The American Dream

The American Dream in the Great Gatsby and in A Raisin in the sun were quite different in a lot of ways but in some ways they were also similar. In the Great Gatsby Nick could tell that the people that where around him were only concerned with materialistic things like getting rich.  For Gatsby it was about getting rich and getting daisy. Meanwhile for characters like Daisy, Tom and Tom’s mistress it was just getting rich and increasing there social statues. However in a raisin in the sun there were different kinds of dreams for everyone, some were materialistic while the others where about family and heritage For Mama it was getting house, for Walter it was for owning a business and for Ruth it was for family.  In both books it show how there are many types of American Dream and how it just depends on who you are. The American Dream in the Great Gatsby seemed it surround wealth and it showed how people had different view about what the American Dream is. Benita cared about the survival of the African culture which shows that the American dream isn't just about ones self, it can also be about a heritage. The representation of the American Dream might have been different due to the time period.
 In A Raisin in the Sun it was harder for African Americans to achieve there dreams. While some of them just didn’t have an American dream, for some others there dream was to survive the next few days and to be able to feed there kids each day. So in the Raisin in the Sun the dream seems to be the basic American Dream of family and wealth.

For mama her American dream was to have a house for her and her family to live in. Compared to the dream in the Great Gatsby this seems like a small dream, but for mama this was a big deal, this was at the forefront of what the American Dream is to her. The Great Gatsby what seemed to be at the fore front of most of the characters American dream was social status, power and wealth. Especially for Daisy, it seems to me that she would do anything to keep her statues. She let Gatsby go, and she stayed with Tom even though she knew he was cheating on her, just so she could keep her reputation and her statues in the society. Benita’s dream was to keep and better understand her African heritage and culture, and she tries to active that by hanging out with someone from Africa.
In both stories the characters where all trying to active there  American Dream or some form of the Dreams everyone else but each were doing things in there own way, like Daisy ignoring the fact her husband was cheating on her, and Mama working hard so she could get her self a house and also taking care of her children. Both books were just about how different people form different backgrounds views the American Dream and how they choose to achieve the American Dream.

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