifies the feelings of resent and bitterness behind their interact ions. Sunlight might then be seen as Fitzgeralds way of projecting natures grip on a humans actions and the impossibility of defying the spirit of the world around you.Perhaps the most crucial distinction mingled with Gatsby and the ideal of the American dream is a temporal one. The American Dream is built upon the anticipation of a more modern, more advanced future. Gatsby does await the future with baited breath but only in the futile expectation that it will one day embolden his memory of the past. Indeed Gatsby lives entirely in the past clinging to the nostalgia of his youth. That he might relive an exquisite moment of love which he still cherishes between himself and Daisy becomes his one motivating objective.But as Nick astutely points out, human elation is invariably short-lived and cannot be recaptured and critically Gatsby misconceives what is possible in Franklins vision of the present. Franklin did not embrace the wonder of the past, or treasure the history of human e motion life was rather a progression continually in flux. It is no surprise that Gatsby is piqued by Nicks refutation of his dream lean repeat the past? he cried incredulously. Why of course you can Gatsby clings to the traditions of history. It is implied by his position in West Egg as opposed to atomic number 99 as indeed the Eastern fringe of America was then considered to be the seat of its prosperity and the Western frontier the links to its older heritage. tangible evidence of Gatsbys devotion to a dissolving past is his well stocked library, filled with books, which surprise his guests at being Absolutely real have real pages and everything and not made from nice durable cardboard. Books have become empty non-durable objects to the guests at Gatsbys parties, just like themselves who are soulless, lacking mental object of character, or the oranges and lemons which leave Gatsbys parties via the backdoor in a pyramid of pulpless halves. But Gatsbys reminiscent, uniquely mysterious disposition is best expressed in Nicks fleeting impressions of himThrough all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something an hard rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.Nicks language is characteristically vague and whimsically unsealed of itself an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, what part of Gatsbys appalling sentimentality he is referring to is an intangible and incomprehensible thing. And that is the point, Gatsbys sentimentality has no solid meaning in the mundane rational of the present he is mysterious and plagiarize memory of something that is no more. The story of Gatsby is ultimately a tragic one because he cannot bend the careless frivolity of the society around him to the romantic solemnity of his intentions. Affection is an impotent virtue in a fickle misunderstanding world. And the past cannot be brought home to the characters of a social climate which cares only for t he future Oh, you want too much she cried to Gatsby, I love you nowisnt that enough? I cant help whats past. I did love him oncebut I loved you too.Daisy cannot reconcile Gatsbys need to recapture what is gone. The love Daisys confesses she bears for Gatsby is different forged in the present in her awe of his wealth. Unlike Gatsby, she severs the experiences of the past as moments which are lost forever and have no tangible port on the future. Daisy and Toms dilution of guilt, and sightless fleeing at the end of the novel is the true straits of the American dream the self-centred belief that one lives in the present and what has happened in the past is irrelevantThey were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast neglect or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people comely up the mess they had made.Gatsby is great because he is unlike the dirty charming things of modern Ameri ca. He is simply doomed in the world he finds himself upon because his great longing for real human feeling cannot be harmonize with the real social longing for wealth and status. The Great Gatsby does explore the effect of the American dream upon a national consciousness but with the hint that it is rather a pipe-dream or an empty sentiment. Gatsbys obsession with the green lantern glowing promisingly at the bottom of Daisys garden inspires him with hopes of acquiring her love.But the green light plainly represents the great torch of the Statue of self-reliance that greets voyagers off the ships In Manhattans harbour filled with hope and inspired by the promises of America. And the Stature of Liberty in turn is an emblem of freedom and truth the once treasured principles of an American identity. Fitzgeralds novel discounts these principles with this rather touching metaphorGatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but thats no matter tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further And one fine morning And so we jumble on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.The language is fragmentary because new optimism inspires another thought before the futility of the present becomes a reality. And this language, jumping interminably ahead of itself is indeed Fitzgeralds view of the American character in the rush to produce a rich and extensive character and history for itself, America lost a lot of the clarity which comes from a slower progression. It became in many reckon a nation based entirely on ideologies of hope and optimism and the promise of self-development.But while a nation was wrapped up in these exciting prospects writers such as Fitzgerald pealed back the veil and revealed the inconsistencies in an lookout of liberty tainted by the constraints of greed, capitalism and materialism.BibliographyFitzgerald, F, Scott, The Great Gatsby, 1989, Pen guin, London.