Luke Troutman Mrs. B.L. Honors English III September 30, 2008 Wealth Overcomes Love In The Great Gatsby; Tom, Daisy, and Myrtle’s desire for wealth prohibits them from developing substantial relationships. Living a lavish lifestyle, with constant happiness keeps them from actually loving a person for who they are, not how they live. This shows a want for happiness in men, or women, and how they forget about love to obtain happiness and worldly possessions. Since he was a child Tom had always been wealthy acquiring everything he desired causing him to act childishly always wanting his way and to become wealthier.
Willy has a dream that he refuses to give up even when it becomes clear that his dream is shallow, unrealistic and unattainable. The American Dream, a belief that any man can achieve material greatness and subsequent happiness if he works hard enough, if he fights for it, had a personal connotation for Miller, whose uncle was a travelling salesman, and whose father was a wealthy manufacturer before losing his wealth in the Great Depression. His family’s ongoing struggle with poverty certainly influenced this particular work, and others. Willy genuinely believes that that personal attractiveness (constant references to the importance of being “Well liked”) and hard work is enough to guarantee success. His view of success was inspired by Dave Singleman, who at the age of 84 could sell anything to anyone from his hotel room and whose funeral was attended by hundreds of people.
He worked so hard at convincing himself that he could recreate the past that he actually believed it could happen in his own mind. He hated his life as a kid because of the fact that he wasn’t rich. To Gatsby, the reason Daisy never married him was because he wasn’t wealthy, like Tom was. This triggered Gatsby to have a life goal. This life goal was everything he worked for, his entire life revolved around doing anything he can to become rich, and once he was rich then he would once again capture Daisy’s love for him again and they would get married back in Louisville at Daisy’s old house.
“ This season Pluto assembles the “Dream Team.” LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kyri Irving, all high end real estate. His team has won championship, after championship, no other team stand a chance, against the dream team. His team is his only source of happiness, the player like him only because he pay a good salary, he has no
Jay Gatsby from the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Wingfield from the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams both were not victorious in their quests for success. The Great Gatsby takes place in Long Island in the 1920s and The Glass Menagerie takes place in Saint Louis Missouri in the 1930s. Jay Gatsby is a rich man with a huge house but he never succeeded in getting his dream girl back. Tom Wingfield succeeded in traveling the world and finding adventure but he let his sister and mother down. Jay Gatsby went out with this girl named Daisy but after not seeing her for years Jay Gatsby goes crazy trying to make his life perfect for her.
To what extent does “The Great Gatsby” reflect the attitudes and values of real-life American society in the 1920s? ‘The Great Gatsby’ written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is an extremely contextual novel. Many autobiographical elements are incorporated into the story as is Fitzgerald’s own criticism of the era. The fact that the author lived out the hedonistic existence written about in the novel, and experienced the effects of it, including the severe social gap between rich and poor, the rise in organised crime, racism and first wave feminism, gives a unique insight into the attitudes and values of real-life American society in the 1920s. As Arthur Mizener wrote in 1963, “Fitzgerald spoke for his own time and perhaps, in a broader sense, for all generations of Americans”.
So both the novel The Great Gatsby and the story “Babylon Revisited” are products of the time, products of 1920s. Narrating just about the lives of the several characters F.Scott Fitzgerald skillfully depicts the whole society, introduces us closely to the history of America at that decades, shows reader’s how the American Dream was changing throughout that time period : how suddenly pursuit of wealth and materialism became the main goal of most people, how after that thousands of people lost everything in the market crash and how the whole generation of flappers and pleasure-seekers was eventually lost. While comparing two works The Great Gatsby and “Babylon Revisited” one can’t not to notice the central role of the past in them. As both books begin narrating about the present events and gradually deep into the past. Present is impossible without the past, and F.Scott Fitzgerald was fully aware of this essential fact.
However Gatsby always wanted to be a rich man, it's just he became more motivated in acquiring his fortune for his love Daisy. Therefore his dream cannot be souly based on Daisy, as Daisy was only his motivation. Gatsby is introduced into the novel later, and is spoken and gossiped about earlier on in the novel, this makes him seem more of a mystery. As Gatsby is presented, he is reveal to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invest Daisy with idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations.
The significance of this scene is the fact that now there are no lies and his children and wife can see for themselves, how weighed down he really was by the American Dream. The American dream offered people a chance to achieve riches even if they had started penniless. Becoming wealthy in all aspects required characteristics of charisma, masculinity and competitiveness, having these meant you were on the right road to success. This could be an indication to the audience, showing us that these are the main reasons why Willy pressurizes his sons to be more successful with their personalities than their education as this is his way of living, and his way of learning how to grow up to be successful forces Willy to live his façade. “Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead.
Although typically associated with the rags to riches story, a self-made man is anyone who attains far greater success than his original circumstances would have indicated was possible. It is his image that has lured thousands of immigrants to America’s shores, all hoping for the chance to turn little possessives into a vast fortune. The self-made man is one who comes from unpromising circumstances, who is not born into privilege and wealth, and yet by his own efforts, by pulling himself “up by the bootstraps”, manages to become a great success in life. It is not external help or special relationships that make the crucial difference in the self-made man’s rise. self-made men throughout history have made their own way in life by reaching deep inside themselves and through willpower and self-improvement, creating their own destiny.