Gatsby His Mind Would Never Again Romp

The Corking Gatsby is a tragic beloved story on the surface, simply information technology's near normally understood as a pessimistic critique of the American Dream. In the novel, Jay Gatsby overcomes his poor by to proceeds an incredible corporeality of coin and a limited amount of social cache in 1920s NYC, merely to be rejected by the "onetime money" oversupply. He so gets killed after being tangled upward with them.

Through Gatsby'due south life, also every bit that of the Wilsons', Fitzgerald critiques the thought that America is a meritocracy where anyone can rise to the top with enough hard piece of work. We will explore how this theme plays out in the plot, briefly analyze some key quotes well-nigh it, as well as do some character analysis and broader analysis of topics surrounding the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.

Roadmap

What is the American Dream?
The American Dream in the Keen Gatsby plot
Cardinal American Dream quotes
Analyzing characters via the American Dream
Common discussion and essay topics

Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, and then using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book.

To find a quotation nosotros cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you lot tin can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-fifty: first of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

What Exactly Is "The American Dream"?

The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, gender, or nationality, can be successful in America (read: rich) if they just work difficult enough. The American Dream thus presents a pretty rosy view of American lodge that ignores problems like systemic racism and misogyny, xenophobia, taxation evasion or country taxation abstention, and income inequality. It also presumes a myth of grade equality, when the reality is America has a pretty well-developed class bureaucracy.

The 1920s in item was a pretty tumultuous time due to increased clearing (and the accompanying xenophobia), changing women's roles (spurred by the right to vote, which was won in 1919), and boggling income inequality.

The state was besides in the midst of an economic boom, which fueled the belief that anyone could "strike it rich" on Wall Street. However, this rapid economic growth was built on a bubble which popped in 1929. The Corking Gatsby was published in 1925, well earlier the crash, but through its wry descriptions of the ultra-wealthy, it seems to somehow predict that the fantastic wealth on brandish in 1920s New York was just equally ephemeral as one of Gatsby's parties.

In whatsoever case, the novel, just past existence set in the 1920s, is unlikely to present an optimistic view of the American Dream, or at least a version of the dream that's inclusive to all genders, ethnicities, and incomes. With that background in mind, allow's leap into the plot!

The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

Affiliate one places us in a particular year—1922—and gives united states some background about WWI.  This is relevant, since the 1920s is presented equally a fourth dimension of hollow decadence amidst the wealthy, as evidenced especially by the parties in Chapters 2 and 3. And every bit we mentioned higher up, the 1920s were a particularly tense time in America.

We also meet George and Myrtle Wilson in Affiliate 2, both working class people who are working to meliorate their lot in life, George through his work, and Myrtle through her affair with Tom Buchanan.

We learn most Gatsby's goal in Chapter 4: to win Daisy dorsum. Despite everything he owns, including fantastic amounts of money and an over-the-top mansion, for Gatsby, Daisy is the ultimate condition symbol. So in Chapter 5, when Daisy and Gatsby reunite and begin an thing, it seems like Gatsby could, in fact, achieve his goal.

In Chapter 6, we larn about Gatsby's less-than-wealthy past, which non simply makes him look similar the star of a rags-to-riches story, information technology makes Gatsby himself seem like someone in pursuit of the American Dream, and for him the personification of that dream is Daisy.

However, in Capacity 7 and 8, everything comes crashing down: Daisy refuses to get out Tom, Myrtle is killed, and George breaks down and kills Gatsby and and then himself, leaving all of the "strivers" dead and the old coin crowd safe. Furthermore, we learn in those last chapters that Gatsby didn't even accomplish all his wealth through hard work, similar the American Dream would stipulate—instead, he earned his coin through crime. (He did piece of work hard and honestly nether Dan Cody, simply lost Dan Cody's inheritance to his ex-wife.)

In short, things do not turn out well for our dreamers in the novel! Thus, the novel ends with Nick'south sorry meditation on the lost promise of the American Dream. Y'all tin read a detailed analysis of these last lines in our summary of the novel'south ending.

This novel is just one very large outburst bubble.

