F Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsbys Representation of the American Dream - Essay Example

F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby’s representation of the American dream The term ‘American dream’ was coined by historian James Trustlow Adama in 1931 in reference to the allure that enticed millions of people to settle in America; nonetheless, the concept it denoted was a much older phenomenon since earlier settlers in America sought better opportunities than those they were leaving behind in their homeland, Europe. Precisely, these settlers hoped for personal freedom and self-fulfilment, economic prosperity and success, equality, religious freedom as well as democracy, among other ideals that are still shared by most American’s today. This paper will explore the concept of the American dream as represented in Fitzgeralds novel The Great Gatsby by highlighting the themes such as materialism and wealth, consumption and consumer society, post-world war disillusionment, alienation and the modern American city. Published in 1925, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a novel set in the fictional town of West Egg on the wealthy Long Island during the 1922 summer and narrates the story of the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his romantic passion for the pretty Daisy Buchanan. In as much as the novel encompasses the theme of a thwarted love between a man and his object of desire, over a few months through the 1922 summer, the real focus of the novel is in fact less romantic because it is a highly metaphorical reflection on the 1920s America as a nation in general and on the collapse of the American dream in particular. The 1920s American society was greatly characterized by unprecedented prosperity and material excesses as well as decadence of social and moral values as evidenced in the era’s extreme cynicism, greed alongside the pervasive pursuit of pleasure (Goldberg 2007, p.8). A reckless jubilance that fuelled the wild pervasion with decadent parties and wild jazz music as exemplified in the Great Gatsby by the opulent parties hosted by Gatsby every Saturday night eventually corrupted the purity of the American dream. Precisely, the unrestrained desire for money and immediate self-gratification that characterized the 1920s era overshadowed the more noble goals of the American society. In the aftermath of the First World War in 1918, there was great disillusionment among the generation of young people who had taken part in the war; the devastating effects of the war they had just experienced greatly eroded the Victorian social morality ideals of the early 20th century American society. The subsequent rise of the stock market soon after the war precipitated a rapid and steady increase in the national wealth in the country and there was a sporadic increase in materialism as many people started to spend and consume money at unparalleled levels (Currell 2009, p.4). People’s ability to make wealth was not dependant on their social backgrounds because anybody, regardless of their position in the social strata, was capable of making money; nonetheless, the American Aristocracy was highly critical of the newly rich entrepreneurs and investors. Organized crime and bootlegging became a pervasive trend in the American society as typified in the rise in demand for bootleg liquor both among the rich and the poor, following the ban on the sale of alcohol (Beshears 2010, p.197). Notable characters of the novel are caught up in the numerous social trends rocking the American society at the time; for instance, war veterans Nick and Gatsby represent the new found cosmopolitanism and cynicism that emerged in the post war period. There was an unmatched greediness and scramble for wealth as illustrated in the clash between the old and new money as manifesting in the novel’s antagonistic symbolic geography of the East egg, (the established aristocracy) and west egg (the self-made rich) (Fitzgerald 1925, p.7). Initially, the American dream was all about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness until the 1920s highlighted in the novel, when easy money and relaxed social values corrupted this view of the dream. The novel’s main storyline, Gatsby’s desire to love Daisy and the obstacle presented by their different social statuses, embodies the 1920’s obsession with materialism; for instance, Daisy’s life is rife with materialism that push Gatsby to crime hope of getting enough money to impress her. The capacity to create meaningful symbols is at the core of the American dream as typified in the early Americans’ conceptualization of their own new ideals and values at the birth of their new nation. The 1920s American dream, just like Gatsby’s dream, is focused on the pervasive pursuit of money and pleasure; eventually, these dreams collapse due to the vagueness of their object (money and pleasure) (Curnutt 2007, p.36). The purity of the American dream as explained in the novel has been corrupted by wealth and money of the characters; the Aristocracy represented by Tom, Daisy, and Wolfsheim among other characters has totally been corrupted by its money and has no regard for values and goals. The Aristocracy has no regard or concern for the feelings of others or even human life for that matter and they spend their time in mere pursuit of their own entertainment and happiness; for instance, Daisy hopes from one social scene to another in pursuit of fun from her boredom and is only concerned about protecting and entertaining herself. Despite her marriage to Tom, she has an affair with Gatsby to get rid of her boredom since to her it is mere trifling entertainment; Tom, on the other hand, is equally purposeless, has no serious career and keeps on drifting from one sordid affair after another. The only reason Gatsby has not been corrupted by his money is precisely the fact that he has accumulated his money not for himself, but to accomplish his desire of loving Daisy; nonetheless, he lives in a flamboyant mansion, drives flashy cars and hosts lavish parties where excesses and waste are a common feature (Schreier 2007, p.155). His entire dream comes crumpling when Daisy rejects his marriage proposal to marry Tom despite his having proved being worthy of her by accumulating his wealth; Gatsby has no need for any of his belongings when he loses the object of his dream. The wealthy characters in the novel are extremely exploitative and have perfected their art of using people and dumping them like trash after they have accomplished their goals; for instance, Tom exploits Myrtle only for her to end up dead in the ash heap chasing him for his money while Gatsby exploits his butlers and cooks to cater for his