The Great Gatsby and the American Dream
The main theme in both stories The Great Gatsby and A Continuing Journey is the decay of the American Dream. Both authors Archibald MacLeish and F. Scott Fitzgerald show in their stories that the modern society is taking over and replacing the American Dream with corruption and bare materialism. MacLeish believes that a genuine American person is "a restless man, a great builder and maker and shaper, a man delighting in size and height and dimensions - the world's tallest, the town's biggest." He believed that a true American is "a man naturally hopeful; a believing man, believing that things progress, that things get forwarder. ... confidence that the future was the thing they'd make it." Just like MacLeish, Fitzgerald shows in his book the American Dream and it's decay. He shows it through a character named Jay Gatsby. The character Jay Gatsby serves as a eulogy, in the book The Great Gatsby, for the idea of the American Dream itself. These authors both show how the American Dream is decaying because of the modern society. They show that the American modern society's obsession with money, power, and privilege is the chief cause for the decay of people's dreaming, hoping, and believing in progress, and future.
Through the story of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays through James Gatz the decline of the American values. The characters in this story serve as the parts of the author's bigger picture: the American Dream. Gatsby is the ideal that is buried by the lusting-for-money society. The Great Gatsby is not about James Gatz, but about the America itself. Both authors suggest that people should learn how to deal with the society, but not get caught up in it because "...the time is short. " h authors, Archibald MacLeish and F. Scott Fitzgerald, a spirit of tenacity and hope characterizes the authentic American Dream; with these characteristics, a person can succeed in almost everything. In the book The Great Gatsby, Gatsby represents the American Dream. Gatsby in the beginning is shown as a person who has the tendency to reach more and more. Gatsby in the beginning of the book had a lot of spirit and hope, he believed that Daisy loves him and will be someday reunited with him. Gatsby believed that he can go back in time and re-live his past, which never actually happens. Both authors show that there will always be those that are guided by an indomitable hope, who represent the American Dream, but the modern society makes it decay and in it there is no place for such people. Americans are people who are always inspired by hope and the belief in the future. An American is a person who tries to get forwarder and accomplishes it by believing in his success. Gatsby's aspiration to become his ideal self is exemplified in his journal. In it he scrupulously plans out how he will become his ideal self, and then follows it. Once when Gatsby showed Nick his journal, Nick said, "Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he's got about improving his mind? He was always great for that." Gatsby represents the American ideal in the beginning of the book because he was in the continual struggle for self-improvement and had hope that some day he will be with Daisy ag
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Approximate Word count = 1360
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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