Back in the early 19th century, America was brought up as the land of opportunity and success. It was the idea that life in America, everybody had the ability to achieve something great through talent, dedication, and hard work for a better life. It was made clear that not everybody obtained such a life because of the difficulty.
This cultural outlook was known as an America Dream. A typical objective of this dream in the 1900’s was to have a job, own a house and raise a family and prosper in this abundant life.It is a land in which life should be better and fuller for everyone, … It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which people shall be able to attain through skill” (Adams, 1931). Nick states that through hard-work and the discovery for something worth fighting for, the American Dream can be achieved. F.
Scott Fitzgerald expresses through the characters how this American Dream has been corrupted by materialism and possessions. Using Jay Gatsby to exemplify the rise and fall of the American Dream, Fitzgerald’s novel traces the arc of a life as it begins in wonder, reaching for the stars, confronts society’s spiritual emptiness and gratuitous materialism, and ends in tragic death” (Tunc, 67).Gatsby tended to be a mysterious character early on in the novel giving off false implications on who he was and how he inherited all his money. Towards the end, we see that Gatsby was hard-working man who strived for the things he wanted, and seemed to achieve them.
Gatsby was raised as a poor farm boy and set up his dreams early on in life. Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something” (Fitzgerald, 173). His father’s outlook on his son represents the dedication needed to attain the American Dream as him and Nick read Gatsby’s schedule that stated everything he would do from the time he got up till he had to go to sleep. Gatsby had a plan that he will someday get rich and after obtaining his goal, it was quickly tainted by social status and the power of wealth as he would come to assume that this could win over the love he had for Daisy.
After losing Daisy when he joined the war, Gatsby wants to revitalize their past love by using his wealth, since they couldn’t get married back then because he was poor. Daisy’s parents did not approve of Gatsby and after leaving the war, Daisy married Tom, which was sufficient enough to her parents because he inherited money from his parents. Gatsby saw what he had to do to win her over and saw that she was worth fighting for. He established his dream and even though he became wealthy, he let the materialism get to his head and lead him on to believe that money would overpower love. Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold colored tie” (Fitzgerald, 84), wears this to impress Daisy with his money.
Daisy is a possession that he cannot have and he uses his materialistic items to try to get her. He invites her over his house, and rather than just talking with her, he shows her all her possessions including the shirts he owns in his closet. Daisy is easily impressed which has Gatsby believe that his wealth is winning her over, when in fact it does not.Fitzgerald expresses this tainted outlook on American society by killing off Gatsby as a representation that materialism has tainted the hard work and dedication he once placed on his American Dream.
“Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s elaborately staged weekend parties as another metaphor for the greed, material excess and unrestrained desire for pleasure that resulted in the corruption and disintegration of the American Dream” (Tunc, 74). This social high status now became the goal of many Americans in the 1920’s.Anybody was invited to Gatsby’s parties and not many people knew who Gatsby was. “The anonymous guests, who are nouveau riche social climbers and freeloaders, attend Gatsby’s spectacles with the hope of acquiring aristocratic wealth, power, and status” (Turc, 74).
This society has already either inherited their money or are new self-made millionaires, but they thrive for this social ranking and try to prove who is richer and base it off on what they own. We see how this comes in to affect when nobody that attends Gatsby’s parties, attends his funeral.The American Dream has become a solemn challenge to become the highest class person with loads of money and those with this belief end up at Gatsby’s parties since it is an outside representation of what they believe in. With all this high social class rankings, women have started to turn a new leaf and were starting to become known as “new woman” in the 1920’s. This term comes from young women who become more independent and rely on material items rather than being old fashioned as to pre- WWI women.Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan epitomize yet another bitter manifestation of the American Dream through this “new women” era of the 1920’s” (Turc, 74).
Daisy seems to rely on her sophisticated image and the things she possesses. This outlook of the American Dream has turned from hard working, to relaxed and laid back times during this time of age. Daisy and Myrtle don’t have jobs and they just shop and care for their extravagances. Daisy takes great pride in her daughter, Pam. “She doesn’t look like her father, she looks like me.
She’s got my hair and shape of the face” (Fitzgerald, 117).We can see that Daisy takes a possessive outlook on her daughter and this taints all the family value that the American Dream represented. Daisy does not have a strong bond with her daughter and only really cares on the clothing she gets for her. Pam is a possession of Daisy, and with this outlook, it weakens the family bond. “Tom’s relatively public love affair with Myrtle Wilson has turned Daisy into a caustic cynic who maintains her aristocratic socialite image because it strokes her vanity and camouflages her husband’s infidelities” (Turc, 74).Daisy hides her feelings through materialism and self-image of social status.
Myrtle, on the other hand, tries so hard to fit into this social ranking through materialistic items. Myrtle is married to a hard-working mechanic named George, and she feels as if he isn’t worth her time since he does not have a high social ranking like Tom. Myrtle dresses in the most elegant clothing and asks Tom to buy her material items, such as a dog.This “new women” era was not much about women getting jobs or being equal to men, but on how they represented themselves in the presence of the public.
Women dress in extravagant clothes to have a higher sex appeal and this American Dream of building towards a greater future was overcome by material possessions (New Women, 1). Myrtle wants to become a high social class woman ends up getting killed and the concept of the American Dream is being killed off by those that look at this dream as being inspired only by possessions. F.Scott Fitzgerald seemed to have implied that not only has the American Dream been corrupted, but it seems that it may have died out and unobtainable unless money is inherited or if it is based on what someone possesses.
Both George, Myrtles husband, and Gatsby were hard-working people and Fitzgerald expresses how the American Dream cannot be obtained the old fashioned way of hard work anymore by killing those who built towards something better, off. The American Dream is now based on the value of money and wealth and what someone owns with that prosperity.
