Chasing Dreams

A detailed Summary of Chasing Dreams

The Great Gatsby outlines lives embedded along the path of the American Dream, which hit a detour when confronting the social stratospheres that define Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchannan. The Great Gatsby is a story of the haves and have-nots or when carefully examined old money, new money and no money. The three characters mentioned above fit perfectly into F. Scott Fitzgerald's social commentary of American life in the 1920's. When placed in a historical context, the 1920's are a time of prosperity following the ill effects of World War I. America's elite posted great financial gains during this period before the stock market crash of 1929 would send the country spiraling into a depression. But until that fateful day in October many Americans were clinging to their dream of breaking their social chains on the whims of rags to riches stories echoed in the sentiment of a better life.

This sentiment is what brings The Great Gatsby's narrator, Nick Carraway, from the upper Midwest to West Egg, Long Island. He arrives as an educated man who wishes to extract more out of life than Midwest has to offer. More importantly he sets out to make his fortune. Although in many ways his morality and level-headedness sets him

Nick doesn't let himself get so wrapped up in his dreams that would forego his midwestern values and integrity. Surely, the parties next door intrigue him at Gatsby's, and lifestyle of the elite, but he doesn't lose sight of reality. Nick is also not materialistic, like the other characters in the story. He values hard work. The reason he moved to the east in the first place was in search of work as a bond salesman. Because Nick is not materialistic, he remains uncorrupted in search of money and power through out the story.

It almost seems ironic that these three characters fit perfectly into a social standard that Fitzgerald created and that all the power and money in the world could not buy compassion or morality. Fitzgerald brilliantly uses these characters to tear down the myth that the rich were so much better than the poor. He reveals that character is a trait that isn't passed onto generation to generation like the wealth of the old money, but it is something so elusive that it can escape the rich and be held by an everyman like Nick Carraway.

Unfortunately, Jay Gatsby clings to a life of illusions that blurs his sense of reality and morality. The Great Gatsby proves to be an embodiment of the rags to riches tale but his downfall will always be the past. It's a past that includes his humble beginnings (growing up the son of an unsuccessful farmer) that he can never really escape, but longs to forge

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Approximate Word count = 958
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English