The Great Gatsby Essay

Words: 912
Pages: 4

The Great Gatsby Essay
By- Happy Bhoombla
English- 3A
Date-9/28/10

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a story about a wealthy man named Gatsby. Gatsby lives a luxuriant life in West Egg of New York. Gatsby’s wealth has an unknown secret because nobody seems to know where his wealth emerged from. Despite of having so much fortune, Gatsby’s true American dream has not been achieved. In the great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald develops Gatsby as a failed American dream to show the impossibility of the American dream in the 1920’s. First of all Fitzgerald embodies Gatsby as a failed American dream during the time period by presenting Gatsby as a person who achieves happiness and materialism with money. Gatsby wants to
…show more content…
However Gatsby’s dream is shattered when he fails to win Daisy and does not get accepted by the upper class. All of the money did not help him when the old man Wilson fired a gun shot at him. Gatsby sees himself as a failure when eventually Daisy chose Tom over him. Gatsby hope for a good life is failed and through that failed hope for life is the failed American dream that he could not win. Without his American dream Gatsby is living dead. His life has no purpose, no direction, and nothing that could keep him alive.

The above paragraphs show how Gatsby was unable to do anything in his life even after becoming so wealthy. His true American dream is not achieved and also how the 1920’s played a huge role in his failed dream. During that time people ran for fame and glamour which this story depicts. Even the cover of the book tells a lot about the book’s meaning. On the front cover you see bright lights that lit up the buildings but the unending darkness seems to surround the bright lit lights and eat away any happiness and joy. Even today people use the wealth and power as the sources of achieving dreams. This is wrong because as a famous saying go- “money cannot buy happiness”. This quote serves as the overall meaning of the book. Even when Gatsby had so much wealth, he could not win Daisy by the means of