The Concept of American Dream in Great Gatsby

The American Dream has been changing through the point of view of each person, and what they think success is. According to Dalton Gross and Mary Jean Gross in the text called “The Loss of The American Dream” (Gross and Gross 1) “Gatsby's version of the American Dream is specific about only two things: money and Daisy. The dream is misguided, and it fails. His belief that everything will be alright if he can reconstruct some point in the past reflects modern man's continuing search for meaning in a culture that no longer has meaning.

Through Gatsby's experience, Fitzgerald is describing what the American Dream has become in his time. The American Dream, one of the last and finest fruits of Western culture, has become dead (and deadly) materialism.” Certainly, Gatsby’s point of view of The American Dream was having Daisy and money so he could be happy with her. The quote explains how almost all the people think that being successful it's just getting rich and having a lot of money, but some people like Gatsby dreamed about different things like he wanted to have Daisy with him and just be happy.

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Things got worse for him and he was obsessed with Daisy and their “love” that happened years ago, and now Daisy has her own life and has a family with another man. Gatsby was just in this fantasy that he created, and it ended killing him because of his obsession with this woman and the desire of restating their lives to be happy together.

The American Dream is more an illusion than an objective.

The American dream is an ideal or fantasy that a person, mostly an American, dreams about. It can be the house of their dreams, a job that they always wanted, a brand-new car, or maybe just being happy and rich like Gatsby always wanted. This dream or fantasy can change depending on the type of person that dreams with this fantasy or goal. “I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” (Fitzgerald180) Gatsby was a poor man that fell in love with a girl full of wealth since she was little. Gatsby fell so in love that he looked for a way to get big, and rich so he could get noticed into wealthy people from West Egg. He throwed a lot of big parties so that Daisy could be impressed and give attention to him. His plan was coming to West Egg find Daisy and redo their lives far from the others. But when he thought he would made it everything went down. He never noticed but Daisy never loved him, and she was already with her live completed, and Gatsby was a little dumb thinking she would leave everything behind just for him and live their lives together.

In the other hand there is people who think that The American Dream is just a belief that has passed through the years and became part of the culture globally. According to John A. Pidgeon in the article called “The Great Gatsby” (Pidgeon1) “This group, whose identity was known only to God, was called 'The Elect.' Calvin suggested that a member of The Elect could be 'dropped' by God if he failed to live a proper life of hard work and atonement, hoping that, if he should be one of the Elect, he would not lose this station. When the Puritans settled in America, they brought with them these beliefs, and as time passed became more and more obsessed with learning who the Elect really were, even though they had been taught that this was impossible. In looking for a sign, they came to believe that the possession of material things might be an indication, since it was likely that one who had such objects must have worked and prayed hard and long.” This quote gave us a point of view of The American Dream like we never thought it. The author says that The American Dream it has been in America since antiques times and it came from the puritans and their strong beliefs on god. Some people may believe that this dream is a lie that came from other people’s beliefs in antiques times.

The materialism that approximately everyone has given to this belief has changing it. A lot of people think that to achieve The American Dream you must be rich and successful in everything, but some people feel like they already achieved. Maybe a random guy has dreaming about having a restaurant or maybe playing basketball in the NBA. The American Dream can be achieved depending on what the people want and dream about. Because sometimes that there's people like Gatsby that wish something that just can't happen and get obsesses about it. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.” (Fitzgerald180) Working hard people can achieve their goals and dreams but don’t make fantasies out of it, because it can mess it up.