Compare and contrast a work of American Literature, that you believe embodies the American Dream, to Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, which shows how this dream is in decline or is perhaps unattainable.
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Compare and contrast a work of American Literature, that you believe embodies the American Dream, to Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, which shows how this dream is in decline or is perhaps unattainable.
Filed under: HAL
“The Magic Barrel” (p. 809) compared to “The Great Gatsby”
Bernard Malamud was known to write novels about attaining goals or including elements of reality v. dreams. However, compared to Fitzgerald’s, his stories are different in a sense that Leo, one of the main characters, starts out poor with a disadvantage in the social world: he is Jewish. This led to much discrimination in his life as he was trying to obtain his American Dream, living in NYC with a good job and getting married.
Throughout the story, as well as in the novel “The Great Gatsby”, both main characters, or antiheroes, must find their motivation that will help them obtain their dream. Both Leo and Gatsby’s dreams would not be complete without the lvoe of their life they both want so desperately, but neither become married at the end.
Both stories represent the unobtainable American Dream for each of the main characters. Although Gatsby seems to have obtained it from the outside with all his wealth, he really never does. Leo, on the other hand, starts out being a poor Jew who does not obtain it either. Maybe both characters realize there is no real American dream to be obtained.
“The Great Gatsby” and “The Gettysburg Address” (346)
The Great Gatsby and the Gettysburg Address both represent an American dream; however, one is achieved while the other isn’t. The dream in the Great Gatsby is Gatsby’s hope for love with Daisy. In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln is expressing his dream for a reunited country. Both Lincoln and Gatsby are similar because they both died for their dream. However, Gatsby’s dream was never achieved, unlike Lincoln’s. Lincoln and Gatsby have people or obstacles that disagree with their wants and dreams. The Confederacy opposes Lincoln while the East Eggers oppose Gatsby. Although these obstacles may have actually been the cause of their deaths, both continue to be optimistic and dedicated. Lincoln and Gatsby seek to reunite through love; Gatsby with Daisy and Lincoln’s divided country.
A book that is featured in the Literature text book that calls to mind the themes and conflicts of The Great Gatsby is The Grapes of Wrath, the first chapter of which is featured on page 599. Both of these novels deal with the theme of the American dream, in what is practically the same time period. While The Great Gatsby deals with the pursuit of the American dream from the wealthy man’s perspective, The Grapes of Wrath goes to the opposite end of the spectrum and follows the adventures of a poor family pursuing the American dream.
In The Great Gatsby, the title character is trying to achieve his goal of winning over the girl of his dreams after having already achieved great wealth, another common version of the American dream. Many people in The Great Gatsby dream of having wealth and living a better life, and the book documents how they continue their pursuit of the dream or fail in the process. The Grapes of Wrath also shows how people trying to achieve a dream succeed of fail in the process, but the dream that they are trying to achieve is finding land and work. Both of these types of things were occurring at the same period in time. The theme of the American dream was not only the driving force of these two books, but also of the American civilization in general.
A piece of American Literature that i feel relates to, The Great Gatsby and its portrayal of the “American Dream” is “Rappaccinis Daughter.” Giovanni, the main character, like Gatsby, falls in love with Beatrice. Beatrice however, is the daughter of a wealthy and famous doctor. Because Giovanni is just a boy from italy to continue his studies, Beatrice is his unnatainable dream. Giovanni watches beatrice from his window as she walks in the garden with the plants that connot be smeeled or touched because of poison. Gatsby also watched the green light from across the bay in which he wondered what life would be like with Daisy. He too could not obtain Daisy because of social status and wealth, and the people that get in his way to try and stop him such as Tom. Rappaccini also did not allow beatrice to be with Giovanni because he wanted to keep her all to himself to use as an experiment. Like tom he wants to keep daisy all to himself, just to spite Gatsby, because both characters are seen as nobodies from nowhere.
“The Great Gatsby” compared to “The Magic Barrel” (p.809)
Both “The Great Gatsby” and “The Magic Barrel” depict the search for hope, attaining social class, and reaching your goals. Gatsby’s early life and his work experiences with Dan Cody, made him want to pursue wealth and status. He wants to loose the image of lower status and became a wealthy man that he had envisioned. Getting to Daisy is one of the reasons in which he wants to become wealthy. Gatsby’s power to make his American dream real is what makes him seem great but we see throughout the book that his American dream in unattainable.
In “The Magic Barrel,” it talks about the search for hope and finding the meaning within the grim and poor urban settings. It tells the story of immigrants who live in poor conditions and long to go to America. They are searching for many opportunities, to achieve their American dream. They are driven by motivation, just like Gatsby.
