He had come from a family of “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people,” (Fitzgerald 99), and was determined to gain greater things. At this time, he was known as James Gatz, a man who he was not proud of. He then decided that changing his name would assist him in focusing on the improvements he wanted to make in his life. The narrator comments, “He invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end,” (Fitzgerald 99). Gatsby was very ambitious, and knew what he wanted from a young age.
Gatsby came from a poor background. He worked his whole life to become rich. He did many jobs, served in the military, and still remained true to not only his dream, but his true character as well. This shows that Gatsby is great because it requires a lot of work and self discipline in order to achieve ones dreams. Even when he’s rich, Gatsby would still offer to help Nick, or care for Daisy.
{Gatsby fails to separate the possession of the American dream, with the possession of love. He chases the American dream by modelling other men, gaining money and throwing parties, so that he can get the girl, but despite achieving the American dream, he doesn’t gain happiness Jay Gatsby’s has a naïve interpretation of the American dream, confusing happiness with materialistic possessions. His American dream has been corrupted by the idea of attaining wealth and power. Gatsby and his friends: Gatsby throws parties in attempt to find, and win back Daisy however, being a “nouveau riche”, he has not prepared himself or been exposed to the harsh reality that is snobbery, ignorant, corrupt group of people of whom he begins to associate himself
Dreams play a vital role to the development of plot and character within Death of a Salesman; it drives the main characters with their need to obtain their aspirations to a point of obsession that dominates their lives. This never ending pursuit of a non-existent perfection is what leads Willy, Biff and Happy and those around them into a false idea of happiness. They believe that wealth and reputation are the path to success, unfortunately this road leads to only poor and selfish choices leaving everyone unsatisfied and full of regret. Willy’s dreams for himself and his sons set the stage for the novel’s sequence of events. They are the reason that Willy cannot seem to find success, and when he cannot meet his high expectations for himself, he lies and cheats in order to keep the unachievable ideal alive instead of being satisfied with less than perfect.
Willy Loman, a self-deluded salesman who lives in complete denial searching for his "American Dream," finds himself in a belated mid-life crisis. He never achieved the glorious existence as a salesman he had envisioned for himself, so he places all his hopes in his two sons, Biff and Happy. But because their father has infused them with the same fundamentally wrong sense of morality and of what is important in life that has delayed his own success and happiness, the sons find themselves equally trapped and suspended in time without the ability to succeed. Miller reveals Willy’s Struggle as the perfect father, his concerns in his image as a role model, and his controllable actions that misguides the downfall in his relationship with his
Instead they inherited, cheated and participated in illegal dealings to achieve the wealth they now have and a false sense of achievement of the American dream. Four characters in particular stand out a great deal, Tom and Daisy Buchanan have squandered their pursuit of the dream through the way they treated people and acted. Next is Jay Gatsby a man who gave up hard work and an honest way of living to further himself towards a corrupted dream. Lastly Jordan Baker is construed
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreams of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible” –T.E. Lawrence. Mr. Jay Gatsby is a dreamer of the day. He constantly pursued dreams of which he never fulfilled and constantly faced disasters in money, his love life, and his social relations.
Also, all that wealth Gatsby has is from illegal business, and this would totally reduce the greatness of a man. Gatsby turns out to be someone who dreams about things that are impossible; Daisy. He knew that Daisy is married, and it is really hard to break the marriage since Daisy and Tom have a daughter, but Gatsby still dragged himself to live in a dream of having Daisy. Gatsby is so delusional to the point
In the novel, Gatsby’s ambition represent the American Dream. He believes that despite having a lack of education, he can succeed in life on the basis of his hard work and money. The source of his money is unclear though, as Tom Buchunan suggests that he runs an illegal underground business and Gatsby is a bootlegger. Gatsby spends his life blindly by dreaming of winning over the woman he always loved and always depended on his money to achieve his goal. This can be seen in a dialogue with Nick Carroway: “‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously.
He is successful because he is the only one who can confront reality and see through the rose colored glasses. Everyone else had a false sense of reality and could not see or admit the truth. Biff, on the other hand, is comfortable with the fact that he is just an average man, something Willy, was never able to accept. Another reason Biff is successful is because he chases his dreams and what he enjoys doing in life. Biff knew that the life of a salesman was not his own dream but his father’s dream for him.