What is the American Dream? In the Webster's New World Dictionary, dream is defined as: "a fanciful vision of the conscious mind; a fond hope or aspiration; anything lovely, etc." In F. Scott Fitzerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the lead character Jay Gatsby defines the American Dream as: everyone can rise to success no matter what his or her beginnings. In the First chapter of the novel, Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story gives …showed first 75 words of 1306 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1306 total…for Gatsby, because since his dream had dead, he has nothing to live on. After all, no matter how we the readers might look at Gatsby or think of him, we are all drawn to him by the sad knowledge that dreams themselves are perhaps often more beautiful than dream fulfilled. Most importantly, we cannot help but sympathizing Gatsby's tragic fate because to a degree, we all have a touch of Gatsby's idealism inside ourselves.