The American Dream in Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby Essay -- Great Gat

The American Dream in Fitzgeralds The Great GatsbyThe 1920s were a time of set outies, drinking and having nothing but fun. Many aspired to be rich and prosperous and longed to be a part of the upper class. Although this was the dream for many Americans of this time, it seemed almost impossible to become a part of this social class unless born into it. Even those who worked hard to become successful and support themselves and their families were not accepted into this elite group of men and women, despite the detail that they too most similarly had everything. This was a running theme of this decade and only a few people kfresh how impossible this dream was. Although some could chance upon rising to the top, they still could not achieve true happiness. F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of these wise people and in The Great Gatsby he satirizes the American Dream by creating characters from new money, old money and the working class, who all fail miserably in achieving life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The new money of the New York area mostly settled in West Egg, Long Island. This is where Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, and Jay Gatsby live. Gatsby is a self-made man who sprang from his Platonic conception of himself (95). Nick describes him as a man invented like that which a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end (95). This idea of a self-made man was very popular in this era. Many people, especially from the lower social classes, wanted more than anything to become rich and part of the upper society. In Gatsbys case, his motivation is Daisy, a girl from Louisville with whom he fell in love. When Gatsby realized that he wasnt good enough for her because s... ...ly belongs. She can never truly leave this place and whats even more ironic, she is killed by what she craves acceptance from and longs to be apart of, the aristocracy. Society during the 1920s was masked by drinking, part ies and extravagant wastefulness of money, but underneath there was wretchedness throughout all the classes. Despite the word form of income, inheritance and economics, there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the salubrious and many men of this time were sick with depression (118). Fitzgerald makes it seem as though it was practically impossible to be happy during these times as no one could get what he or she really wanted. He describes this era in a cynical way but is historically accurate, and effectively depicts the misery of the decade and the failure to achieve the American Dream.