The American Dream is said to be realised through hard work and perseverance ; it is ostensibly a reachable goal for anyone who chooses to exercise their ‘inalienable right’ to the ‘pursuit of Happiness.’ This ambiguous phrase, ‘the pursuit of Happiness’ was originally inserted into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson and is a clear and overriding concern in The Great Gatsby. In the 1920s, when the novel is set, America was experiencing a newfound level of prosperity; the economy was booming and the possibility of gaining wealth became an achievable reality. As a result, the pursuit of happiness in The Great Gatsby is far from the founding fathers’ initial intentions and instead, in this new context, Fitzgerald demonstrates the confusion of happiness with money and social standing. American ideals were replaced with a fixation to gather material wealth regardless of consequence, and success no longer required hard work. Fitzgerald clearly depicts this mutated pursuit of happiness through the setting and characterisation in the novel. Revolutionary Road similarly reflects this altered American pursuit through the naivety and self-delusion of the characters and their actions.
The settings in The Great Gatsby reflect the socio-historic context of the novel and the nature of different characters’ pursuits of happiness. Gatsby’s residence defines him as a member of the nouveaux riches as its description makes his property seem tastelessly new, as suggested by the ‘thin beard of raw ivy’ that unattractively exposes efforts to appear aged, and characterless as a ‘factual imitation of some Hotel-de-Ville in Normandy’ implies it is a plain copy with no creativity expended for its creation. The interior of Gatsby’s home …
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Ford, Richard. “Introduction” in : Yates, R., Revolutionary Road, (2001 edition), Methuen Publishing Ltd, London.
Mullan, John. “Sweet Sorrow” in The Guardian, 9th October, 2004.
O’Nan, Stewart. “The Lost World of Richard Yates”, in: Boston Review, October/November, 1999.
Worrell, Rob. “Gatsby and Revolutionary Road. The Dream Children of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Richard Yates.” In: emagazine, September 2005, pp. 38-40.
Other relevant literature:
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winter DreamsHemingway, The Sun Always RisesRobert E. Sherwood, The Petrified ForestShakespeare, Sonnet 94T.S. Eliot, The Hollow MenPlato, The Symposium
Other material:
Abrahms, Feminism, Psychoanalytical, Marxist.
Lodge, D. Unreliable narrator, Metafiction.
Welles Page, Ellen, “A Flapper’s appeal to Parents” in Outlook Magazine, December 6th, 1922.
