IDEAS

The Myth of the American Dream

The American Dream is the idea that everyone, regardless of race, social status, gender, upbringing, religion, economic status, etc can achieve success (wealth and power) if they work and strive hard enough. It presumes a myth of class equality, where old money, new money and the lower class all have the ability and resources to achieve this “dream” of a better life than what they were given at birth. It is an ideal reality, a “dream”, meaning that it is not real and the product of our own perceptions. At the beginning of the novel we get the experience an optimistic view of the American Dream, “Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought; anything at all”. Nick describes the initial perspective of the dream while travelling over the Brooklyn Bridge; people of different races and nationalities racing towards New York City, a city of unfathomable possibility “a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl”. This precise moment shows the promise of the American Dream, with all the classic elements of racial equality, religious diversity and economic prosperity. However, as the plot thickens, this perfect promise of success is undermined by the actions carried out by the upper class and the tragic events to come. The socioeconomic layers of society each reveal a different factor about the American Dream.

New York is a city defined by prosperity, hope and success, where “anything is possible”. People go to NYC in an attempt to achieve the American Dream, as it allows them to experience “the illusion” for a limited period of time. “With the influence of the dress, her personality had also undergone a change”. Myrtle goes to NYC to experience “the dream” and pretend that she is wealthy, but when the night is up her performance is over and she must go back to reality, which happens by Tom breaking her nose. In a sense, her life is like a fairytale, in particular, the tale of Cinderella. She gets to “change her costume” and “live the dream” in New York City but once the clock has struck midnight, reality kicks in and the illusion unfolds. New York City is an illusion, it is a creation by society used to lure future generations into the idea that if your ambitions are strong enough you can achieve “the dream”. A conception of illusion and corruption, incorporated together to inspire hope, desire, belief, and ambition in the citizens of America.

The Valley of Ashes exposes the true nature of “the dream” and represents the failure of such. The land serves as a metaphoric symbol of a land that only produces dust and death. The characters living within the valley constantly work hard to achieve success, but keep being pushed back by those in the upper class. The dream fails them over and over again, revealing that it does not work the same way for every class. The land serves as a prison of some sorts, and the fact is that it truly is impossible to escape indicating that the achievement of “the dream” is impossible for them. Myrtle and George Wilson represent people that are aiming to achieve the dream through honest means; George owns his own garage and is trying his hardest to get business: “when are you going to sell me that car” he asks Tom. Although his ambitions and work ethic are strong, he is increasingly worn down by the harsh demands of his life. Myrtle on the other hand, chases “the dream” in a pursuit of wealth and status through her affair with Tom. The couple and all other inhabitants of the Valley of Ashes are all disembodied by a lack of money and equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity due to their honesty and desire to obtain wealth through law abiding ways. In the end, the events have horrific consequences for Myrtle and George Wilson, suggesting that in this world it is dangerous to strive for more than you are given.

West Egg society represents the corruption of the American Dream, they residents of such have achieved their wealth through illegal or illicit means. Gatsby himself come from humble roots, and through hard work he rises to become notoriously wealthy. In the classic approach to the dream, Americans obtain their wealth through honest work, but in Gatsby’s case, he obtains his wealth through illegal activities such as bootlegging and organised crime. They are “Just a bunch of bootleggers” who collectively are the corruption of the American Dream, as “the dream” causes people to cheat at life. The Dream can never truly be achieved and only through the means of illegal, illicit, and corrupt activities, therefore making it false and unachievable by all classes.

