Part 2
The American dream in part 1 is regarded as a yearning to transform people's spiritual pursuit into material consumption. It means that people want to show their value to the society by consuming. It is also reflected in The Great Gatsby. The book shows the hypocrisy and materialism of the upper class and hints at their economic decline after the boom of the 1920s. Everyone in the book loves money, being famous and having a rich life is their American Dream, which is consumerist.
In the story, when Daisy found that Gatsby is not one of the“old money”and he is absolutely one of the“new money”, she felt so uncomfortable that she made a car accident on their way back. which lead the death of Myrtle Wilson. Disillusioned Daisy imputed the car accident to Gatsby with Tom.
Daisy was born in a rich family so that she has experienced rich life. She needs to be one of the“old money” to realize her American Dream, which means the only thing she needs is to have an aristocratic temperament. Compared to the“old money”, the“new money” is as rich as them, what they lacked is noble aesthetics. Although Gatsby has earned a lot of money, his flamboyant parties disgust Daisy. Gatsby always stands at the balcony of the third floor, with opening arms. He wants to hug the light tower which is shining in green lights. After World War I, advertisements were very popular, what people want to do is go shopping, go consuming. Rich people had nothing to do except holding huge parties. At this time, people who think they are noble tried to be sharply demarcated from these rich people. They thought they have noble blood and they are well educated. No more goods to buy, these rich people were consuming their reputation as a way of realizing American Dream. The hypocrisy of the “old money” is that they think one who inherited the money from his family is a tradition, they ignore individual efforts.
Gatsby tried to one of the “old money” but he can never realize his American Dream because he has no reputation to consume when comparing to the “old money” like Tom.
To some of the rich people, what they want is not just money but also reputation, which has already been metamorphic to others. For those who are upstart, they can never be the people who are distinguished as the American Dream.
I did comments on Bill's work.
Hi, Vito. It is Victor here,
ReplyDeleteFrom my perspective, in the beginning of Part 2, you are adept at at linking back your personal definition of The American Dream to part 1. You said that “The American dream transforms people's spiritual pursuit into material consumption”, that is clear and idea of consumption sounds good. However, you do not link material consumption to the characters that are consumerists very clear because you did not analyze how consumption affects the characters’ emotions or behaviors. Why they are consumerists? What I feel is that you provide a lot of summaries of the events that happened in this novel. For example, Myrtle’s death reveals what? What caused Daisy’s material consumption? You should give a clear explanation to analyze whether it reflects Daisy’s material consumption or is material consumption becomes a tradition in Daisy’s opinion? Also, you show no link between material consumption and part 1.
In the second paragraph, the idea of Daisy’s material consumption is created because of improving aristocratic temperament, which is very specific, but also too much summaries here. You need to analyze why the upper class consumes their reputation to realize their American dream? What is the Old Money’s tradition that reveals their material consumption and eventually causes the failure of their American Dream? Both Old Money and New Money’s reputation is a good point but need to be explored in depth.
Besides, some of the vocabularies and structure here are quite good and inspire me a lot. I hope you can link more Part 1’s information and connects the idea of material consumption in Part 2 as well. Therefore, here are some suggestions I would like you to make some changes, hopes this will help.