The Great Gatsby Idealism Analysis

Throughout the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald the constant theme of obtaining the American Dream causes major destruction. The American dream is based off a myth told that every United States citizen has an equal opportunity to achieve success through hard work and determination. However, in the novel, Fitzgerald shows how the American Dream is unattainable, with Gatsby representing this myth through his unfulfilled desire to obtain more and more. Through Gatsby's impossible journey to attain the American Dream, Fitzgerald shows how this dream creates false hope for a better life and replaces religious figures for money.

As time goes on, dreams and virtues begin to decline. This is a truth that happens everyday in the world. It especially happens in F. Scott Fitzgeralds’ “The Great Gatsby”. In the novel, the characters are good-natured but at the same time have low morals. The way that Gatsby and the other characters in "The Great Gatsby" act helps demonstrates the theme of the American dream declining.

Daisy has become much closer to Gatsby, and their relationship has evolved from a dream into being close to each other, eliminating the green light’s significance. The green light has a “colossal significance” but it has “vanished forever” because while Gatsby used to feel he and Daisy were “as close as a star to the moon”, Daisy “[puts] her arm through his abruptly” because they are finally together and the distance has seemingly disappeared (Page 93). The green light was a major symbol in the book and its dramatic transformation is not taken lightly, as to Gatsby, Daisy and him are together forever from this point on. Daisy creates a horrible miscommunication with Gatsby, as she has sent him the message she is his forever, but she is still captivated by Tom’s money. Despite the perfection of Daisy and Gatsby’ s relationship and the ideal place for a happy ending, Daisy still will not let go of Tom or her place in the upper class.

Several situations presented in The Great Gatsby provide evidence refuting this and demonstrate that all the money in the world could not buy Jay Gatsby’s happiness. Jay Gatsby’s perception was that if he became rich, he would gain all desired happiness and win over the love of Daisy. Through illegally gained wealth, extravagant parties, fancy cars and expensive clothes, Gatsby learnt that no wealth in the world could win over someone’s heart and no amount of money could make a person truly happy. The green light is used to symbolise this, he sees the light shine vastly in the distance at the dock of Daisy Buchannan’s house. It is used by Fitzgerald to portray the physical and emotional distance between Gatsby and his love, Daisy; it also represents his pursuit of the American Dream and the journey to gain wealth.

In life, what is perceived tends to show misconception in how thoughts play out. One prime character in the novel is, Jay Gatsby, he was not capable to decide between the love he felt for Daisy and the illusion that he could recapture her love by inventing a false past. Jay believed he could repeat the past. In the novel, Jay Gatsby refuses to establish the differences in the reality of his life and his illusions for his love for Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic: “The Great Gatsby,” displays how deception effects when one falls in love and when one realizes reality.

Gatsby failed to realize that his dream was unrealistic. Before he left for war, Gatsby attained his dream. He was happy, but he did nothing to keep his dream and did everything to lose it. Gatsby failed to dream again and to strive for a new dream.

Reality is something that many can not grasp. Lost in a daydream or lost in their expectations, often, people are left with disappointment. These negative feelings are those humans often try to hide from. Our capacity to feel any source of pain is so low that time and time again, humans will retreat back into a world of painless existence; misinterpreting on how life is supposed to be versus how it actually is. The complex relationship between Daisy and Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s historical fiction novel, The Great Gatsby, exemplifies how living in this falsehood of a world can lead the demise of someone like Gatsby, “...

Gatsby, like everyone else in The Great Gatsby, was so lost in his ideals that he became irrational and stubborn, in the way that he thought everything would go his way. “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” (Fitzgerald 116). Today the American Dream has taken on a whole new meaning.

The ups and downs in Gatsby 's life are also a testament to the fleeting, temporary, full of uncertainties of human

Gatsby’s American Dream, being with Daisy Buchanan, is crushed when The most prominent representation in the text is the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. The light is the symbol of all of Gatsby’s aspirations, “I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light… his dream must have seemed so close, that he could hardly fail to grasp it,” (189). To him the light is synonymous with Daisy, his true love. He is envious of how she is so close yet so far, and Gatsby tries to reach out to her. He needs Daisy otherwise his dream is incomplete.

Being able to push through hardships and continue to chase dreams is important. Sometimes when a certain dream has been imagined so much that the real dream is no longer attainable, it’s important to either get a reality check or chase a new dream. The character Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby was not able to move past his dream of having the love of the married Daisy Buchanan, and his obsession with her and his fantasy he had created in his head may have ultimately been the cause of his downfall. This lesson is exemplified when Fitzgerald closes the book with the famous quote, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year

Francis Scott Fitzgerald lived the luxurious life of the roaring ‘20s; however, by the end, his life was controlled by drinking and his beloved wife had descended into insanity. Fitzgerald never quite fulfilled his American dream. Fitzgerald’s main character, Jay Gatsby, mimics the path of his own successes and failures. Although Fitzgerald clearly defines the American Dream as a lifestyle of luxury, love, and void of responsibility, the subliminal message of the novel is that perfection, such as the American dream, is unattainable; however, striving for the impossibility of perfection is imperative if one hopes to secure contentment in their life.

But then the ambition for something has thrown Gatsby over the edge. His love and chase for Daisy has taken over his whole life. He feels that he has to live up to the American dream to accomplish what he truly dreams for, which is Daisy. In the book, Nick spots Gatsby reaching for the green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock. Nick says in the book when he witnessed Gatsby doing this “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.

The story follows the rise and fall of Gatsby’s American dream; which ends with tragically. It captured a cross-section of the American society and depicted its triumph and tragedy. The major reason of the success of “The Great Gatsby” today is that the book itself has a strong resonance with us in our modern time as

Only 1 out of every 32 people accomplish the dream they set forth to achieve. There is of course a barrier which a person should never go past, as shown in “The Great Gatsby.” The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story on the cover, but it’s most commonly understood as a cynical critique of what the novel tries to explain what could have been the American Dream. In the novel, Jay Gatsby overcomes his poor past to gain an unconvincing amount of money and a limited amount of social environment that was the 1920s of NYC, only to be rejected by the “old money” crowd. He then gets killed after being tangled up with all of his lies ultimately being no ones care for who he really was?