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Axel Cano

Professor Crum

English 100 +5L

13 December 2018

The Great Gatsby: A Story of the American Struggle

Through its ups and downs, The Great Gatsby, is a story about the pursuit the American

dream, each character’s desire falling into an overall chase for something that they can’t

necessarily have. With the book ending with Nick’s remorse about Gatsby’s death, the reality

sets in that this text concerning the American Dream is not a tale of success, but instead a

tragedy. The characters in this text don't accomplish their goals or end up getting the things that

they want. Some of these characters dreams are impeded by their social standing and conditions

that they had no control over. They came from a low social standing with no prestige or

reputation due to them not having an excess of money or other forms of financial prosperity. The

reality in The Great Gatsby and one shared in our world today, is that the idea of the American

Dream is not what it perhaps may have been years ago for generations before . Through

Fitzgerald's portrayal of this pursuit of the success and prosperity, he paints a more realistic

picture of what is currently the state of what this pursuit of success is. A picture in which the

American Dream is dead and we are left with the reality that is the American Struggle, an unfair

and biased pursuit where success can be determined by more than just how much effort you put

into your work.

Gatsby is no exception to this American Struggle, having to basically reinvent himself in

order to have a chance at what he wanted, what was his idea of prosperity and happiness. One of
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the most prominent symbols in The Great Gatsby is the green light across the dock of gatsby's

house. The light represents something far away, something that has long been unattainable to

Gatsby (in this case, his longing for Daisy to be with him instead of Tom, Daisy being

unattainable to him since his very youth due to his humble origins and lack of wealth. The color

itself representing financial success and prosperity. Gatsby longing for Daisy never came to

fruition as he dies before they are able to figure out how they could be together without Tom

butting in. Thus Gatsby fails to achieve his dream of a happy ending with Daisy with a

prosperous family. One of the main reasons that Gatsby goes out and gets his fortune is that he

knows that he would never be with Daisy since he came from a lower socioeconomic class

without much reputation or financial wealth. His American Dream wasn't necessarily earning

lots of money but instead a full and meaningful life by Daisy's side. Gatsby recognized that that

was not available to him due to the conditions that he was born under. Gatsby knew that he was

already at a disadvantage because of where he came from and he would have to change much

about himself in order to even have a chance at being with Daisy. The massive surplus of money

that he ended up with was not his primary goal since he stopped throwing parties once he began

to think that he would soon win over Daisy. Daisy had been the reason that he had built his

mansion on the shore, just across from her, in the hopes that the would someday lure her to him.

Another character we see that participates in this pursuit of the American Dream is Nick

Carraway. The only reason that he was able to participate in the events that unfolded in the text

was because of the years he spent in the military and getting a college education just too try to

find success in the bustling areas of New York and Long Island. Nick is by no way rich and is

barely associated with Daisy and her lavish life due to them being cousins. Upon visiting the

Tom household he remarks that “she made him feel uncivilized,” acknowledging that Nick was
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not of that world, he did not belong with the luxurious and the lavish. At the end of the book he

gives up on the idea that he belongs in the prosperous east and moves back to rural midwest to

live a humble and modest life. His american dream too be among grandeur and all around

prosperity fails, seeing that even with money and grandeur, Gatsby still came from humble

beginnings just like Nick. Nick’s view of Gatsby changed after seeing that even after all his

success, Gatsby’s life was a tragedy spent longing to belong to another way of life, with someone

who he considered so above everything around them.

To a smaller degree one other example of the American Dream not working for a

character in the text is Wilson. His poverty preventing him from being able to give his wife that

life that she wants to live, one of the reasons that she has an affair with Tom Buchanan. She

states that at first she thought “he was a gentleman, but in reality he was not fit to lick her shoe.”

We see our characters throughout the text fail to realize their American Dream, not

gaining the success they wanted or the type of life that they wanted to live. Even after years of

labor and education, because of the conditions that they were born under they did not have an

equal chance at accomplishing grand things or earning a high salary. Predisposed conditions got

in the way of they're success, putting them at a disadvantage of people such as Daisy who had

been born into success and prosperity. The struggle that they went through in order to get where

they were was not one that people like Daisy went through.

Works Cited

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Social Class.” Encyclopædia Britannica,

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 16 Nov. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/social-

class#ref284204.
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Cohen, Philip N. "Social class." World Book Student, World Book, 2018,

www.worldbookonline.com/student-new/#/article/home/ar517370. Accessed 2 Dec. 2018.

Hedges, Chris. “Powerful Oligarchic Rulers Keep Us Subjugated and Submissive.” CCPA

Monitor, vol. 20, no. 7, Dec. 2013, pp. 28–29. EBSCOhost,

cerritoscoll.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h

&AN=92944996&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Patterson, Richard North. “Opinion | America's Suffocating Class System.” The Huffington Post,

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 Aug. 2018, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-inequality-in-

america_us_5b86d189e4b0cf7b00316252.

STEWART, MATTHEW. “THE BIRTH OF A NEW AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY. (Cover

Story).” Atlantic, vol. 321, no. 5, June 2018, pp. 48–63. EBSCOhost,

cerritoscoll.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h

&AN=129557253&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
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