The American Dream Vs. The American Reality (2024)

Every year about 1,000,000 people immigrate to America. Each with the same dream. The American dream. The American dream is the idea that you can come from nothing, but with enough hard work and devotion you can achieve financial greatness which will therefore result in your own happiness. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the protagonist Jay Gatsby did exactly that. He worked hard to achieve his dreams of wealth. Gatsby saw the world through a filter, one that made him think that money and happiness are directly correlated. The Great Gatsby falsely represents the American dream; it displays Gatsby’s pursuit of success and wealth, while simultaneously exposing the overt fixation Americans have with money as a means of attaining happiness.

Jay Gatsby wasn’t always the great gatsby. His given name was James Gatz. James Gatz grew up poor, his parents were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people”, a fact that filled Gatsby with shame about his identity and his past (Fitzgerald 104) . But when Gatz went off to fight in the war he was determined to revise his identity. All because of Daisy. Daisy was beautiful and wealthy. Gatsby soon became infatuated and saw Daisy as the key to his happiness. Gatsby felt that Daisy would never truly love him and marry him if he was poor. James Gatz changed his name to Jay Gatsby to symbolize his newly attained lifestyle and wealth, Gatsby “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself” in reference to the greek philosopher Plato, who often spoke on the idea of the real world versus the ideal world (Fitzgerald 104). Gatsby created himself a facade, or mask to present to the real world, because he knew that who he was raised to be would not please the ideals of Daisy’s lifestyle.

Despite the fact that his lavish lifestyle was only a facade, Gatsby still represented the interpretation of the phrase “new money”, while Daisy, her husband Tom Buchanan and both of their bloodlines had been basking in the glory of wealth for years. Gatsby felt inadequate compared to Daisy’s new husband, Tom Buchanan, when he says, “‘ She never loved you, do you hear?” He cried. “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me” (Fitzgerald 130). Through Gatsby’s tainted view of the American dream he assumed that Daisy would never love him if he was poor, exposing the bias that many Americans have towards poverty. In the eyes of Americans, if you’re not successful financially, then you must not be working hard enough. The only reason Gatsby wished to attain the riches he had was to feel worthy of Daisy, who he saw as his link to happiness.

Gatsby only found his own happiness within Daisy’s happiness. And long before Gatsby acquired his riches, he concluded that money was the way to secure Daisy’s happiness and love. When Gatsby finally has Daisy at his newly obtained mansion, he desperately tries to make sure that everything was flawless, “He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes” (Fitzgerald 91). Gatsby strived for the reassurance of Daisy on behalf of his own feelings of adequacy. Gatsby was fixated on Daisy’s reactions to his valuables to prove to himself that he was good enough for her.

Gatsby inherently knew that a self created man of new money like himself would never reach the standards set by the high class society that Daisy came from, “Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees- he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he would suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder” (Fitzgerald 110). This ladder represents Gatsby’s envision of the American dream, He knew that he could reach the dream that he had been hunting for so long, but he would have to do it alone. Instead, he became entranced in Daisy’s “perishable breath” and at that moment he had unconsciously determined his fate by losing himself within another human being, who was charmed only by wealth and the ideals of living a high class life (Fitzgerald 110).

In the end Gatsby truly never was good enough for Daisy. Gatsby’s dire wishes of love and wealth resulted in his own death. On the final page of the novel the narrator and great admirer of Gatsby, Nick, describes Gatsby’s pursuit and warped view of what happiness means and how to attain it, “Gatsby believed in the greenlight, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out farther….and one fine morning-” (Fitzgerald 180). This warped view of the correlation between money and happiness is the reason for Gatsby’s death. Gatsby had been fixated on this greenlight at the end of Daisy’s dock across the water from his house. This greenlight represents all of Gatsby’s goals in life, Daisy and a richer financial status. The greenlight unmasks the juxtaposition between the American dream and the American reality. Nick alludes to the idea that no matter how hard you strive to accomplish the set societal ideals of the American dream, money is not what brings joy and happiness. For Jay Gatsby the green light will forever remain on the other side of the water. James Gatz was an insignificant member of society who craved a richer lifestyle and purpose. Simplistically Gatsby does represent the American dream, he worked hard and got the money in the end. The American dream circulates around the pursuit of wealth, but the American reality is what is exposed in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald reveals the snobbish filth of upper class Americans while simultaneously highlighting that none of these people of great wealth are actually happy in life. The Great Gatsby purposefully falsely embodies the American dream to make evident that money does not bring happiness.