“Journey” and The Great Gatsby: Compared and Contrasted
The Great Gatsby is a book about a man who pursues the American Dream. It chronicles the life of a man from a less than wealthy family who acquires wealth through illegal means. His American Dream is not wealth, however, but a girl with whom he is deeply and irrevocably in love. In the end, the man’s dreams never come to fruition, but the immoral and greed that consumes the 20s triumphs. The man devotes his whole life, puts in all of this hard work, and has nothing to show for it but bullets in his back. The Great Gatsby ends on an optimistic note, though, with the narrator stating, “tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… and one fine morning…” While The Great Gatsby depicts the tragic fall of a man to greed, to wealth, to bullies, it doesn’t turn the American Dream into a futile pursuit.
“Journey,” by Joyce Carol Oates, is an allegory of a person driving towards their destination, choosing certain roads and paths out of many. Just in this sense, there are many different paths to the American Dream. In “Journey,” the second person protagonist would not have changed their path, and had no regrets. The American dream in this story is not the destination, but rather it is the journey, the ability to choose one’s path, that makes the American Dream attainable.
The poem “Hope’ is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson represents the American dream by simply it is hope why people are drawn to America, the hope for a better life with freedom and numerous opportunities. This is different from “The Great Gatsby’s” representation of the decline of the American Dream because Gatsby does not receive what he hopes for, which is to live happily with Daisy, the woman whom he loves.
The Great Gatsby and “American History”
American History is about a Puerto Rican girl called Elena. She has a crush on one of the neighbor’s son, Eugene. Elena is very excited when she learns that Eugene goes to her school. They soon become friends. The story leads up to Elena visiting Eugene at his house. There is only a chain-link fence that separates Eugene’s house and her less attractive apartment. Before Elena leaves her apartment her mother warns her that she is ” heading for humiliation and pain.” Elena goes anyway. Once she rings the door bell Eugene’s mother comes out. She asks, ” You live there?”. Elena truthfully replies “yes.” Eugene’s mother does not allow her entrance into the house and tells her to ” run back home..”
The story is similar to “the Great Gatsby.” The chain-link fence that separates Elena’s apartment to Eugene’s house is similar to East and West egg. Elena’s poor apartment complex is very much like Gatsby’s mansion located in West Egg. Elena is similar to Gatsby because they both want what they cannot have. Tom is like Eugene’s mother. Like Tom, Eugene’s mother stand in the way for Elena to attain her American dream.
I think that the idea of the American Dream changes for different people in different situations. For example, Sojourner Truth in “Aint I A Woman” wants to live freely in America without race affecting her life. She says that she wants the same rights as whites, after all America is a free country. She wants “to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere.” In the “Great Gatsby” the American Dream is different for Gatsby because he already has fair rights and wealth, so all he wants is the love of Daisy Buchanan. Race affects Sojourner Truth’s American Dream and class, sort of, affects Gatsby’s American Dream because while he may be rich, he has had to work for that money, unlike Tom and Daisy, who inherited their money. Gatsby has a lot of money, but it doesn’t really affect Daisy too much because she is of old money and Gatsby us of new money.
“The Sensible Thing” and the Great Gatsby
The story “The Sensible Thing” by F. Scott Fitzgerald represents the American Dream. The story is about a man named George O’Kelly who starts off as insurance clerk even though his dream is to be in engineering and working with steel. He gives up this dream in hopes of finding a more immediate profit in New York City so that he can finally marry his love Jonquil. When he goes and visits her in Tennessee she will not marry him because his current state of poverty makes her uneasy. George then leaves Jonquil and tells her that he would return someday. George does return and he returns rich and successful, however he meets with Jonquil only to find that she does not love him anymore. This story compares to “The Great Gatsby” in the theme that love and the past can not be repeated and both Kelly and Gatsby worked hard so that they could achieve their loved ones, in which both of them failed.
The Great Gatsby is a about a man named Gatsby who grew up with no money and had to work for the American dream, which he gets later in his life. He did fall in love with a girl named Daisey before he had the money and she loved him, but she did not want to marry him because he was poor at the time. After they are reunited when he has money, they fall in love again and they want to be together. The story, The Sensible Thing, has a lot of similar things in it as The Great Gatsby. A poor man falls in love with a girl and she does not want to marry him because he has no money, but he tells her that he will come back to her. He keeps his word and comes back for her and this time with money, but the stories, The Great Gatsby and The sensible Thing, do have different endings. Like I said before in The Great Gatsby, Daisy wants to be with Gatsby now that he has money, but in The Sensible Thing, the girl fell out of love with the man after he came back to her.
