The American Dream in The Great Gatsby and "Winters Dream"

Essay by mitchterrellHigh School, 10th gradeA-, October 2014

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Mitch Terrell

Mrs. Kangas

Honors English, Hour 3

3-24-14

The American Dream or an Onion

The American Dream is an endless onion. One will find endless layers of the American dream onion to peel back in order to grasp for an unattainable center. Only tears will be achieved from this endless peeling of the onion's layers. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed this metaphor to be true and that is evident in his Novel The Great Gatsby and his short story "Winter Dreams." The illusion and the empty promises of the American dream is exploited by Fitzgerald in his Novel and short story by his exemplary use of symbols, his ability to depict greed and corruption within his characters, and his depiction of the balance of hope.

Fitzgerald has an incredible ability to use symbols within his writings to serve as a deeper meaning. In The Great Gatsby the green light and valley of ashes both represent the illusion of the American dream in a different way.

After Nick Caraway had visited his wealthy cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan, he returned to his West Egg house and noticed his neighbor, Gatsby, reaching for something. Nick "glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock," (Fitzgerald GG 21). Gatsby is reaching out for this green light because he believes it brings him closer to Daisy. Gatsby thinks that if he could just have Daisy, his quest for the American dream would be complete. Fitzgerald uses symbolism to show the unattainability of the American dream with this "minute" "green light" far in the distance by portraying the American dream as always one step ahead and how there is always one more thing to add to the...