Universidade de São Paulo

Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas

Departamento de Letras Modernas

Leituras do Cânon 3

Profa. Dra. Maria Elisa Cevasco

The American Dream in The Great

Gatsby, The Bluest Eye and The Book

of Daniel

                       

Juliana Koch de Mendonça No USP: 7191636

Junho 2014

This paper aims to analyze the three following American novels The

Great Gatsby, The Bluest Eye and The Book of Daniel through the ideas that

encompass the concept of the American Dream and are presented in the

novels.

The concept of the American Dream appeared in the 30’s, however this

does not mean that it was not around before that and that it does not exist

until nowadays. The American Dream is the concept of an ideal way of living

in the United States; it is based on the freedom of each and every man. It

means that it only depends on the people’s hard work to excel in life; people

thought that if they worked hard enough they would have their own house, a

proper education, a proper job, and that was the only way to a fully happy life.

The American Dream also related to the others economic systems of the

world, Liberalism, Nazism and Communism; the system in the United State

was/is Liberalism, and even though they preached for many kinds of freedom,

the government did not accept a different view of freedom from the

population. The American Dream of nowadays is still based on a consumer

society; people have to buy things to be happy.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a

summer in Nick Carraway’s life in the early 20’s. This novel is a the mark in

the American literature and the American Dream, it is consider to be a Great

American Novel along with other novels. Many readers consider that the main

theme of the novel is money, they are partly right; among various themes

there are two very important ones in the novel, money and fetishism over the

American Dream. Nick, the narrator, was at the same time fascinated and

intimidated by Jay Gatsby presence and way of living. The character of

Gatsby is the definition of the American Dream itself, he came from nothing

and built an empire, however, his dream of financial independence to finally

mesmerize Daisy was more likely accumulation of money and materialism

than economic freedom. And the most important point to analyze is that

Gatsby was never going to be in the higher level of society, people would

always know that he did not come from an Ivy League family, and all his hard

work, even if illegal, would be useless. Accordingly with the novel you are

whom you were born, and there is nothing that you can do to change this fact,

you can work hard, you can dream, but you will never change the real you.

Nick Carraway believed in the American Dream, he believed that Gatsby was

better than the Buchanans even coming from a simple past, and he said that

his own family was built from the Dream as he exposed in the follow

quotation: “The Carraways are something of a clan, and we

have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of

Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my

grandfather's brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a

substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware

business that my father carries on to-day.”(  FITZGERALD, 1994.

P.8.)

Nick believed that Gatsby, differently from the Buchanans, did not

really care about the fancy clothes and cars he only cared about Daisy. And

Daisy, on the other hand, as said by Gatsby, her “voice is full of money”1. She

was the real example of the American Liberalism and individualism; she only

cared about money and her own problems.

The Bluest Eye, novel written by Toni Morrison tells the story of many

characters that are part of the main character’s life, Pecola, and her desire to

have the bluest eye possible. In this novel the American Dream is represented

by the consumerism, but it is not only about consumerism of things it was also

about consuming appearances. Throughout the novel the characters always

refer to the beauty of the white people and the ugliness of the black, Pecola

drank three quarters of milk just to use a Shirley Temple cup. She dreamed

about how she would fit in the world if she had blue eyes. During the time that

the novel covers, the 40’s, and even until nowadays, people are influenced by

the media, also known as the mass culture, behave and to look like in a

specific way; and if you do not fit this look you are an outcast. Nowadays

magazines, movies, society influence people to lose weight and to be thin; in

the novel they influence people to be “white”. For the blacks characters in the

novel, the white were beautiful, they were pure, Pecola mother even treat

                                                                                                               1  FITZGERALD, F.S. The Great Gatsby.  Penguin Popular Classics, London, 1994. Page 126.  

better a child that was not hers because she was white, while she would only

scold her own daughter.

Claudia, other character in the novel, thought and acted differently from

Pecola, she did not like Shirley Temple, she did not desire to consume life she

desired to experience life. Claudia was revolted that the only dolls that she

had were blond, how could she be the mother of a blond baby? She did not

accept the fact that “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers,

window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-

skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.2” And in the peak of her

revolt she “destroyed white baby dolls”3. According to Susan Willis in her

article I want the black one: is there a place for Afro-American culture in

commodity culture?4 Claudia did not accept any kind to accommodation from

the white culture, she was against the supposed white superiority and she did

not want to be like Shirley Temple.

