The novel The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald pushes the idea of the American dream, the idea that anyone, with enough hard work, can become rich and successful. The idea of the American dream was pushed throughout the 1920’s to bring hope and happiness to the American people. The author of this book using characters and settings to show the unrealistic hopes of the American dream, F Scott Fitzgerald uses the two Eggs and the Valley of ashes to use settings to show the hopelessness of the American dream, the author also using characters to show how the American dream has failed.
The American dream pushes the idea that every single person, no matter where they were born or who they were born to can. with enough hard work, become rich and successful, using setting the author shows this is not true. By using the setting of East Egg and West Egg F Fitzgerald shows a stark contrast between what he calls old and new money, in east egg every person living there has made their enormous amounts of money via their parents, inheritance and so forth. In west egg the residents are the opposite, they have believed in the American dream and worked to create their dream lifestyles. The author shows however that residents who have created their own money are never treated the same as other wealthy residents as the residents from East Egg believe they are more sophisticated and less corrupt than people from West Egg, the author uses the quote “I lived in West Egg – well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is the most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.” this quote suggests that Nick believes West egg is the less sophisticated of the two, suggesting that the money earned on that side of the bay had been earned less legitimately and so is undeserving, this quote is reinforces by Toms remark later while they are in New York stating “Everyone in West Egg is a bootlegger” again showing the divide between the two and the illegitimacy of West Egg.
Another location used by Fitzgerald is the Valley of Ashes which represents the failures of the American dream. While West Egg represents how the American dream creates criminals and corruption amongst those striving to do their best the Valley of Ashes represents how good people are failed by the concept of the American dream, the Valley of Ashes is a gloomy industrial area in Queens. The author uses the character George Willson and his wife Myrtle to illustrate the way people can work throughout their whole life to become rich but never actually achieve this.
In conclusion the author F Scott Fitzgerald uses setting a character to show 3 different circumstances where the American dream has failed and why, he uses characters to show the unrealistic expectations portrayed by the American dream.
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