gatdream Blurry Dreams in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby :: Great Gatsby Essays

Blurry Dreams in The Great Gatsby       The American Dream is a path spate set out upon in order to achieve a goal, usually pertaining to the acquirement of stability and security. The inspirations of these people were followed by with strong hope and perseverance. Yet, during the period of the 1920s, this dream was obstructed by the need for materialistic power. Scott Fitzgerald portrays this destruction of the American Dream through the main character, Jay Gatsby, in his novel The Great Gatsby. Gatsby longs to rekindle a past tense romance with his love Daisy Buchanan, but this dream is obliterated by his greed of wanting more of something he never could have.       Jay Gatsby destroys the chance of living a normal, wholesome life when he decides that he must reach an unattainable goal, having Daisy as his wife. Yet, Gatsby hadnt always lived his life as a man in search of an abundance of what was presented to him. This is made appare nt in the end of the novel at his own funeral, when Gatsbys father, Mr.Gatz, presents Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel with a keepsake from Gatsbys childhood. The object is a diary of resolves that Gatsby had listed for himself to accomplish. Most of these goals were in reach of accomplishment, making it very capable of Gatsby to achieve his aspirations without fail. Mr. Gatz, marveling at the ambition Gatsby held for himself, read each item aloud and then looked eagerly at me. I think he rather expected me to copy down the list for my own use (182). This statement shows how Mr. Gatz does believe in his sons aging dreams of trying to better himself as a person. This goal, with work, seemed attainable and most likely to happen, but a stronger outside force of money pushed Gatsby in another direction.       Gatsbys primordial goals of manner and such seemed picayune in a society run by wealth and materialistic power. Therefore, in order to survi ve in this society, he changed himself from a man born under the poor family name James Gatz, to the falsely commended Jay Gatsby. His drive to succeed in the world was so strong that Gatsby went through illegal measures of bootlegging.