However his parties would have an abundance of alcohol. Gatsby would pay the police enough to look the other way. There isn’t really any equal opportunity if the only way that Gatsby could achieve wealth would be through illegal business. Although Gatsby did achieve The American Dream, he wasn’t happy, because he didn’t have love, which for him was Daisy. Gatsby achieved the American Dream but he ended up dead.
To begin with there is Daisy, who lives a life of luxury in a huge estate with a very wealthy husband. Firstly Fitzgerald establishes Daisy through her tone of voice and the way she speaks, in the novel she is described with “a low, thrilling voice”. The reader can see this as an enticing and rich a voice who leads men in with everything she says. Also Fitzgerald portrays Daisy in nothing but white, white can be seen as the colour of purity and tranquillity, so she is seen as this angel, especially to Gatsby and it makes the reader realise why Gatsby fell in love with her in the first place. She is also portrayed by Fitzgerald as stuck up and that things are all about her.
| “He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive.” –Tom describing Wilson (p. 26) | Ironic because Daisy is found to be unfaithful to Tom as well, later in the novel. Maybe Tom is just as “dumb”. I don’t like him, he is ignorant and cocky. | Myrtle selects a new taxi after rejecting older ones. (p. 27) | She is not really wealthy; maybe she is trying to show off for Tom?
Not only is Myrtle unfaithful, but she clearly has no respect for George and is unhappy with their poverty and with George’s unsuccessful garage. Myrtle shows this with her association with Tom and the haughty air she assumes with him. Furthermore, George is one of the few characters in The Great Gatsby that displays no staggering character flaw. George is a hardworking, religious man and a good and faithful spouse, describing himself as “…one of these trusting fellas and I don’t think any harm to nobody” (Fitzgerald 158-159). The next time George Wilson is mentioned is when Tom stops for gas at his garage in Gatsby’s car.
Myrtle Wilson and George Wilson try to find their American identity through wealth and status. Both of them do not like where they are living or how they are living so they do as much as possible to change their situations. Myrtle Wilson captures the quintessence of the American identity in the 1920’s by cheating on her husband with the wealthy, Tom Buchanan, thinking that she will gain riches. Myrtle then tries to act the part of a wealthy woman by dressing in nicer clothes because in the 1920’s, the clothing one wears, is synonymous to one success according to Jacqueline Herald. When Tom Buchanan first takes Nick Carraway to meet Myrtle she contains “no facet or gleam of beauty”(Fitzgerald 25), but as soon as she is about the city with Tom she buys a moving-picture magazine, ice cream, and a small flask of perfume.
Amber Baskett Mrs. Vincent AP Lang/ Comp (6) 29 October 2013 “The Seemingly “Great” Gatsby” The American Dream is not what it seems. In the 1920’s, the American Dream was nothing but an idea of materialistic wealth and objective pleasures. The desire for the American Dream represented the demise of America, where hard work and good ethics were abandoned for wealth and the good life. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a self-made man who started out with no money— only a plan for achieving is dream. He is so blinded by his luxurious possessions that he does not see that money cannot buy love or happiness.
And although Gatsby’s profound love for Daisy, told through the eyes of the narrator, Nick, is a major subject in The Great Gatsby, it is merely a subscript to the main theme carried throughout the entire book. This book focuses on the idea of the American Dream, but even more so, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby as a way to critique the American Dream. First of all, it is important to understand what the American Dream is. The American Dream says that anyone can succeed in life. Anyone who works hard, and pursues the ultimate goal of happiness, can, and will, live a fulfilling life.
ENG3U1 May 15th 2011 FLAWED PURSUIT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM: GATSBY & WILLY LOMAN Incidences of life can cause outwardly perfect individuals to fall to pieces and realities to merge with dreams. Sometimes an individual's outlook on life differs than those around him. The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald expounds on the distorted view of the American dream. The American dream is situated on the belief that by exercise of will power and energy you can achieve anything, especially wealth which brings happiness which is central to the plot of both texts. In both The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman the central characters Gatsby and Willy Loman respectively chose to walk a path of wealth and popularity at the same time searching for the one something that made them happy in the past.
The American Dream all the characters are chasing is ruined by reality of life. Gatsby dream involves him falling in love with Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby feared that Daisy did not wait for him because he was not rich. That’s why Gatsby did crime to get rich. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan.
When a topic such as this one has a broad amount of variables, it is impossible to simply link these problems to the wealth of a family and race. In the article, “American Dream Not American Reality”, author Jonathan Turley states, “People from lower income family or different race than white tent to fail on reaching their American Dream and face the reality because they have lack of economic support from the family”. This is the simple statement that shows people from poor family will result in failure. What Turley must understand is that it can be extremely difficult for people from low income family to achieve their American Dream without any education and economic support. They must spend more time to study and work as a full time to pay for their school fees.