The Great Gatsby American Dream Essay Example

The American dream is more than just a dream, and it’s very attainable. The American dream means long hours and endless days of you aiming toward the desired objective. Most dreams people are born with Gatsby in the story The Great Gatsby. While other dreams are born through pain, suffering, and dark times, for example, the black community, like Joe, in Their eyes, was watching God.

The process may be hard and long, you may even have doubt or may even be driven mad, but the main key is to keep the focus on the dream until it turns into reality. That’s easy to say but hard to do, yet when you face so much pain in life like the immigrants who cross the border from a nightmare, what else is there to chase but a dream? Many successful people speak about their hardships and hard times and how the pain they felt from that trauma drove them to success.

Like Gatsby, other than being born with the idea of being an aristocrat, the pain he felt from Daisy drove him mad to where he had no choice but to make his dream of reaching the top for their love’s sake. Another example is Joe, in Their eyes, watching God. Joe was laughed at when he told the town about his ambitions.

Joe was struggling to live in a low-income environment, in other words, the “ghetto.” Yet, he only kept his eyes on his dreams as he walked through a nightmare. Eventually, it turned into reality with him opening businesses within the town and giving the people of the town opportunity they’ve only dreamed of. Not only that, he became the mayor of the town.

Once was laughed at, then later, their jaws dropped, and all he did was keep the focus on the dream, knowing it’ll turn into a reality. This occasionally happens in America. People become rich or famous after being laughed at and humiliated when they tell someone about their ambitions. The key to achieving the American dream is to believe in your dream day in and day out, no matter what. As shown in the stories, let your pain fuel enough to have an endless gas tank to make your dream and reality.

Not saying that pain is a must to achieve your dreams, yet for those who are strong-minded towards their goals, it’s a perk. Gatsby didn’t set out his rise towards the top until the heartache he felt from Daisy. Daisy gave birth to a family of very wealthy aristocrats. At the same time, Gatsby came from a family of farmers who were financially unstable. Daisy’s parents disapproved of the two having a relationship, for he didn’t meet the requirements.

Driven mad by love and his desire to reach the top and gain an aristocratic level, Gatsby did what he had to do: bootlegging. Just to turn his dream into a reality. The American dream is attainable, even though it may not be easy due to how the economy is structured. Yet, it’s possible to turn your American dream into a reality, as shown in both stories and daily throughout life.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston quotes, “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some, they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.” Meaning that men’s dreams are just that, “a dream,” and they keep reaching and aiming for it, yet in reality, they’ll never reach it. She highlights how it’s practical for men to dream big and showcase the idea of unrealistic dreams.

This differed from Gatsby, for Gatsby was a big dreamer and had insurmountable faith. In The Great Gatsby, it quotes, “The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.”

Highlighting how Nick achieved the American Dream through hard work, contrasting to their eyes, were watching God, where Hurston talks about how it’s not attainable even though Joe made his dream possible throughout the story. In conclusion, the American dream is attainable.