'He paid a high price for living too long with a single dream'. Explore the theme of dreams in 'The Great Gatsby'. How significant is this theme in other American texts you have read?

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‘He paid a high price for living too long with a single dream’.  Explore the theme of dreams in ‘The Great Gatsby’.  How significant is this theme in other American texts you have read?

One of the principle themes of Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ is that of dreams - all inextricably bound to the American Dream.  The ideology of spiritual and material success is one that is powerfully explored through Jay Gatsby’s character and his passion for Daisy Buchannan.  The American Dream is justice, liberty, equality and wealth which it claims, can all be achieved through thrift and hard work.  The theme of the American Dream or the Anti-Dream has and continues to be frequently used as the central theme in American literature.

Jay Gatsby’s dream is to gain, status, wealth and the love of Daisy Buchannan, who embodies everything that Gatsby yearns for.  The setting of the novel represents the status that Gatsby dreams of.  Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby both live in West Egg, which is representative of ‘new money’.  Whereas Daisy and Tom Buchannan live in East Egg, which is inhabited by people with ‘old money’.  In chapter 7, at the Plaza Hotel, Tom, deploring Gatsby’s advances to Daisy, calls him ‘Mr. Nobody from Nowhere’.  Given the rootless drifting that seems to characterise the lifestyle of the Buchannans and their class this criticism might seem misplaced.  But Tom is really asserting that America belongs to him and to his kind, and that this upstart who has bypassed the orthodox channels to social respectability has no claim to recognition.  Utopia, the term for an ideal society, is derived from Greek words meaning ‘Nowhere’.  Gatsby not only captures the utopian dream, but is, in a sense, a utopian figure.  Gatsby’s dream to be part of the ‘old money’ social circle forces him to make-up stories, which complete a puzzle of the façade he is trying to create.  Nick claims that these stories are ‘like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines’, and although he is seduced by them, he also remains sceptical about their authenticity as he had to ‘restrain [his] incredulous laughter’.  Throughout the novel, there is reference to a ‘green light’, which is situated at the end of the Buchannan’s dock.  This ‘green light’ becomes symbolic of Gatsby’s dream.  The first time Nick sees his neighbour Gatsby, he is alone, with ‘his arms stretched towards the dark water in a curious way’.  Gatsby is reaching towards the ‘green light’, stretching his arms out almost trying to capture his dream.  

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It becomes apparent that Gatsby had been trying to obtain his dream for a long time.  When Nick meets Gatsby’s father Mr Gatz, he shows him a ‘schedule’ that Gatsby had made ‘when he was just a boy’ at the back of one of his books.  Gatsby’s timetable mirrors that of Benjamin Franklin’s, who is a self-made and self-sufficient man who embodies the American Dream.  However, there is a contrast, as Franklin’s timetable is about accepting oneself, but bettering, as at the end of everyday he would reflect ‘what good’ he has done.  Whereas Gatsby’s is about re-inventing himself ...

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