American Dream in the Great Gatsby

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What defines the American Dream? The American Dream is a concept that transcends time; it is the optimistic sense of possibility where the possibility varies from time period to time period as well as from each person to person. For instance, the early American settlers pursued a dream of religious freedom by leaving England. In the seventeenth century, the American Dream could be defined as the pursuit of religious freedom, where man was “hoping for greater freedom and happiness for himself and his children” (Vanity Fair 123). Man’s one desire is to be the best that he can religiously, and in order to do that, to achieve this American Dream, man had to leave England for America. As America was more accepting of the new religious freedom everyone desired. In the 1920s Fitzgerald shows that the American Dream has different meanings to different characters in The Great Gatsby. In the novel, Daisy Buchanan believes that material success is the key to the American dream. In order to be successful in life, and to be achieve overall happiness, then one must have a grand house, fancy clothes, and other such material goods. Daisy cries to Gatsby, a man who has such glorious material goods, that “they’re such beautiful shirts…it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald 92). Myrtle Wilson is another version of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby; Myrtle only wants to increase her social class. Tom Buchanan’s American Dream is to have complete power over everything, and to obtain all that he can—money, success, family, even though he already has all of them, he needs more. To do so, Myrtle and Tom Buchanan have an affair, that help them both in reaching their individual American Dreams, Myrtle by being with a man from a higher class, and Tom by having another woman in his life. Gatsby, on the other hand, is not interested

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