The roaring twenties was the beginning to a decade of a whole new caliber. The dawn of the American Dream; the idea of a wealthy, comfortable, luxurious lifestyle. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” best shows how people strive for the American Dream and the means by which they attain it. Both Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are able to live a luxurious lifestyle. However Tom is able to enjoy spending money left and right knowing the he acquired it through inheritance while Jay struggles to acquire his wealth by any means possible.
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.
The American Dream was not meant to be corrupt, but during the 1920s, people like Gatsby used organized crime and other immorally wrong ways to gain their wealth. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby shows through his descriptions of the characters that the rich are, in general, morally corrupt. The Ruined American Dream presented in the 1920s is corrupt and focused on getting rich quick.
“The Man Who Dies...Rich Dies Disgraced.” A Captain of Industry is an innovator whose business practices and charitable contributions bridge both industry and society, which is unlike Robber Barons, who achieved fame and fortune through dishonest unscrupulous means. Generally speaking, a Captain of Industry is a man who generate money, while Robber Barons exploit money. Andrew Carnegie, millionaire and philanthropist, the man who revolutionized the steel process and created an empire, was a Captain of Industry, because he made sound investments throughout his life, funded public libraries and churches, and endowed many other organizations. As a youth, Carnegie’s schooling ended when he left Scotland, and he only had a few years of it. He later tried to make up for his lack of a formal education with self-study; he gained access to private libraries, read voraciously, and learned skills that got him numerous promotions before the age of 17.
To do this, he needs to become wealthy to suit her East Egg lifestyle. Most people assume that Gatsby was into shady business because a lot of “the newly rich are just big bootleggers” (Gatsby 107). With his new fortune, Gatsby buys a mansion on the water “so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Gatsby 78). When Gatsby and Daisy are reunited for the first time in five years, Gatsby is ecstatic. Gatsby dreams that he will “fix everything to the way it was before” (Gatsby 110).
In the beginning of the story, Gatsby is introduced as a character that is very wealthy. He lives in a mansion that is an “imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy” with “more than forty acres of lawn and garden” (5). Though it is apparent to Nick that Gatsby is rich, he is still unsure of how he got his money. We soon find out that Gatsby was very poor in his younger years, as that is the reason why Daisy left him and married Tom, a wealthier man. Eventually Gatsby meets Dan Cody, the man who ultimately inspires him to pursue his dream of winning Daisy back.
For example, those that are apart of the upper class are entitled to more power and opportunity. The more wealthy people are more powerful people, and these higher class people hold more power over those of lower ranking and class. However, it is very rare that a person of lower and middle class ever hold power simply because they are seen as weak or less superior. And this documentary portrays these ideas perfectly. Although both these young men graduated from an Ivy League school with a degree, they are still seen based on wealthy.
Well when he returned from world war one as a veteran; Daisy had left him for Tom Buchanan. Gatsby was so keen on getting Daisy back; he devoted his life into becoming a very rich man in an attempt to steal Daisy from Tom. After a couple small jobs from working on a boat to a school janitor, he started selling illegal alcohol otherwise known as bootlegging. This job made Jay Gatsby a very rich man, really fast. He was no longer in the poor social class but in the Nouveau Riche social class.
Jay Gatsby was a poor boy that turned into a very wealthy man, but did he live the American Dream? Money is actually the only thing that Gatsby had a lot of. Jay Gatsby tries to live the life of The American Dream, but fails in his battle. Gatsby certainly lacks many of the qualities and fails many of the tests normally linked with greatness, but he redeems this by his exalted conception of himself. Today society sets their goals by planning the future
The eastern seaboard symbolized by the "East Egg" comes to represent the affluence of the Jazz Age, its residents those who have succeeded in obtaining the wealth and power that the "American Dream" represented. Those that reside there have access to the inherited privileges the come with money, something which is revealed through the character of Daisy and the fact that she can "retreat back into [her] money and vast carelessness"(179), even after the death of Myrtle Wilson. The East epitomizes the desirable Nick moves to the East in order to make a name for himself, and Gatsby's dream is that he can earn enough material wealth to penetrate the seemingly untouchable world of Daisy and the East Egg. Those that live in West Egg are thought of as "new money". Nick describes it as being "the less fashionable of the two"(5).