International Journal of Language & Literature

The American dream in “The Great Gatsby” by F. S. Fitzgerald
Ivana Nakić Lučić

Abstract
The paper is about the theory of the American dream that can be observed through several characters: Jay Gatsby, George Wilson and Myrtle Wilson. Jay Gatsby illustrates the very essence of the American dream according to which an individual can succeed in society regardless of his own origin and history. In the world of cheap, consumable ideals, rapaciousness and hypocrisy, Gatsby is a dreamer, idealist, carried by illusions, he appears to be grotesque and absurd surrounded by greedy people. In a symbolic sense, Gatsby shows Fitzgerald's consciousness of the irreconcilability of money and beauty, ideal goals and corrupted methods, dreams about personal happiness and the awareness of their fragility. Money is for Fitzgerald the source of immense physical beauty, on the one hand, and evil, on the other, so the two can not exist without being mutually dependent. The story about the incurable idealist and impostor Gatsby who created and bolstered the myth about his origin himself, becomes in this way a parable about the unhappy ending of the great American dream.

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