hello everybody and welcome back to another episode here from giglet your YouTube channel for all things books beards and Beyond Today I want to make a special shout out to Lava Dragon thank you very much for your kind comments and best of luck to you and all your classmates for your forthcoming test on this The Great Gatsby and the American dream I'll be exploring the theme itself today providing with a number of quotes techniques and Analysis so if you haven't already give this video a thumbs up do be sure to share this with all your friends and hit that Bell icon for more updates on the channel we're also across Twitter Instagram and Tik Tok if you haven't found us there just look for giglet and you'll be sure to find us so as far as today is concerned what you can do with the video not only take notes in your own copies but comment it's the giglet guarantee I will reply to every single comment I receive test yourself as well use this as a way of practicing apply the quotations and the relevant information I provide for you it be really really useful for you going forward and in addition just repeat viewings keep repeating your knowledge to really make sure you can build that up and strengthen it itself so context now we need to understand the American dream and the background of this in order to fully understand it itself now what's quite interesting about this is whilst The Great Gatsby was published in 1929 the term itself wasn't popularized necessarily in Fitzgerald time certainly not within the time that the book was published in fact the first proper usage of it and coinage of it comes in 1931 by the author James trlo where he is quoted as saying that it is that quote dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and Fuller for everyone with opportunity for each according to Ability or achievement so we've got to understand that the theme was there but the actual term of the American dream was not something that was really in usage at the time so we have to understand if the American dream itself was a an idea as an absolutely was but it wasn't really popularized or coined in such a term what does it actually mean well American Dream means many things but when you break it down into its simplest component parts when we think of the American dream we think of opportunity the idea of being able to grasp opportunity in the land of the free in America freedom freedom to create reinvent yourself and to build yourself up from nothing the idea of equality is also very important to this that everyone has equal chance at doing such a thing as well as upward Mobility your idea of working your way to the top coming from a ragster Rich's tail was one that was very alluring about America in addition all of these uh come from hard work that hard work will earn the success that is richly deserved so it's important to think of these when we consider it in the context of The Great Gatsby itself these are the five pillars one might say of the American dream and how it seemed now in the novel of The Great Gatsby the American dream is really seen around around one character and that is Jay Gatsby so how does the American dream come to Define him how does he become defined within the context of the American dream itself first of all when we look at Opportunity he reinvents himself from the name James gats notice the spelling there James very simplistic name very everyday kind of ubiquitous male name but gats as well that gatz it's almost that um has that more brutal connotation where if we change it to gats beaders the eloquence and the refinement that comes with it in addition to this equality Gatsby attempts to assimilate himself into the rich he doesn't see himself as nvo in terms of new Rich necessarily though he cours the people that are around that but he tries to become part of the old money particularly that aspect that Daisy is part of particular when he's using the phrase old sport he tries to create this veneer this aesthetic of him being somebody of the wealthier classes then Freedom Gatsby's parties are a symbol of what is known as the carnivalesque and that's a really important literary term I would encourage searching up this idea of Abandonment that in the form of his parties they're a symbol that everybody can um let loose and everybody is not tied to uh class structures rich and poor doesn't matter that the party and the element of the party is where people lose themselves in in a sense of freedom very clearly tied to the American dream that it's parties almost a microcosm of that however there are a couple of barriers and we'll go into more detail on this in a second notice upward Mobility Gatsby's means as kind of a bootlegger somebody who deals in what was then prohibited illegal alcohol creates kind of dubious ways of him creating this wealth uh for example characters like Dan Cody who he befriends Maya wolheim who he ends up doing a lot of work for it's alluded to throughout the Nolla shows how this idea of hard work and graft is actually something that Gatsby corrupts and actually Gatsby manipulates and and one might say cheats his way to whereas a number of the old money characters such as Tom and Daisy are quite morally corrupt You could argue that Gatsby himself is corrupt in the financial sense um particularly working with criminals also this idea of hard hard work because a root to these he his whole money and his foundations of his money are are built upon profits from BR bootlegging and illegal activity so while he pursues the American dream he pursues it through a illegal means and it's important to recognize that there are barriers to his pursuit of the American dream that he is just a common poor young man and for