Pecola and Claudia were victims of the standardization of the American

Dream. The difference was that Pecola succumbed as a young girl, and for

Claudia it took a little longer as she expressed in the following sentence “I

learned much later to worship her (Shirley Temple), […] knowing, even as I

learned, that the change was adjustment without improvement.”5. Both girls

succumbed to the commodity fetishism imposed by the American Dream of

being white; the freedom of choice does not really exists. Claudia chose to be

different from the mass, but she had to adjust to society in order to life in

society. Pecola tried so hard to achieve the her American Dream of having

blue eyes that she could not bear it and went insane. This crazy ideal pre

establish by the white mass culture does not exist, in the same way that

Gatsby would never be really part of the higher level of society Pecola would

never be white.

                                                                                                               2 MORRISON, T. The Bluest Eye. Washington Square Press, New York, 1972. Page 20. 3 Ibid. Page 22. 4 WILLIS. S. I want the black one: is there a place for Afro-American culture in commodity culture? New Formations, number 10, Spring, 1990. Page 77.

5 MORRISON, T. The Bluest Eye. Washington Square Press, New York, 1972. Page 22.  

In The Book of Daniel, novel written by E. L. Doctorow, other aspect of

the American Dream can be analyzed is the political aspect. In the novel

Daniel investigated his parents execution by the US government on an

espionage charge. His parents were accused of being communists spies. The

Rosenberg couple inspired the novel; the Rosenberg were convicted and

executed by the American government accused of passing information about

the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Issacsons were communists but in

the end Daniel was uncertain about his parents innocence, and it does not

matter any way, because his parents were dead already, murdered by a

hypocrite government.

The novel’s plot is an example of conflict from the Cold War, United

States against Soviet Union, and Liberalism against Communism. The United

States was and still is a liberal country that promotes the inviolable rights of

the individual; some aspects of the liberalism is freedom of speech, freedom

of religion, equality under the law, and so on, all these ideals are parts of the

American Dream. It is interesting to analyze these ideals comparing with the

real action that goes on in the United States, because if a government preach

freedom of the individual its citizens are allowed to believe in whatever they

want, right? No, the US government accept only the ideas that they think is

acceptable, you are only acceptable if you act/think inside the freedom that

they determine. Take this metaphor as an example; people have the freedom

to choose between green and blue, but they are not allowed to choose red.

This is how the liberalism freedom works, Daniel parents were executed

because their thoughts were against the American ideology, and they did no

accept the different. And in the case of the Issacsons and the Rosenbergs,

the government went too far; they killed them as scapegoating, and all

because they were the pariahs of the mainstream America.

In the following passage from the novel Daniel speaks about the

relations between government and its citizens, “All societies are armed

societies. All citizens are soldiers. All Governments stand ready to commit

their citizens to death in the interest of their government.”6. This passage can

be related to the current situation here in Brazil, were the citizens are afraid to                                                                                                                6  DOCTOROW, E.L. The Book of Daniel. Random House, New York, 1971. Page 138.  

speak up and be harm by our own government. This was Daniel thought, he

realized that our own government is the one that oppresses the citizens, and

in the case of the novel it was not the Communism.

As the idea of the American Dream was present before, it is possible to

say that it is an attempt of the US government and the mass culture to create

a society that is always trying to be something they are not. Such freedom as

the American Dream promotes does not exist, because if people were really

free they would be able to be whomever they decided to be, without being

judged by others. The three novels discuss this concept in different ways; in

The Great Gatsby, Gatsby enriches but he would never fit in the high society,

he would never be accepted as a member of this society, because he had a

simple background. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola is the unhappiest girl because

she did fit in the beauty ideal proposed by society, and all she wanted to be is

accepted but she never did. And in The Book of Daniel, Daniel parents were

the ones that did not fit in the ideal society imposed by the government. There

fore, it is conclusive that the American Dream is a concept that stimulates the

fears, prejudice and ignorance in the citizens, the idea of being the pariah is

scared and people will do the best to fit in this impossible ideal of “perfection”.

Bibliography: DOCTOROW, E.L. The Book of Daniel. Random House, New York, 1971.

FITZGERALD, F.S. The Great Gatsby.  Penguin Popular Classics, London, 1994.

MORRISON, T. The Bluest Eye. Washington Square Press, New York, 1972.

WILLIS. S. I want the black one: is there a place for Afro-American culture in

commodity culture? New Formations, number 10, Spring, 1990.