A once high, mighty, and pure ideal has become degraded and buried by the merciless greed for money. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, many of the characters, believed in the Dream and that wealth and social mobility was within his or her reach. Fitzgerald illustrates three specific social classes: old money, new money, and the lower class, with old money and new money taking center stage. Gatsby, himself, represents new money: he climbed the social and economic ladder and succeeded by way of shady dealings of bootlegging. On the other hand, Daisy Buchanan, the love of Gatsby’s life, represents old money.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The American Dream before World War 1 was about moral values and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, the War led to an economic boom in which people bought materialistic items they would have never bought before. This caused the dream to decay and people started to believe that worldly pleasures, money and ultimately, greed was above everything else. With this economic boom, any person of any social class could become wealthy. Jay Gatsby’s need to climb the social ladder and become the romantic hero for his lost lover shows the need of wealth for people in this era.
While in the military Gatsby meets Daisy Fay, who is “the most popular of all young girls in Louisville” (Gatsby 74). He becomes enamored immediately. Gatsby leaves for the war, but he comes back to find her married to “Tom Buchanan of Chicago”; Gatsby is grief stricken (Gatsby 78). He is determined to impress Daisy and win her back. To do this, he needs to become wealthy to suit her East Egg lifestyle.
Charles Foster Kane, publisher of the New York inquirer and numerous other papers, and one of the richest men in the world, influenced America’s thinking for half a century. However, Kane is flawed, self-serving, destructive opportunist, a classic tragic figure doomed to fall. Because he had lots of money, Kane believed he could buy anything including the friendship and love. Message is simple: success, power, riches cannot replace love and tranquility. Many people walked out on Kane’s life: first wife Emily, the best friend Leland, and second wife Susan.
Good VS. Evil “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” A saying many non-wealthy human beings say just to make them feel better about their self-esteem. But it seems odd that in this book “The Great Gatsby” money evolves around love. The two main characters Gatsby and Tom, theyre love Daisy is only interested in them because of theyre wealth. So this quote has no meaning because money did buy them happiness or at least for Tom it did.
All the themes of his novel turn out to be negative, especially his major theme of the unattainable “American dream”. Fitzgerald has created no honest characters other than Nick; even the protagonist is corrupted in the pursuit of his dream. Finally, the plot line of The Great Gatsby is centered around wealth, careless upper class people, and the idea that social status can never be changed no matter how hard one may try. "The rich get richer and the poor get - children."
My Le Professor McNeil English 1101-113 6 October 2012 Paper 1 “Final Draft” The drive for a perfect lifestyle falsely pulls many people to America. Everyone views America as a place for freedom and prosperity. They come in search of the American dream but many just find a life full of greed. The American dream is known as a belief of gaining the flawless way of life through hard work and dedication. Each person has a unique take on what they believe the American dream is, but every person’s American dream has a goal of success and happiness.
The Great Gatsby ends as suddenly as it had begun; Jay Gatsby has been killed, and along with him, a hope for a new life dies as well. The entire decade of the 1920s can be summarized through the novel. After World War I, many americans were able to get rich quickly and from their new society of “new money.” Americans all had a hope of success and obtaining whatever form of the American dream they wanted. For Gatsby, this was the hope of being able to have Daisy as his wife. His illicit activities led to him having all the money one could want, but without Daisy, Gatsby had nothing.
The American dream is to work hard and achieve your dreams, or to get rich and live comfortably. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby was very poor and wanted to be with Daisy. Daisy and Gatsby were in love but Daisy could not be with him. Gatsby was poor and Daisy was rich and in that time period it was not acceptable to the parents to marry lower than your class. Gatsby worked hard to achieve his dream.
Gatsby longs for perfection that he feels he needs to lie and cheat his way towards, and Daisy longs for materialistic things that she will get by any means, even if she has to deny herself true love. Gatsby and Daisy’s tendencies mirror the commonplace morals and attitudes of the 1920’s, but they also mirror widespread views that American society still holds today. There are many people in twenty-first century America that are like Daisy, who love and desire wealth and hold a steady obsession with material objects. There is no doubt that people still probably marry for wealth and status the same way Daisy and so many others did during the 1920’s. The obsession with social hierarchy drives people to be selfish and greedy- never happy with what they have.