Similarities Between The American Dream And The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby is a film based on the 1925 American Novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in a fictional town of West Egg, in Long Island the summer of 1922. The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald’s attempt to confront the Jazz Age. Jay Gatsby is a mysterious millionaire passionate and obsessed with the beautiful former debutante Mrs. Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is the girl of Gatsby’s dreams, but he has no chance of being with her without being extremely wealthy. Gatsby’s rags-to-riches story makes him an embodiment of the so called “American Dream”. Gatsby was the son of a fairly unsuccessful farmer, by the time he was a young man he had less than he did during his childhood. While Gatsby was…show more content…
The American Dream was the idea that you had to be rich, they did not believe in being poor at this time the economy was booming with the stocks. In this time people felt the need to completely start over again, social politics and all its brutality people would often betray others. Because this is a story about change and those who resist it; whether the change came with the new wave of new immigrants. The breaking down of classes in the face of the modern economy not based on status or inherited position but on innovation and an ability to meet the ever-changer consumer needs of the people. The 1920s was a period with great change. New technology and modernity as well as new ideas that clashed with old traditions (Hotchalk). When people get caught up in materialistic things and it begins to take over as the main need for the American people, you start to notice that old ethics tend to get ignored. Jay did always strive for the best material items, but he never hoped in obtaining any other dream except a romantic one with…show more content…
Some people would inherit great sums of money and some obtained new money. Although many people discovered prosperity there were several people also suffered the horrifying nightmare of being poor. In the movie The Great Gatsby, Jay is portrayed as a wealthy man who lives in this huge mansion. While Nick Carraway, the protagonist of the novel and the next door neighbor of Jay, is just an average man who does not have the fortunes that Gatsby has, not quite considered poor. Nick is a part if the middle class in the society while Gatsby is in the upper class of society. In this upper class society people lived in this pretend world of beautiful things, but in all reality this American Dream is a defective

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