American fiction often explores the pursuit of dreams and desires

Point 1

Both writers explore the difference between the meaning of the ‘American Dream’, within the contexts of their personal experiences, and how this impacts the ability of certain characters to achieve their dreams and desires

Point 1 - Gatsby

A01 - while his dream appears attainable on the surface as the typical American Dream, it remains out of reach for him due to class divides.

Ao2 - ‘it was now a green light on a dock’ ‘she was effectually prevented’ ‘it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of the green light had now vanished forever’ ‘I didn’t realise it was the same man’

AO3 - link to experience of Fitzgerald & him being unable to achieve being a part of the class that he desired his whole life

AO5 - Gray - ‘(The green light is) both the necessity and impossibility of idealism.’ Bradbury - ‘The dream fails…it is counteracted by the underlying sterility of twentieth century American life and the destruction inherent in the system.’ ‘Fitzgerald was the ‘half-poor boy among the rich’

Point 1 - Passing

AO1 - Clare is unable to achieve her dreams & desires as she is restricted by her marriage, race and gender

AO2 - ‘Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race she only belonged to it’ ‘They always come back, I’ve seen it time and time again’ ‘In this pale life of mine’

AO3 - link to experiences of black women at time & of Nella Larsen herself

AO5 - Bernstein - ‘It is a tragic story rooted in the inescapable facts of American life: that whiteness conferred an almost universal unearned advantage, and that loyalty to a black racial identity was not only an act of pride but also one of courage.’

Point 2

Both writers craft an image of the fragility & consequences of dreams & desires and the extreme sacrifices made to maintain them, highlighted accurately through the deaths of Clare & Gatsby

Point 2 - Gatsby

AO1 - Gatsby becomes so disillusioned with his dreams and focuses so heavily on the past that he fails to recognise his future he believes he will achieve has already receded away - it was built off an idealised perception rather than reality

AO2 - ‘green light’ ‘orgastic future’ ‘sprung from his platonic conception of himself’ ‘However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform may slip from his shoulders’

AO3 - disillusionment after the war & lost generation clinging onto idea of AD for a sense of stability in society - rise in consumerism caused desperation for security & hope - neglect of the true emptiness of dreams

AO5 - Gatsby’s dream was always destined to be shattered/unfulfilled by his death as it was never really a tangible concept within reality - his death & the death of his dream relieved him of a life of further hopeless grasping onto his unreachable dream - Tanner - a sense of something muffled, something lost - a chance missed, a dream doomed.’

Point 2 - Passing

AO1 - Larsen presents this notion as more extreme through the concept of race as Clare is forced to sacrifice her black identity & marry a racist man - endangering her & her daughter - in order to escape discrimination of the black race & gain the life of white privilege promised by the AD

AO2 - ‘there was no one to tell him I was coloured’ ‘just a little more money’ ‘stepping always on the edge of danger’ ‘glowing’ persona

AO3 - Larsen highlighting harmful situations black people were forced to put themselves in & the greater amount of scrutiny they were under in society simply to achieve the same AD - her experience in white family

AO5 - Greenidge - ‘In her whiteness, Clare is not free; she has taken on an existence that assures her emotional and spiritual captivity.’ - Wall - ‘Larsen’s protagonists assume false identities that ensure social survival but result in psychological suicide’

Point 3

Both writers present the pursuit of dreams and desires as being contained only to a minority of society by creating characters who simply desire to maintain stability & status quo amidst the ever changing society of the 1920s

Point 3 - Gatsby

AO1 - Nick provides the narrative view by maintaining a distance from the wealthy & provides grounded stable descriptions, not obscured by hopeless dreams & desires

AO2 - ‘they’re a rotten crowd’ ‘simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life’ ‘I’d be damned if i go in; I’d had enough of all of them for one day’

AO3 - represents 1920s desire to enjoy life among upper classes without destroying it with destructive pursuits of dreams & desires - disputes common perceptions that AD is needed to live a fulfilling life

AO5 - Lewis - ‘Nick and Irene are obsessed with passing in part because they also are passing in order to enjoy economic and social mobility’ - interpretation that he represents how FSF wishes he was able to act instead of being swept up in the unattainable dreams of the upper classes.

Point 3 - Passing

AO1 - Irene occasionally passes for social & economic mobility (Lewis) but has more of a need to than Nick due to the danger that would come to her family if she didn’t maintain her security & engaged in a risky lifestyle like Clare’s - Nick able to live freer life as an economically stable white man

AO2 - ‘(security is) the most important and desired thing in life’ ‘wanted only to be tranquil’ “Security. Was it just a word? If not, then was it only by the sacrifice of other things, happiness, love, or some wild ecstasy…that it could be obtained?’

AO3 - shares dream of many black women in America at the time - felt they had no choice but to sacrifice things for stability due to constraints of their race - manifestation of Larsen’s own life & own efforts to maintain a successful life as a black woman despite her childhood

AO5 - Bernstein - ‘(Irene) acknowledges that her greatest concern is for security, for the avoidance of danger, and she never accepts Clare's gesture of defiance as anything but foolishly risky - Irene used to emphasise the best a black woman could achieve & Clare as a warning that the pursuit of dreams = foolish within context of time.