East Eggers represent the established aristocracy of society, who were “given the dream” through inherited wealth and family dynastization. The characters living within East Egg have inherited their money from ancestors and live comfortably in the comfort of the reassurance of their wealth. Because of this, they directly antagonize “the dream” in a pursuit to keep it between their “distinguished secret society”, Daisy by refusing Gatsby and Tom by dragging the Wilson’s into a tragedy. Collectively, Daisy and Tom are described as “bored and careless” people who live in the comfort of their own wealth, allowing others to clean up the messes that they make. Because of this, they end up instigating a large amount of tragedy upon others through the means of their own recklessness. The green light situated in East Egg, at the end of Daisy’s dock symbolizes the hope and longing felt by other classes to have what old money possess, to be given the dream at birth. It’s specific position is in East Egg, where old money society society live, is no coincidence and is specifically placed there as a symbolic reference to the open ended hope felt by the lower classes. Hope is the first factor in a life devoted to service, if that hope is an unattainable thing then your hope is not tangible and is felt for an illusion. Gatsby looks out at that dream in a desperate and longing way to have exactly what they have. His hope and longing is a collective feeling for what all of society feels about the East Eggers. In summary, the vastly different upbringings of characters and their income inequality defines your outcome and how “the dream” will sympathize with you. The way that any of the characters have chosen to live their life, their morality or lack thereof, doesn’t seem to matter in the end, what you are given in the beginning stays the same and you cannot change it through honest means. The dream is a merciless creature to those born in lower class society and a pitiful one to those in the upper class, you can only defy the dream through corruption making it unobtainable and false. Through the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald seems to imply that there is a small window that is open for certain dreams and aspirations but once the window is closed, they can no longer be attained just like Gatsby’s pursuit for Daisy, time is the window that was once open, as it moved forwards the window was closed.

The Inevitability of Time

The concept of time is represented through water. Water is a symbol of time, a constant flow, the gradual dispersion of energy and inevitable conclusion to all human life. Time is constant, it cannot be avoided, evaded, or escaped, as life will always move with it, regardless of how much we want to go back or move still. Daisy and Gatsby are separated by a bay of water, which represents the time that they have spent apart from each other and the changes that have occurred during this period. Time is the only true unit of measure, it gives proof to the existence of matter, without it we do not exist, it shows how we change both mentally and physically over a certain period. Daisy cannot forget how she has moved on with life by marrying Tom and having a child. Gatsby might be able to delude himself into thinking that he can repeat the past, but it is short lived. We all remember what happened to us and can never go back to a time before something so traumatic happened. Gatsby’s belief in repeating the past; “Can’t repeat the past?” …… “Why of course you can!”, ultimately leads to his death, the inevitable conclusion. Daisy is the epitome of Gatsby’s yearning, such a longing also seems to lead him into desiring to evade the limitations of time or the arrow of time. It has now developed not only into a longing for a new persona, but to create a new space-time world, where history is rewritten and him Daisy can be together; “he resides only particularly at West Egg, for he exists simultaneously on two planes: the mythic or the impersonal and the human, the immaterial and the real”. The novel is permeated by the struggle against time and Gatsby’s quest to repeat the past, it is as if the characters are haunted by the constance of time. In chapter 5, Daisy and Gatsby meet again for the first time in 5 years, while Gatsby sits awkwardly on the sofa he accidentally knocks the clock off of Nick’s mantlepiece with Daisy watching, this represents the time lost between them. Making up for this event, he rescues the defunct timepiece by “catching it”. Although Gatsby has now make up for his losses, time will ironically put him back in his place through his inevitable death.

The setting in which the novel takes place is a hole in time, an alternate dimension, in which the corrupt present is cancelled out by the corrupted past. Gatsby’s illusion involves reinstating the past in the present, to “wipe the slate clean” and begin once again as if life has not moved forward. Time in the Great Gatsby is represented through water, which is a motif for purity, rebirth, and the ridding of sins. To begin, before adopting the name Jay Gatsby, his name was originally James Gatz. He noticed Dan Cody’s yacht on Lake Superior and decided to “save the day” by warn him about the upcoming storm, introducing himself as “Jay Gatsby” he was therefore reborn as a person. Fitzgerald explains it as “He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career – when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior”. His whole life changed from that moment on, no longer was he the son of two modest farmers but rather a money making businessman who was able to create a life for himself through corrupting the American Dream.

Secondly, water can be conveyed through purity and the ridding of sins during Gatsby’s death. In his final moments he decides to go for “the last swim of the summer” in his pool. He has not used his pool for the entire summer, leaving time stilled and immobile. As he enters the water, time has caught up with him, surrounding his body, cooling his skin. His body ripples the water, time which has been left untouched all summer is finally catching up on him.