Prompt: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your design.
Strategy 4: Begin with Background Information
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a book that tells us about the American Dream in the 1920s when the dream became corrupted because of all the people who were obsessed with becoming wealthy. The energy that used to go into gaining wealth and success the noble way now went into trying to gain power and have a showy lifestyle. The Great Gatsby is retelling the culture of the roaring ’20s, and its primary purpose was to show the failure of the American Dream. Their immoral actions corrupted the dream that everyone wanted so badly in the Great Gatsby.
The lives of all the characters were prime examples of excessive consumerism. Gatsby lived the same way that others like him lived, even though he had to work his way up to it, he pretends like he achieved the American Dream. However, he still needed to be assured that he was “ good enough” or “rich enough”. Gatsby’s American Dream was to have success and win Daisy. The American Dream was to be achieved through hard work, but Gatsby and so many others tried to achieve it through corrupt methods. The parties that Gatsby had every week in the summer were a symbol of this time because Gatsby would stay in the house while the guests would party without even meeting the host or knowing where he was.“ Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New york- Every monday these same oranges and lemons left his backdoor in a pyramid of pulpless halves.” (Fitzgerald 39). This showed his disregard for money. Gatsby’s lack of a love life is also a way of criticizing the American dream because Gatsby and Daisy had an affair. The Great Gatsby is representing the corruption of society because it shows how people will do anything to get money and power.
- Scott Fitzgerald had a lot to say about the failure of the American Dream. He had published two great stories that had criticized the American dream. One is The Great Gatsby and the other being The Swimmers. The story Swimmers is about an American that worked for a conditional trust bank, and how he realizes how American ideals have been corrupted by money.In both stories, Fitzgerald uses immorality to show how the world has broken promises and betrayals of faith. The bad guy in the word “ The Swimmers’ ‘ is a wealthy banker that talks about how money is everything and how it has formed the country. Little does he know is that the only reason he has made so much money is because of the illegal jobs he did.
The images of America presented by Fitzgerald can be seen as a celebration of the American Dream. Gatsby was once a poor farm boy that had worked hard throughout his life to rise to the top and become rich. Although Gatsby worked hard every day to become wealthy, what people do not know is that he did illegal work….meaning even though there is a law that prohibits something from being done you will try to find a way to break the law to make money and become rich. Suppose Gatsby had to sell bootleg alcohol to become successful. In that case, Fitzgerald is clearing criticizing the American Dream because he is saying that the only way to become successful in the American Dream is to do an illegal activity which would later affect the world.
The Great Gatsby is a representation of a bad ending to the American dream. It shows how most of the characters are clueless and corrupt. The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone. (Barone) Gatsby’s life in wrongdoings gave him a lot of money but what he didn’t get was happiness or freedom. So he was never able to see what the American Dream was like.