Key American Dream Quotes

In this section we analyze some of the well-nigh important quotes that chronicle to the American Dream in the book.

But I didn't phone call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to exist solitary--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious mode, 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 lite, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (1.152)

In our first glimpse of Jay Gatsby, we encounter him reaching towards something far off, something in sight but definitely out of reach. This famous prototype of the green light is frequently understood as part of The Neat Gatsby 'south meditation on The American Dream—the idea that people are e'er reaching towards something greater than themselves that is but out of achieve. You can read more about this in our post all about the dark-green lite.

The fact that this yearning image is our introduction to Gatsby foreshadows his unhappy end and too marks him as a dreamer, rather than people like Tom or Daisy who were born with coin and don't need to strive for anything then far off.

Over the great span, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up beyond the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the globe.

A expressionless man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with fatigued blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby'southward first-class motorcar was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwell's Isle a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat 3 modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward united states in haughty rivalry.

"Annihilation tin can happen at present that we've slid over this bridge," I thought; "anything at all. . . ."

Fifty-fifty Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder. (4.55-8)

Early on in the novel, we get this by and large optimistic illustration of the American Dream—nosotros encounter people of different races and nationalities racing towards NYC, a city of unfathomable possibility. This moment has all the classic elements of the American Dream—economic possibility, racial and religious diversity, a carefree attitude. At this moment, it does feel like "anything can happen," even a happy ending.

Notwithstanding, this rosy view eventually gets undermined by the tragic events later in the novel. And fifty-fifty at this point, Nick's condescension towards the people in the other cars reinforces America's racial bureaucracy that disrupts the idea of the American Dream. At that place is even a lilliputian competition at play, a "haughty rivalry" at play betwixt Gatsby's car and the one bearing the "modish Negroes."

Nick "laughs aloud" at this moment, suggesting he thinks it'due south amusing that the passengers in this other automobile see them as equals, or even rivals to be bested. In other words, he seems to firmly believe in the racial hierarchy Tom defends in Chapter ane, fifty-fifty if it doesn't admit it honestly.

His center trounce 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 listen 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 on she blossomed for him like a bloom and the incarnation was consummate. (6.134)

This moment explicitly ties Daisy to all of Gatsby's larger dreams for a better life—to his American Dream. This sets the phase for the novel'due south tragic ending, since Daisy cannot hold up under the weight of the dream Gatsby projects onto her. Instead, she stays with Tom Buchanan, despite her feelings for Gatsby. Thus when Gatsby fails to win over Daisy, he also fails to reach his version of the American Dream. This is why so many people read the novel equally a somber or pessimistic take on the American Dream, rather than an optimistic ane.

...every bit the moon rose college the inessential houses began to melt abroad until gradually I became enlightened of the old island here that flowered one time for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished copse, the copse that had made mode for Gatsby's house, had in one case pandered in whispers to the concluding and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must accept held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an artful contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face up to face for the last fourth dimension in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And equally I sat in that location brooding on the old, unknown world, I idea of Gatsby'due south wonder when he first picked out the greenish light at the end of Daisy'due south dock. He had come a long manner to this blue lawn and his dream must accept seemed so shut 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 nighttime fields of the republic rolled on under the night." (ix.151-152)

The closing pages of the novel reverberate at length on the American Dream, in an mental attitude that seems simultaneously mournful, beholden, and pessimistic. It also ties back to our first glimpse of Gatsby, reaching out over the water towards the Buchanan's light-green light. Nick notes that Gatsby's dream was "already backside him" and so (or in other words, information technology was incommunicable to attain). Simply all the same, he finds something to adore in how Gatsby all the same hoped for a better life, and constantly reached out toward that brighter future.

For a total consideration of these last lines and what they could mean, see our analysis of the novel's ending.

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Analyzing Characters Through the American Dream

An analysis of the characters in terms of the American Dream usually leads to a pretty contemptuous take on the American Dream.

Most character assay centered on the American Dream will necessarily focus on Gatsby, George, or Myrtle (the truthful strivers in the novel), though as we'll discuss below, the Buchanans can besides provide some interesting layers of word. For character analysis that incorporates the American Dream, carefully consider your called character'southward motivations and desires, and how the novel does (or doesn't!) provide glimpses of the dream's fulfillment for them.