“The Great Gatsby” compared to the “Magic Barrel”(pg. 809)
Both “The Great Gatsby” and the “Magic Barrel” are based around fighting for the American Dream. For Gatsby it is al about the money. In his mind he needs to earn a certain amount of money to bring Daisy back to him. He just doesn’t consider the importance of old money and not having to work for it. He feels that he needs money in order to be loved. In “the Magic Barrel”, the American Dream is not based around money but around doing what you desire and getting what you want even if you are of immigrant descent. Leos American Dream is to get married. It is an immigrants dream, which is a main reason for so many immigrants moving to America. To find love and success are important in the “Magic Barrel”, but in “The great Gatsby” he must be focused on solely money and success to be loved. Leo feels tha he needs to find himself a bride, whereas Gatsby has already found someone that he wants as his wife, but can never have.
“The Sensible Thing” and The Great Gatsby
George O’Kelly, the main character, has a reversal of fortune in the story. He longs for his lost love, Jonquil Cary. Jonquil resists him at first and thinks he does not have enough money to marry her, like Gatsby, George is willing to do whatever his lost love desires. George, as i said before, has a reversal of fortune. He moves from a poverty state to being in a position of unlimited opportunity as Gatsby had done. ” A spasm of fright went through him at her beauty’s power of inflicting pain.” (Fitzgerald, 557) it describes Jonquil’s beauty has power over George. In the Great Gatsby, Gatsby is also overpowered by Daisy’s beauty. George and Jonquil were eating in the dining room, that room had seen the beginning of their love affair and the end. When George kissed Jonquil he realized he could not repeat those lost April hours. “There are all kinds of love, but never the same love twice.” (Fitzgerald, 559)
“I, too, sing America” is a poem that represents the American Dream. It is about an African American who is not invited to eat at the table with white people when comoany is present. He then works and becomes so great and beautiful that they won’t send him away and also they will want for him to stay. it is about becoming equal in society.
This is similiar to the “Great Gatsby” in that they both speak of the American Dream. the difference is that the poem looks at the American Dream optimistically and still attainable; the “Great Gatsby” views it pessimistically and no longer able to fully complete the dream.
The “Great Gatsby”focuses just on the class division of the highest class, which, especially at this time, was only white people in America. IT is about how new money is not as good or worth as much and so the power cannot really change hands; this would mean the American Dream cannot be had. The poem talks about racial divison. It sees it as possible to become equal and that the power will transfer and not just belong to white people. Wealth does not exactly factor into the poem.
In both “The Sensible Thing” and “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald presents his idea of the American Dream. The American Dream for the two main characters seems to be not only wealth, but the certain girls that they are chasing after as well. Mr. O’ Kelly quits his job to try and get into the insurance business because he feels that he will make money faster this way, even though it makes him poor. The main reason for him wanting to get richer faster is to try and get the girl that he likes to love him because of his wealth. Gatsby, who goes from rags to riches, moves near Daisy even though he knows she’s married to show that he now has wealth and tries to get her to come back to him. In these stories, the girls are the motivation for the two men’s American dream. Even though the men had love with the ladies before, they would never have the same love they did the first time. Gatsby ends up losing everything because he is killed and Mr. O’Kelly doesnt end up getting the girl because she has fallen out of love with him and doesn’t want to marry a poor man. So in all, they both are stuck in a lose lose situation.
The Great Gatsby represents the American dream because Gatsby wants to be with Daisy. Also the Gettysburg Address can be an American Dream because Abraham Lincoln wanted their to be peace in his own country. He wanted their to be no war against one half of the country against the other half of the country. He just wanted things to be the way it was before. Just like Gatsby, he wanted to come home from the war and marry Daisy. So when Gatsby came back, Daisy pulled a no show, and now he wants everything to be back to normal
Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” depicts the american dream as become the richest and most powerful individual. Throughout the novel it suggests the true happinies can only be achieveved through obaining unimaginable amounts of money. An example of this, Gatsby throws wild parties on a regular basis, he dose this to entertain himself as well as entertain others he does this by means of having obscene amounts of money. It all suggests that love can only be obtained by the richest. The background of the novel suggests that Daisy was Gatsby’s love and suggested that he was her’s as well. However Daisy later leaves Gatsby when he goes to the war becuase she needed a man with a substational amount of money, something Gatsby did not have at the time, the entire novel shows Gatsby’s “dream” of obtaining Daisy and only being able to do so by making large amounts of money.
I think that “The Richer, The Poorer” by Dorothy West relates to “The Great Gatsby” because they both are about the American dream. In Dorothy West’s story a girl named Lottie us obsessed with not spending her money and keeping it so that she maybe rich one day. She is determined to achieve her dream of becoming rich. On the other hand her sister Bess is always spending her money. Once Bess is out of highschool she gets married, from this point on Bess’ life goes down hill and Lottie saves her. Gatsby and Lottie both became obsessed with money.