Gatsby essay

The notion of the American dream figures prominently in this story.  How do readers define the American dream? Moreover, is pursuing the American dream necessarily a good thing?

    In the great gatsby the American dream is extremely prominent throughout the story, through the heartbreaks, betrayal  and eventually death of gatsby.the book shows us how the characters have achieved the American dream but are missing one important thing that another person has, this will create tension and conflict between the characters in the book. The American dream is having wealth, a beautiful wife, children  and happiness In my eyes that is the American dream and the book shows us it’s version of it. The american dream can be a good thing and a nice goal to strive for however in this book the chasing of the American dream end up in tragedy.
    The main character Nick is trying to achieve the American dream by going to New York and attempting to achieve a new life after his military service. He hears many things about gatsby, a rich good looking guy who everyone seems to admire. Already we can see that gatsby has achieved the American dream by having extreme wealth, a nice house etc. However gatsby is missing one thing in his life and that’s love. Our main character dosnt find this out, not until he actually meets gatsby. We soon find out that gataby is madly in love with a woman named daisy but she’s married with another man named Tom. Gatsby could care less about his wealth, house and luxurious lifestyle. All he wants is daisy and we soon find out that gatsby is so blind that he would do anything for daisy. An example of this is when daisy kills someone by running her over, gatsby takes the blame and is willing to go to jail just so daisy can be ok and unharmed. Daisy in return hose back to her husband and dosnt even thank gatsby. Gatsby clearly knows/sees this but still decides to protect her. This shows us how gatsby chasing the American dream is harmful and enthrall gets him killed later on in the book
   Another example of the American dream being bad is through the betrayal in every event in this book. Everyone we meet is arguably chasing the American dream. They all want wealth, nice houses, status etc. Gatsby is admired by all and in the eyes of everyone else he has already achieved the American dream, so everyone else uses him to achieve their own goals. Once things turn sour they simply abandon gatsby, since he no longer can help them in their own goals, the only exception in this is nick. When gatsby dies no one shows up, none of gatsby so called ‘friends’ shows up. No one except nick he shows up. This is not the only example of betrayal in the book. Another example is when Tom frames gatsby as the killer of the woman who daisy killed by running her over. Tom did this to get rid of gatsby. Tom was jealous of gatsby and saught to get rim of him for attempting to steal daisy from him. Tom already has wealth, daughters and a nice house and he has a mistress yet he still wants daisy. This shows of the crab like mentality of the people chasing the American dream, ‘if I can’t have it no one can’. Once again showing us how the American dream is not a good thing.
    The death of gatsby is the final example of how achieving the American dream is bad. Gatsby spent his whole life trying to achieve the dream, and he almost did all he needed was daisy, but he was killed. Shot in the back of the head. All the hard work and dedication went away, all the years of trying to achieve the dream went down the drain. This is an example of how the chasing of the American dream is hard work and sometimes you can work hard and still not achieve it.
    The American is a good thing but there will be other people who undoubtedly will get jealous of you get too ahead and sometimes will try to stop you. The pursuit of the American dream is a good thing, however as the book showed us. If you try to take something from someone to achieve the dream it’s gona blow up in your face.