A Study Of The Theme Of The American Dream Through Martin Eden, The Great Gatsby, And An American Tragedy

Jack London (1867-1916), F. Scott Fitzgerald (1895-1940) and Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) are great American writers. Although they lived in the different times of America, London's Martin Eden, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Dreiser's An American Tragedy all share the same theme - tragedy of the American Dream.The American Dream arose in the colonial period and developed in thenineteenth century, based on the assumption mat each person, no matterwhat his origin was, could succeed in life on the sole basis of his ownskill and effort. But the reality was cruel and many people couldn't fulfilltheir dreams but end in failure, some of them even ended with a tragicending - death. The three novels' leading characters all ended in deathand the novels show us from different times and different angles that theAmerican Dream is corrupted and easily broken.