PTI & Raisin in the Sun Post

In both The Great Gatsby and Raisin in the Sun the American Dream is shown in different ways.  In the Great Gatsby, everyone was from an upper class background. Their American Dream was based around the idea of happiness.  

Nick Carraway comes into the picture and finds out that Jay Gatsby is stuck on one woman, his one true love and money and obtains the money through shady business deals, but then realizes he is a loving person and means no harm. Gatsby was never able to be with Daisy the only person that brought him true happiness.  The green light symbolized this in the way that it was there but he was unable to have it. Gatsby does everything in his power to get Daisy’s attention he throws parties that he doesn’t even care for and even throws himself under the bus for Daisy when she killed Myrtle and Tom accused him.

Another example of this in the Great Gatsby is Tom’s love for Myrtle.   You would have thought Tom had everything going for him; a wife, money, and nice home but he was missing something; being with his true love; Myrtle, who happens to be of a lower social class.  Throughout the Great Gatsby it shows that money cannot buy people happiness. The characters might have all of the things that keep them in the social class of wealthy but lack emotional happiness.

In Raisin in the Sun, the characters American Dream different for every character. This leads to their happiness.  Walter is the character who believes in the “rags to riches” concepts but it doesn’t work out as planned because he becomes obsessed with the idea.  He wanted to show his family that he could do something good for once.  Mama tries to “fix/help” her family no matter the cost.  Beneatha wants to become a physician and being a young independent African American woman. She is tired of God taking credit where it is not due and wants to marry an African instead of a rich man. The family also wanted to move to a better neighborhood.

Both of the stories had polar opposite views on what the American Dream meant to the characters in the book.  Since the American Dream in the Great Gatsby was about the emotional feeling people had for one another and the American Dream in Raisin in the Sun was about the materialistic things in life (money, houses, cars, etc.) I came up with what I thought the American Dream was which is; it is a thought or based on what each and every person perceives it as. The characters in the Great Gatsby had the magnificent, wealthy, and well respected lifestyle that most of the characters from Raisin in the Sun could only daydream of, while all the people in Raisin in the Sun  had the loving relationships that some of The Great Gatsby characters desperately needed.

The American Dream in both stories is fueled by the relationships the characters have and the people the interacted with.