Fitzgerald And His "American Dream"

As an important part of American value system , the " American dream " is admired by most American people . It makes them believe that in the United States , people share the same opportunities and they will succeed only if they work hard . Its specific content has changed greatly with the development of American history . At first , it was the dream for free belief and free creation . Then it developed to the pursuance for happiness and success . After the Civil War , it was specified as the yearning for enterprise , love and wealth . After WWI , it changed to the love of omnipotent money and the status of upper-class .Fitzgerald's works , which was bearing the distinct characteristics of that time , described the social life in the Jazz Age and brought forth new ideas in both their forms and their contents . At the same time , they always expressed the writer's worship of the past glorious times . Therefore , American dream became the best point of view for him to handle his subject matters . He paid great attention to the impact caused by the dreams on the personalities , the separation between ideas and the realities and people's melancholy for the burst of their dreams .This was expressed in his three representative novels .Fitzgerald's first novel , This Side of Paradise , narrated Amory Blaine's mental progress . In fact , this is the progress of the post-war youth's spirit . For the hero , Princeton was a land made up of a group of upper-class people . They intimated and competed with each other in order to climb up the summit of the society .The writer shared the same object with Amory :to obtain the privilege of the upper-class society .It appeared that Amory's fate was different from the writer's early success ,But Fitzgerald had already forecast that his final result wouldn't be consistent with his wish because his dream lacked the substantial bases .In the Great Gatesby , this worry became reality .This novel established his status in American literature . In this story , Gatesby pursued his lover persistently but ended with failure and death . It revealed the law that American dream was destined to vanish and reappeared the cruel reality of the Jazz Age . The ending of the story indicated the non-reality of American dream . That everyone has the hope of success was just a lie of the capitalists . Tender Is the Night was a story about an ambitious young doctor , who gave up his enterprise for the sake of love . But because of his humble origin , he was abandoned mercilessly by his lover in the end . There was more than one reason that caused his tragedy , but the most important was his fancy for the upper-class society and misjudge of his ability . Except the failure of the utopian dream for love and enterprise , the novel reflected the impracticability of the whole "American dream" .