Great Gatsby Essay

Great Gatsby Essay

The American Dream is the idea that you could achieve anything you’d want to achieve if you put hard work and dedication to it despite race wealth or gender. In F.Scott Fitzgeralds Novel “The Great Gatsby” represents the idea of the american dream which can be achieved through two of the main characters Jay Gatsby and Nick.Jay Gatsby a wealthy man that dedicates all of his wealth and devotion to achieve the love of his life Daisy, was the american dream he’d try to achieve his whole life. While Nicks american dream was to look for a better life through business bonds. These two American dreams both get the potential of a successful dream but is ruined by other characters throughout the story.

In the story of the Great Gatsby, the reader can interpret the rise and fall of Gatsbys American Dream. There is a moment where Nick see’s Gatsby looking across the dock towards Daisy’s house across the water, and you can’t see nothing but a mysterious green light which is symbolized as the “American Dream”, and it represents the spark and effort that Gatsby is trying to make.In the story Nick quotes “--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (Chapter 1). We could analyze that Gatsby is trying to reach out for the green light but he could not reach it at all, this scene symbolizes how Gatsby is reaching to to the green light to achieve his dream but he never gets to reach it . The greenlight represents the rise and fall of the American Dream because its something people try to reach for even though it is not reachable at all, the greenlight is there for motivation to make people strive for that American Dream and strive to achieve what they want to. Secondly, in chapter 6 we see when Jay Gatsby gets his first kiss on the love of his life Daisy, it was a huge moment for Gatsby because he felt like he achieved everything, in the story it quotes “His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete”. This was the golden moment for Gatsby because he finally got to kiss Daisy representing him on the rise of his American Dream, all Gatsby wanted was Daisy, every party he threw, all the nice rich things he had, he even moved right by Daisy to get her attention. This represents the potential success of Gatsby’s american dream because this is all he wished for and all he worked for, was to win over a girl.

Nick the narrator of the story, his life and goal represents the American Dream through what kinda life he was looking for. In chapter one Nick himself narrates “The middle west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe- so I decided to go East and learn the bond business (3). The American Dream is