him to do this he has to almost Fast Track his way there through achieving it through as I said previously dubious means now on top of J this there are bad barriers to Gatsby's American Dream Gatsby's American dream is twofold it's the pursuit of money and wealth but it's equally the pursuit of Daisy Buchanan so how do these barriers manifest in terms of Gatsby's pursuit of his two-fold American dream of not only becoming rich and wealthy but also to gain the hand of Daisy bu Canan so firstly we have to establish this idea of old money with the exception of Jay Gatsby the rich characters within the Nolla carow and be Cannons all come from old money that's something that's generational and hereditary he cannot ever achieve that as much as he tries to in addition his true Pursuit as I mentioned before is Daisy Buchanan and the two become conflated sometimes he talks of how uh Daisy's voice uh you know sounds like money I'm paraphrasing there but he mentions this very keenly and it's important to recognize how the two are intertwined and A's fortunes and her connection to him are synonymous and deeply connected to his rise and fall in addition rumor and gossip the the Gatsby as a character does not physically appear and does not speak until a third of the way through in chapter 3 now he is a character who at the time uh is is seen as being associated with kais of Wilhelm that there's allegations he killed a man Gatsby's rumor and gossip make him already a Sinister kind of almost shadowy figure at the very start of the Nolla and it's something that he can't rid himself of particularly with his connections and associations to such uh jubia characters as may wolfine but the one thing as well above all of these that really pushes him back is time and the past his American dream is deep rooted to Daisy Buchanon and a memory of something that took place nearly 5 years ago and to quote Nick carow you can't repeat the past the sense that this moment in time with Daisy is gone and Gatsby's ill-fated attempts to achieve that are his ultimate undoing so moving forward I'm going to show you a number of key quotes here and how I would break these apart when discussing or studying the American dream and its presentation in the great Gat piece and they're going chronological order they also colorcoded with the giglet color scheme for the key words and phrases so he Gatsby stretched out his arm towards the Dark Water I distinguish nothing except a single green light minute and far away this quote comes from Nick carow in chapter 1 and it's important to see this idea of the if gatsis comes across as this uh Phantom likee figure at this beginning point the verb and phrase stretching out his arms this idea of reaching for something he never can is almost a microcosm and a symbol of how the American dream plays out in the Nolla Gatsby reaching for this light at the end of Daisy's dock he can never quite reach and never quite get to it's really important when we consider the fact that it's just that in the progression of the plot of the Nolla he never can get there he never does achieve it in its full Glory this single green light now the green here can be conveyed in different ways I've seen it interpreted as green as you know like a traffic light green for go green for money you know has different connotations this this light but the connotations of the light are important but it's just as important to remember where the light is it's on the dock of Daisy and Tom's house so it's this Pursuit and this distant Pursuit almost futile that the novel or the novela rather foreshadows in this very first quote now an interesting one here is this quote from Nick in the same chapter I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game now this quote is one of the rare exceptions where an old money character in this case Tom Buchanan the arguable antagonist of the Nolla is connected to the sense of the American dream this idea that is in his first presentation Nick sees him as someone who is is is trying to seek something he can never achieve again this idea of His Glory Days at University where he was a well-renowned sports Personality that he's going to constantly seek this notice that phrase forever seeking as well that is going to be always within him a turbulence that's very rarely hinted at in a novel beyond that point but it's a really interesting touch how while the vast majority of the American dream is centered around Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy and the pursuit of wealth that comes with that some of the other characters conveyed us as well and in this case it's Tom now one other quote from this first third is they talk notice the interesting description here by Nick carow of the food at Gatsby's party it describes buffet table turkey quote Bewitched to a dark gold now first this idea of gold is in money this idea that even the food itself has connotations of richness and achieving the American dream that it has this this element this aura or this at atmosphere of being part of the American dream that Gatsby is trying to facilitate this kind of aesthetic of the American dream but the verb there is quite telling as well Bewitched Nick is almost hinting to us here as the reader that even though Gatsby can put on all the food and can put on all the celebrations that even there there's an element of the corruption Bewitched there's almost something there of the darker Arts about how Gatsby has achieved all of this there a really important point to just notice now heading towards the middle third of the Nolla we see the few quotes here that are really important when tied to the American dream first of all he Gatsby hurried the phrase educated