lavish parties. In this respect, Fitzgerald’s commentary on the American dream is a bleak image of a lost course; Americans in this era are obsessed with the dollar that they no longer have regard for human values (Currell 2009, p.14); the valley of ashes, which lies between the Egg Islands and New York City (Fitzgerald 1925, p.26), represents the shambolic state of the American dream in Fitzgerald’s view. People inevitably wind up in the valley of ashes like Tom and Daisy do at the end of the novel due to the dearth of meaning and purpose in their lives, which ultimately reflects the unworthiness of the object of the 1920s American dream in general. The unprecedented extravagance and careless lifestyles of the wealthy in the 1920s era is responsible for the subsequent deterioration of the American society into a miserable wasteland, and the eventual collapse of the American dream. Without doubt, Gatsby’s dream for wealth and youthfulness embodies Fitzgerald’s vision of the American dream in the 1920s as evidenced through Gatsby’s genuine belief that by making as much money as possible and amassing a great fortune then he could achieve anything he ever dreamt of having (Will 2005, p.125). Just like Gatsby genuinely believes that loads of money and wealth would automatically make him worthy of Daisy’s love, by erasing the five years lost in the war, other Americans too believed that all they needed was loads of money, to manipulate time, to remain young forever and to buy happiness through material spending. The numerous parties in the novel are the hallmark of the rich, and the waste left behind by each of the festivities or the violence that rocks some of them alongside the valley of Ashes all reflect the waste and corruption that became of the idealized American dream in the 1920s. Daisy’s regard of her involvement with Gatsby as mere entertainment and refusal to forget the past or ignore that she is now married to Tom is highly symbolic of the volatility of the American dream of beauty and wealth. Fitzgerald presents the American dream as something unstable and fragile, a point that has been echoed throughout the history of the American society as evidence in the fact that thee sense of wonder embodied in America’s first settlers suddenly turned into an excessive hunger for more wealth. The unprecedented extravagancies and wild lifestyles of the wealthy in the 1920s was succeeded by two key events of profound devastating effects, the reality of the collapse of the stock market and the Great Depression of the 1930s. The implication of such an ambivalent succession of events in the history of the American society is that the devastation came after success and greatness had been achieved and the resultant valley of ashes that remained is what became of the American dream. The fading image of the all-knowing eyes of T.J. Eckelberg that brood over the solemn dumping ground that lies between the Egg Islands and New York City (Fitzgerald 1925, p.26), symbolizes the omniscient God looking down sadly at the Valley of ashes, nuances God’s disappointment in the American society’s extravagance that actively contributes to the massive ash-heaps; this underscores Fitzgerald’s key theme that wealth did corrupt individuals and the initially pure American dream eventually. The American Dream today is viewed as an ingenious political and economic marketing strategy that seeks to shift people’s attention from selfish individualism and materialism to communalism, and social responsibility. Nonetheless, the reality of the American dream is yet to be achieved in America even today, given the huge socioeconomic disparities that characterize the American society; socially, the American society is still highly stratified given the pervasive reluctance of some underclass people to compete for better opportunities in the success-oriented American society. People from different ethnic backgrounds have adapted differently to the ever-mounting pressure on the individual to pursue success, which has resulted to different success rates among the different ethnicities in America. Eventually, the American vision of a “melting pot of nations” that is captured on American coins up to date remains largely elusive; furthermore, the 1960s rise in minorities’ self-confidence, anti-discrimination activism, and the emergence of new ethnic groups that resisted every attempt to be assimilated into the American society has prompted the country to rethink its national strategy. Overall, the 1920’s American dream portrayed in Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby nuances a great deviation from the initial values of personal freedom and self-fulfilment, economic prosperity and success, equality, religious freedom as well as democracy, among others, that had been envisioned by earlier settlers. The 1920s American dream as represented by Fitzgerald in the novel depicts America as a society that is obsessed with an unprecedented pursuit of prosperity and material excesses, which is actively contributing to the inevitable corruption of social and moral values. The 1920s extreme cynicism, greed as well as the pervasive pursuit of pleasure and wealth among young Americans is highly representative of the corruption of the earlier ideals of the American dream as envisioned by earlier settlers. The reckless merriment that was characterized by the wild indulgence in decadent parties and wild jazz music as was the norm in the opulent parties hosted by the Great Gatsby on every Saturday night, coupled with the extravagance they entailed and the waste that remained at the end illustrate the corruption of the purity of the American dream. Overall, the unrestrained desire for money and pursuit of pleasure at the expense of social and moral values that characterized the 1920s era overshadowed the more noble goals of the American dream as perceived by the earlier settlers. Bibliography Beshears, L. (2010). Honorable style in dishonorable times: American gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s. The Journal of American Culture, 33(3): 197-206. Curnutt, K. (2007). The Cambridge introduction to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cambridge: CUP. Currell, S. (2009). American culture in the 1920s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925). The Great Gatsby. New York: Simon and Schuster. Goldberg, D.J. (2007). "Rethinking the 1920s: Historians and Changing Perspectives", Magazine of History, 21(3): pp. 7-10. Schreier, B. (2007). "Desires Second Act: "Race" and The Great Gatsbys Cynical Americanism", Twentieth Century Literature, 53(2): pp. 153-V. Will, B. (2005). "The Great Gatsby and The Obscene Word", College Literature, 32(4): pp. 125-0_9. Read More