Gatsby

Gatsby himself is manifestly the best candidate for writing about the American Dream—he comes from humble roots (he'southward the son of poor farmers from North Dakota) and rises to exist notoriously wealthy, merely for everything to slip away from him in the terminate. Many people also incorporate Daisy into their analyses as the physical representation of Gatsby'due south dream.

Even so, definitely consider the fact that in the traditional American Dream, people reach their goals through honest hard work, just in Gatsby'due south case, he very rapidly acquires a big amount of money through crime. Gatsby does try the difficult work approach, through his years of service to Dan Cody, but that doesn't work out since Cody's ex-wife ends up with the unabridged inheritance. And so instead he turns to crime, and only then does he manage to achieve his desired wealth.

And so while Gatsby'southward story arc resembles a traditional rags-to-riches tale, the fact that he gained his coin immorally complicates the idea that he is a perfect avatar for the American Dream. Furthermore, his success plain doesn't last—he nonetheless pines for Daisy and loses everything in his attempt to go her dorsum. In other words, Gatsby's huge dreams, all precariously wedded to Daisy  ("He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever midweek his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp over again like the heed of God" (6.134)) are as flimsy and flying every bit Daisy herself.

George and Myrtle Wilson

This couple also represents people aiming at the dream—George owns his ain shop and is doing his best to get business, though is increasingly worn down by the harsh demands of his life, while Myrtle chases after wealth and status through an affair with Tom.

Both are disempowered due to the lack of money at their ain disposal—Myrtle certainly has access to some of the "effectively things" through Tom just has to deal with his corruption, while George is unable to leave his current life and move Due west since he doesn't have the funds available. He even has to make himself servile to Tom in an attempt to become Tom to sell his car, a fact that could fifty-fifty crusade him to overlook the evidence of his wife's affair. So neither graphic symbol is on the upward trajectory that the American Dream promises, at least during the novel.

In the end, everything goes horribly wrong for both George and Myrtle, suggesting that in this globe, information technology's dangerous to strive for more than you're given.

George and Myrtle'south deadly fates, along with Gatsby'south, help illustrate the novel's pessimistic attitude toward the American Dream. After all, how unfair is it that the couple working to meliorate their position in society (George and Myrtle) both end upwards dead, while Tom, who dragged Myrtle into an increasingly dangerous state of affairs, and Daisy, who killed her, don't confront any consequences? And on height of that they are fabulously wealthy? The American Dream certainly is not live and well for the poor Wilsons.

Tom and Daisy every bit Antagonists to the American Dream

We've talked quite a bit already about Gatsby, George, and Myrtle—the three characters who come up from humble roots and try to climb the ranks in 1920s New York. Just what near the other major characters, especially the ones born with coin? What is their human relationship to the American Dream?

Specifically, Tom and Daisy have one-time money, and thus they don't need the American Dream, since they were born with America already at their feet.

Perhaps considering of this, they seem to directly antagonize the dream—Daisy past refusing Gatsby, and Tom by helping to drag the Wilsons into tragedy.

This is especially interesting because unlike Gatsby, Myrtle, and George, who actively hope and dream of a improve life, Daisy and Tom are described as bored and "devil-may-care," and end upwards instigating a large amount of tragedy through their own recklessness.

In other words, income inequality and the vastly dissimilar starts in life the characters have strongly afflicted their outcomes. The way they choose to live their lives, their morality (or lack thereof), and how much they dream doesn't seem to matter. This, of form, is tragic and antonymous to the idea of the American Dream, which claims that form should be irrelevant and anyone can rise to the elevation.

Daisy as a Personification of the American Dream

As nosotros discuss in our postal service on money and materialism in The Great Gatsby, Daisy's voice is explicitly tied to coin by Gatsby:

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

That was information technology. I'd never understood earlier. It was total of money--that was the inexhaustible amuse that rose and roughshod in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' vocal of it. . . . High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . . (seven.105-6)

If Daisy's vox promises money, and the American Dream is explicitly linked to wealth, it's not hard to fence that Daisy herself—forth with the green calorie-free at the cease of her dock—stands in for the American Dream. In fact, as Nick goes on to depict Daisy as "High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl," he also seems to literally describe Daisy every bit a prize, much like the princess at the end of a fairy tale (or fifty-fifty Princess Peach at the stop of a Mario game!).

