Examples Of Success In The Great Gatsby

552 Words3 Pages
Success is a broad word. It can be defined in many different ways-Dictionary.com has 5 definitions for it alone. However there are some parts of success that are consistent throughout the population. In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the ideas of success and the American Dream through his characters Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. The ideas of the American Dream and success go hand-in-hand in the minds of not only Americans, but around the world. According to Dictionary.com, the American Dream can be defined as “a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.” (“american dream”). In layman’s terms, this is often thought of as improving your status in life. This means making more money than your parents, raising your kids in a better house than you were raised in, or going to college even if your parents did not. Common goals throughout society are to have a nice job that makes lots of money, a big house, lots of friends, and the…show more content…
However, with the era of the 1920’s came prohibition and a get-rich-quick activity of selling bootleg liquor. Gatsby, true to this 1920’s mentally, wanted to get ahead, by whatever means possible. He had always been a dreamer, as described by Nick Carraway when talking about the young James Gatz, “For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wings.” (Fitzgerald 99). But he became so obsessed with money that his American Dream was achieved dishonestly by selling bootleg liquor and through other unspecified illegal activities But for Gatsby, the purpose of the accumulation of wealth was not just to be rich and throw extravagant parties; Above all, Gatsby became rich in order to win Daisy’
Open Document