On American Dream

【Abstract】F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the greatest novelists in American literature. In 1925 he achieved splendid artistic success with his masterpiece The Great Gatsby. The thesis consists of five parts: the introduction and the second part are devoted to a discussion of the historical background of the American Dream, which is followed by the presentation of the author’s experiences and perceptions that contribute to the novel’s theme. The third part examines the collapse of Gatsby, centering on his spiritual and moral disintegration from the initial vitality, self －disciplined, to the withering of his dream. The forth part is a special study of other two main characters in the novel―Daisy and Tom, who are both hypocritical, brutal and corrupt that lead to Gatsby’s death. The last part comes to the conclusion which summarizes the whole paper and reveals the inevitability of Gatsby’s tragedy.

【Key words】the American Dream disillusionment　The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

1. Introduction

F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the greatest stylists in American literature. Known as the “Prince of the Jazz Age”, His works have become automatically indentified with an American decade: The Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties. The crowning achievement of Fitzgerald’s career is his novel The Great Gatsby which is a story of the thwarted love between a man of humble origin and a woman from the “higher” class. The disillusionment of the American Dream is often the written theme in the American literature. The Great Gatsby is one of the representative works that reflect the illusionary nature of the American Dream.

2. Fitzgerald’s Background and the American Dream

Fitzgerald and His Works

F. Scott Fitzgerald is a typical figure of his time. Some critics regard him as the pioneer in the history of American modern literature.

3.Brief Overview of The Great Gatsby

Gatsby, a poor youth from the Midwest, falls in love with Daisy, an upper class lady. But due to his poverty, Daisy leaves him and then marries to a vulgar rich young man, Tom Buchanan. Determined to win his lost love back, Gatsby involves himself in bootlegging and other illegal activities. There he holds dazzling parties every weekend, hoping that this will allure the Buchanan to come. Through the arrangement of Nick Caraway, Gatsby meets Daisy again and shows her his wealth and possessions in hopes that she will come back. As a result, this meeting is destined to be a disappointment since Gatsby has build up such grandiose dreams for the reunification of the two of them. Daisy does cry because the shirt that Gatsby wears is so beautiful that she never sees one before. Eventually, Tom and Gatsby have a bitter confrontation, in which Tom exposes Gatsby’s low origins, while Gatsby tells Tom about his affair and how Daisy does not love him. Gatsby wants Daisy to admit that she never loves Tom, but she fails him by using evasive words. The tragedy comes when Gatsby takes Daisy back to New York and allows her to drive in order to calm her nerves. When they pass Wilson’s garage, Daisy swerves to avoid another car and ends up hitting Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, and kills her. Gatsby refused Caraway’s advice to leave the town until the situation calms, for he wants to make sure that Daisy is safe. However, he cannot even imagine that Daisy and Tom plot to shift the blame on him. When George Wilson, driven mad by his wife’s death, goes to seek out the killer, Tom Buchanan points him towards Gatsby. Wilson shoots Gatsby before he committing suicide. Nick organizes the funeral, but finds that few have any concern for Gatsby. Much worse, the woman he loves and tries to protect has left the town with her husband to avoid any responsibility. Finally Nick decides to return to the mid-west with the disconcerting knowledge, thus ending the whole story.

4. The Disillusionment of Gatsby’s American Dream

4.1 A Young Man with Great Dreams

The protagonist Gatsby is an earnest follower of Benjamin Franklin, in the novel Gatsby is a young man full of potential, and even when he was a boy he showed his values and ambition, and in the eye of his father, he is a man that bound to get ahead. Born in a poor peasant family, little Gatsby never complains, though he is young, he has a strong believe that one day he can be what he makes himself to be by hard working and sincere devotion, just like his idol Franklin, who works his way up from poverty to respectability. The inspiration of a good model is always great. Once Gatsby made up his mind, actions followed. He made Benjamin-like schedule on the last fly-leaf of the book Hopalong Cassidy , date September 12th, 1906, presented by his father in the last chapter：

It is easy to see from the timetable that in order to make self- improvements Jimmy Gatsby make plans to discipline himself. He knows what he is doing. He has a good management to arrange his time. He has a strong sense of money and his own ability to adjust himself to the reality. First, he plans to save $5.00 per week, then he cross it out and changes it into $3.00 per week. The most valuable point is that he shows his love and respect to his parents by keep reminding himself of being better to his parents.

All those above give us a vivid picture of Jay Gatsby: A honest, dynamic young man full of ambition and determination, holding the dream that by hard working and self-reliance, he can one day become somebody and have a promising future. This perfectly cater to the traditional definition of the American Dream， in its most popular sense, the America Dream is the search for materialistic success and it refers to the pursuit of individuals to obtain success of their life on their own initiative.

4.2 Victim of the Illusive Dream

Throughout The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s dream is doomed to end in tragedy when he started his illusory quest for Daisy Fay. In Gatsby’s mind, Daisy is always an innocent angel, pure and charming, but she is in reality a cruel and cold girl whose voice is full of money and the inner heart is empty. Thus, Gatsby, under the illusion that he can get back his love and he can repeat his romantic past is doomed to be a failure, because they are only a fantasy which is inconsistent with the reality. Love blinds Gatsby, who pursuing Daisy all his life even hardly notices the change on the pretty shallow girl. Eventually he becomes the victim of illusive dream.

5. Two Indispensable Antagonists in The Great Gatsby

5.1 The “Golden Girl”―Daisy Fay

As a girl coming from the upper class, Daisy Fay is the spirit of wealth and values riches above anything else. Daisy Fay is a white flower with golden center, which has a symbolic meaning. Just as the little white flower suggests, Daisy is such a young, beautiful girl that she attracts many young men around her and becomes the local social butterfly. Beautiful as the flower is, the white color also suggests vicious emptiness. So Daisy’s characteristics are clearly known to us: charm but shallow, aimlessness and emptiness take up all her life, the most crucial is her cruelness, comparing with Gatsby’s naivety and innocence, she is not worthy of Gatsby’s love.

Bibliography：

[1]Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Jiangsu: Yi Ling Press. 1998

[2]Franklin, Benjamin. Poor Richard’s Almanac. Mount Vernon: Peter Pauper Press. 1990

[3]Hearn, Charles R. The American Dream in the Great Depression. Westport: Greenwood Press. 1977

[4]Long, Robert Emmet. The Great Gatsby―the Intricate Art. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. 1979

[5]Piper, Henry Dan. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Critical Portrait. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1965

[6]Warner, W. Lloyd. American Life and Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1953

作者简介：

赵叶媚，女，汉族，陕西省宝鸡市眉县人，西华师范大学外国语学院，课程与教学论（英语）专业硕士生。