Merely Daisy, of course, is just human—flawed, flighty, and ultimately unable to embody the huge fantasy Gatsby projects onto her. So this, in plow, ways that the American Dream itself is just a fantasy, a concept too flimsy to actually concord weight, especially in the fast-paced, dog-eat-canis familiaris earth of 1920s America.

Furthermore, you should definitely consider the tension between the fact that Daisy represents Gatsby'due south ultimate goal, but at the same fourth dimension (as nosotros discussed in a higher place), her actual life is the opposite of the American Dream: she is born with money and privilege, likely dies with information technology all intact, and there are no consequences to how she chooses to alive her life in betwixt.

Can Female Characters Achieve the American Dream?

Finally, it'south interesting to compare and contrast some of the female characters using the lens of the American Dream.

Let'southward commencement with Daisy, who is unhappy in her marriage and, despite a brief attempt to leave it, remains with Tom, unwilling to surrender the condition and security their marriage provides. At outset, it may seem like Daisy doesn't dream at all, so of class she ends up unhappy. But consider the fact that Daisy was already born into the highest level of American social club. The expectation placed on her, as a wealthy woman, was never to pursue something greater, just simply to maintain her status. She did that past marrying Tom, and it's understandable why she wouldn't risk the doubtfulness and loss of status that would come up through divorce and marriage to a bootlegger. Again, Daisy seems to typify the "anti-American" dream, in that she was born into a kind of elite and simply has to maintain her position, not fight for something better.

In contrast, Myrtle, bated from Gatsby, seems to be the nearly ambitiously in pursuit of getting more than she was given in life. She parlays her thing with Tom into an apartment, nice clothes, and parties, and seems to revel in her newfound status. Just of grade, she is knocked downwardly the hardest, killed for her interest with the Buchanans, and specifically for wrongfully assuming she had value to them. Considering that Gatsby did have a chance to leave New York and distance himself from the unfolding tragedy, but Myrtle was the first to be killed, you could argue the novel presents an even bleaker view of the American Dream where women are concerned.

Even Hashemite kingdom of jordan Bakery, who seems to be living out a kind of dream by playing golf game and being relatively independent, is tied to her family'due south money and insulated from consequences by it, making her a pretty poor representation of the dream. And of course, since her end game as well seems to be marriage, she doesn't button the boundaries of women's roles as far as she might wish.

And so while the women all push the boundaries of order's expectations of them in certain ways, they either fall in line or are killed, which definitely undermines the rosy of thought that anyone, regardless of gender, can go far in America. The American Dream as shown in Gatsby becomes fifty-fifty more pessimistic through the lens of the female characters.

Focusing the lens on the women is predictably depressing.

Mutual Essay Questions/Discussion Topics

At present let's piece of work through some of the more oft brought upwardly subjects for discussion.

#1: Was Gatsby's dream worth it? Was all the work, fourth dimension, and patience worth information technology for him?

Similar me, you might immediately retrieve "of course it wasn't worth it! Gatsby lost everything, not to mention the Wilsons got caught up in the tragedy and ended up dead!" So if you want to brand the more obvious "the dream wasn't worth it" argument, you lot could point to the unraveling that happens at the end of the novel (including the deaths of Myrtle, Gatsby and George) and how all Gatsby's achievements are for nothing, every bit evidenced by the sparse attendance of his funeral.

However, yous could definitely take the less obvious route and contend that Gatsby'southward dream was worth information technology, despite the tragic stop. First of all, consider Jay's unique label in the story: "He was a son of God--a phrase which, if information technology means anything, means but that--and he must be about His Male parent's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty" (6.7). In other words, Gatsby has a larger-than-life persona and he never would have been content to remain in N Dakota to be poor farmers like his parents.

