Fitgerald\u27s American Dream: It Happens to One, Not the Ninety-Nine

This thesis examines how F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the American Dream in his fiction and how he establishes the inequality of the class system as the force which ruins the American Dream. Since we normally perceive America to be a land of opportunity and a land of equality, we often overlook the hierarchy of social classes in America. By describing the American elite’s aristocratic-like beliefs and behaviors and, in some works, transporting the wealthy Americans to Europe, Fitzgerald compares the social system in America to the rigid class structures of Europe. It is the European-like view of class in Fitzgerald’s fiction that destroys the American Dream. The desire for upper-class status destroys the idea of equality that is the basis of America. In Fitzgerald’s novels, The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, and his short stories, “Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of W-les,” “The Swimmers,” “One Trip Abroad, Babylon Revisited,” and “A New Leaf,” he depicts poor boys struggling to 99 44 earn money and achieve the American Dream. Their dreams are halted when they realize that upper-class status does not come with money or success. Money can be earned, but status is inherited. It is through two character types that Fitzgerald best reveals the dilemma of inequality’s effects on the American Dream: the Fitzgerald Types and the Aristocratic Americans. The Fitzgerald Types are the poor boys who aspire to become wealthy, to attain upper-class status, and to marry a socialite. The Fitzgerald Types naively believe that the Aristocratic American elite will accept them into their club. Even though the Fitzgerald Types may have earned their money, they are nouveau riche and declasse. No matter how wealthy the Fitzgerald Types they cannot buy status. They may be close enough to experience some of the same experience as those who inherit their wealth, but they never will fully achieve the American Dream because they are not content with bettering themselves and working hard for their money. Their desire to be one of the elite clashes with the fundamental belief that every American is equal, and therefore, their dream cannot become a reality because status corrupts it