Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald has become one of the more popular authors. He has written numerous amounts of popular books, his most famous would have to be The Great Gatsby. It talks a lot about the American dream through the eyes of different characters in his story. By showing and describing how these wealthy people live as if they were kings and queens of the world. The American dream can mean many different things to many different people. The dictionary explanation states that the American dream is a noun that means, the idea that every citizen should have an opportunity to achieve success through hard work and determination. For example Gatsby’s dream in the story was to become wealthy, and have a big house, so it would possibly persuade his first love Daisy Buchanan to fall for him once again. Yours on the other hand, might be to have the best car, house, or to have tons of success in a particular field. People certainly ask themselves what their dream is everyday. The real question is, how does Fitzgerald view the American dream through the eyes of Gatsby in the story?
Throughout the story Fitzgerald likes to include a lot about where these people live as well as how they live their daily lives, he talks about the two islands. The East and West Egg West Egg are where the people who are labeled as the new rich live, the people who have made a lot of very recently and have only been rich for a short amount of time, they were able to get the “quick cash” from their families or work, this is where Gatsby lives. These people are portrayed as being rather egotistical with their money because they are new to this kind of lifestyle and want to show it off. It’s almost like they do not quite know what to do with their money so they just decide to spend it on themselves or others. Usually they spend it by throwing these amazing parties, where lots of people can come to their house and see the amount of wealth they have.
On the other side of the island, the East Egg is where the people who have always had money. Even though they have just as much money or maybe even more money as their neighbors over in the West Egg, they act the same way, and they feel more superior because this kind of wealth is considered like royalty because they have been rich longer. For example, in the story Fitzgerald as characters named Tom and Daisy Buchanan which both of them will eventually have cheated on the other, Jordan Baker is a liar, selfish human being, and cheats at golf, Daisy happens to kill a woman with Gatsby in the car and then blames it on somebody else. But all of theses characters view their flaws as being perfectly fine because they achieve their so called American dream. All of these characters have everything they could possibly ever want, but their lives are corrupt, from the wealth and attention. From the reading it seems that Fitzgerald portrays that the American dream is wealth and fame in the beginning, and yet wealth and fame will bring destruction and corruption in the end.
The story is a very symbolic novel, and Fitzgerald uses symbols like houses, cars, yates, and clothes to represent various aspects of the American Dream. An unmistakable symbol used to show the American Dream from the perspective of Gatsby, is the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock in East Egg. It is Gatsby’s inspiration, the unattainable dream that he has had for quite a long time. When the two of them were younger Gatsby got enlisted into the war just before the two of them were going to get married, he goes and fights in the war, once he returned he found out that Daisy had fallen in love with a different man named Tom Buchanan. Tom had more money, a bigger house, and comes from a better family than Gatsby. Daisy obviously found him more appealing than Gatsby, so as a way to win her back, he worked hard to achieve his dream. He literally recreated himself from virtually nothing, he made a lot of money. The author never gives us a full picture as to how he obtained his money, but it is assumed he was involved in numerous illegal situations during the nineteen twenties. This shows you that Fitzgerald’s perspective on the goal that Gatsby had made for himself, was incredibly important to him and that he would do absolutely anything to obtain it.
Throughout the story you can see that the American dream is an idea that a person feels so strongly about it almost becomes an obsession with them. They would risk their relationship with their friends and family. They would quit their job to make more money, they would even consider committing a federal crime, in order to find any piece of progress towards their dream.