Even if he ends up living a shorter life, he certainly lived a full 1 total of adventure. His dreams of wealth and status took him all over the world on Dan Cody's yacht, to Louisville where he met and cruel in love with Daisy, to the battlefields of WWI, to the halls of Oxford University, and then to the fast-paced world of Manhattan in the early on 1920s, when he earned a fortune equally a bootlegger. In fact, it seems Jay lived several lives in the space of simply half a normal lifespan. In short, to debate that Gatsby's dream was worth it, you should point to his larger-than-life conception of himself and the fact that he could have merely sought happiness through striving for something greater than himself, even if that ended up being deadly in the end.

#2: In the Langston Hughes poem "A Dream Deferred," Hughes asks questions about what happens to postponed dreams. How does Fitzgerald examine this issue of deferred dreams? What do you call back are the furnishings of postponing our dreams? How can you employ this lesson to your own life?

If you're thinking about "deferred dreams" in The Slap-up Gatsby, the big one is obviously Gatsby's deferred dream for Daisy—near five years laissez passer betwixt his initial infatuation and his attempt in the novel to win her back, an attempt that obviously backfires. Yous can examine various aspects of Gatsby'south dream—the flashbacks to his kickoff memories of Daisy in Chapter viii, the moment when they reunite in Chapter v, or the disastrous consequences of the confrontation of Chapter seven—to illustrate Gatsby'due south deferred dream.

You lot could too look at George Wilson's postponed dream of going West, or Myrtle's dream of marrying a wealthy human being of "convenance"—George never gets the funds to go West, and is instead mired in the Valley of Ashes, while Myrtle'due south effort to achieve her dream later 12 years of marriage through an affair ends in tragedy. Apparently, dreams deferred are dreams doomed to fail.

As Nick Carraway says, "you can't repeat the past"—the novel seems to imply there is a pocket-sized window for certain dreams, and when the window closes, they can no longer be attained. This is pretty pessimistic, and for the prompt's personal reflection attribute, I wouldn't say you should necessarily "utilize this lesson to your own life" straightforwardly. But it is worth noting that certain opportunities are fleeting, and perchance information technology's wiser to seek out newer and/or more than attainable ones, rather than pining over a lost adventure.

Any prompt like this one which has a department of more personal reflection gives you freedom to tie in your own experiences and point of view, then be thoughtful and remember of skilful examples from your own life!

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#iii: Explicate how the novel does or does not demonstrate the death of the American Dream. Is the main theme of Gatsby indeed "the withering American Dream"? What does the novel offer about American identity?

In this prompt, another one that zeroes in on the expressionless or dying American Dream, you could discuss how the devastation of three lives (Gatsby, George, Myrtle) and the cynical portrayal of the old money crowd illustrates a dead, or dying American Dream. Later all, if the characters who dream finish upward dead, and the ones who were born into life with money and privilege go to continue it without consequence, is there whatsoever room at all for the thought that less-privileged people tin piece of work their way up?

In terms of what the novel says most American identity, there are a few threads yous could selection up—one is Nick's annotate in Chapter 9 about the novel really being a story about (mid)westerners trying (and failing) to get Due east: "I see at present that this has been a story of the West, later all--Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in mutual which fabricated us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life" (9.125). This observation suggests an American identity that is adamant by birthplace, and that within the American identity at that place are smaller, inescapable points of identification.

Furthermore, for those in the novel non born into coin, the American identity seems to be near striving to end up with more wealth and condition. But in terms of the portrayal of the onetime coin ready, specially Daisy, Tom, and Jordan, the novel presents a segment of American society that is substantially aloof—you accept to be born into it. In that regard, too, the novel presents a fractured American identity, with different lives possible based on how much coin y'all are born with.

In short, I remember the novel disrupts the idea of a unified American identity or American dream, by instead presenting a tragic, fractured, and rigid American club, one that is divided based on both geographic location and social class.

#4: Most would consider dreams to exist positive motivators to achieve success, only the characters in the novel often take their dreams of ideal lives too far. Explicate how characters' American Dreams crusade them to accept pain when they could have been content with more modest ambitions.