at Oxford or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had bothered him before so this is when the reader is introduced to Nick and Jay Gatsby having their first encounter together we see at this point notice the verbs hurried swallowed choked when Gatsby is attempting to provide his life story to Nick carway he he almost fails at it there's there's flaws already in the artifice of him pursuing and pursuing and achieving the American dream that he while he puts himself over as someone with immense wealth and hordes of riches and an incredible story of how he's visited all the capitals of Europe he when telling this to Nick almost stumbles and trips at the first hurdle the verbs hurried swallowed choked Show how he can't even get out his life story in any meaningful sincere manner in ition he literally glowed this is Gatsby again in chapter 5 when he is now with Daisy without a word or a gesture of exaltation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room this is the one part in the Nolla where Gatsby has almost achieved his goals and achieved his aims notice the verbs here glowed radiated filled that when he's that the American dream for Gatsby is not wealth it's actually Daisy because when he has Daisy we see his self- fulfillment and this idea of him finally achieving his ends and his means while the American dream for many is gathered up in a materialistic sense gaps be it's carried up in a more romantic and and almost uh a loving sense with Daisy this idea of glowed radiated filled that when he's got her he fills fulfilled particularly in the choice of those verbs there and then we carry on in this however Nick has a cautionary tale to note Nick mentions how no amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart there is a nod here where Nick is almost arguing for want of a better term that with Jay Gatsby is not the pursuit of any so-called American Dream but it's the pursuit of the past that Gatsby is really concerned with finalizing and completing what he never was able to as a soldier 5 years prior ghostly heart as well notice that Nick sees this in a really different way was Gatsby comes across as Forward Thinking and dynamic and he has all this latest technology the hydrop plane and the Flash car the circus wagon as Tom Buchanan describes it Nick sees him as someone who is quite regressive and in some cases and someone staring back into the past that his ghostly heart Gatsby's ghostly heart is fixated on something not of the future as in the American dream might be believed to be connected to but rather in the past and then we reach the final third of the Nolla we see here this one particular quote the truth was that Jay Gatsby of West EG Long Island sprang from his James gats platonic conception of himself he was a Son of God a phrase which if it means anything means just that so what we see here is the story this is around the subplot regarding Dan Cody and the invention of Jay Gatsby from the original James gats we see this idea of Jay Gatsby as a as a as an artifice as as a as a false creation uh Springs from a platonic con conception of himself Nick almost sees Jay Gatsby here as almost narcissistic as sort of self-loving this platonic conception of himself but also how he believes James gats AKA J Gatsby sees himself as a Son of God literally the Son of God okay that he has some greater Destiny beyond what his own family have for him so there's a real sense here that even from the beginning before he meets Daisy Buchanan that James gats AKA J Gatsby was always one to pursue this notion of the American dream Because he believes himself to be greater than Humanity itself in many regards so long before Daisy comes along he always had this burning desire to achieve something greater than his Midwest self ever could and then we have the last line of the entire noela itself a very telling almost cautionary tale about the pursuit of the American dream how tomorrow we will run faster stretch out our arms farther and then one fine morning so we beat on boat boats against the current born back ceaselessly into the the past so here when the events of the Nolla have all unfolded and Nick is left ruminating on what has happened and what could have been he comments on how this idea of that there's a duality there's two sides to the American dream on the one hand this idea of the tomorrow the faster and farther tomorrow these verbs in the notion of tomorrow that we can constantly keep stretching and reaching out for more and achieving more and yet notice this break this hyphen and how it cuts off so abruptly and the tone becomes all of a sudden much more somber and melancholic the idea of beating on ceaselessly into the past that for Nick the pursuit of the American dreamers as it comes to be known is something that many people aspire to and dream to and Gatsby does one of the reasons Gatsby can be seen as a pitiable character is because of his constant attempts to reach for something he never can that green light at the end of the dock however this last four words of the novela ceaselessly into the past gives the idea of the American dream as something cautionary that for some the American dream is pursuing something new but Gatsby's destruction is not in the American dream but in his idea of ceaselessly endlessly forever wanting something in the form of Daisy Buchanan that was stuck in the past and a past he can never ever achieve ultimately so thank you very much as always for tuning in for today's video thanks again for all your support don't forget to search up giglet across all the different platforms if in doubt like share and subscribe as always and all the very best until next time take care and bye-bye