The Great Gatsby And The American Dream
The Great Gatsby and the American Dream
F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby is considered by many to be THE novel about the American Dream. On a less grand scale, the book is certainly a representative of 1920s society, a time when the values and morals of the eighteenth and nineteenth century were declining in favor of the materialism and narcissistic attitudes following the First World War.
The American Dream of the eighteenth and nineteenth century was a proper place in society, which could be realized through self-reliance and self-confidence. This was based on the idea of personal responsibility.
The tide began to shift in the early twentieth century. People began to revel in new mass-produced commodities such as the radio. Automobiles became the symbol of status, the thing everyone needed to have. This attitude led people to think that social prestige no longer came from how self-sufficient one was – rather, it was based on how much property and how many goods one person had. Instead of earning a place in society, people began to believe they could simply purchase it. The American Dream was up for sale and the new mantra of the masses
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