Gatsby is an obvious choice hither—his pursuit of money and status, peculiarly through Daisy, leads him to ruin. There were many points when perhaps Gatsby ;could have been happy with what he achieved (especially afterwards his apparently successful endeavors in the war, if he had remained at Oxford, or even after amassing a great amount of wealth equally a bootlegger) but instead he kept striving upward, which ultimately pb to his downfall. You can flesh this statement out with the quotations in Chapters 6 and eight virtually Gatsby's past, along with his tragic death.

Myrtle would exist another skilful choice for this blazon of prompt. In a sense, she seems to exist living her ideal life in her affair with Tom—she has a fancy NYC flat, hosts parties, and gets to human activity sophisticated—but these pleasures finish up gravely pain George, and of class her association with Tom Buchanan gets her killed.

Nick, too, if he had been happy with his family's respectable fortune and his girlfriend out west, might have avoided the pain of knowing Gatsby and the full general sense of despair he was left with.

You might exist wondering about George—subsequently all, isn't he someone too dreaming of a better life? However, there aren't many instances of George taking his dreams of an platonic life "also far." In fact, he struggles but to brand 1 car sale and so that he can finally move out West with Myrtle. As well, given that his current situation in the Valley of Ashes is quite bleak, it's difficult to say that striving upward gave him pain.

#5: The Bang-up Gatsby is, amidst other things, a sobering and even ominous commentary on the night side of the American dream. Discuss this theme, incorporating the conflicts of East Egg vs. West Egg and old money vs. new money. What does the American dream hateful to Gatsby? What did the American Dream hateful to Fitzgerald? How does morality fit into achieving the American dream?

This prompt allows you to consider pretty broadly the novel's attitude toward the American Dream, with accent on "sobering and even ominous" commentary. Note that Fitzgerald seems to be specifically mocking the stereotypical rags to riches story here—;especially since he draws the Dan Cody narrative almost note for note from the work of someone like Horatio Alger, whose books were virtually universally about rich men schooling young, entrepreneurial boys in the ways of the world. In other words, you should talk over how the Great Gatsby seems to turn the idea of the American Dream as described in the quote on its head: Gatsby does achieve a rags-to-riches rise, but it doesn't last.

All of Gatsby's hard work for Dan Cody, afterwards all, didn't pay off since he lost the inheritance. So instead, Gatsby turned to criminal offense after the war to quickly gain a ton of money. Specially since Gatsby finally achieves his great wealth through dubious means, the novel further undermines the classic image of someone working difficult and honestly to go from rags to riches.

If yous're addressing this prompt or a similar one, make certain to focus on the darker aspects of the American Dream, including the dark conclusion to the novel and Daisy and Tom'due south protection from any real consequences. (This would likewise allow you to considering morality, and how morally broke the characters are.)

#6: What is the current country of the American Dream?

This is a more outward-looking prompt, that allows y'all to consider current events today to either be generally optimistic (the American dream is live and well) or pessimistic (it's as expressionless as it is in The Great Gatsby).

You take dozens of potential current events to use as evidence for either argument, simply consider particularly clearing and clearing reform, mass incarceration, income inequality, pedagogy, and health intendance in America as practiced potential examples to use equally you argue about the current country of the American Dream. Your writing volition be especially powerful if you can point to some specific current events to support your argument.

What'due south Next?

In this postal service, nosotros discussed how important coin is to the novel's version of the American Dream. You lot can read even more well-nigh money and materialism in The Corking Gatsby right here.

Want to indulge in a trivial materialism of your own? Take a look through these 15 must-take items for any Great Gatsby fan.

Become complete guides to Jay Gatsby, George Wilson and Myrtle Wilson to get even more groundwork on the "dreamers" in the novel.

Like we discussed above, the dark-green lite is often seen equally a stand-in for the idea of the American Dream. Read more about this crucial symbol here.

Need help getting to grips with other literary works? Take a spin through our analyses of The Crucible, The Cask of Amontillado, and "Do not go gentle into this proficient night" to see analysis in action. You might likewise notice our explanations of point of view, rhetorical devices, imagery, and literary elements and devices helpful.

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About the Author

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate nearly improving student access to college education.

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