America has been a land of dreams since its beginnings. People immigrate to start new lives and reinvent themselves, but even the most hardworking individuals have been mistreated. There is so much to discover and achieve. The American Dream is a concept that values ​​the struggles of those who live in America, and it is something that we would all like to believe exists. Because it's so desirable, stories are often told about people living better lives after moving to America. Some like to think that Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby illustrates a man achieving the American dream. Although Jay Gatsby seems to be a great representative of the successful American dream, his life truly shows the failure of the American dream. The American dream is an exceptionally broad term. This includes ambitions for wealth, family, comfort, and anything else a citizen or future citizen might want. Originally, the colonists wanted America to give them freedom and an escape from the inevitable painful European class system. Adventurous men were driven by their dream of building a nation, but the definition changes over the centuries (Berman 128). Some arrive to escape their debts, and others wish to escape the reign of tyrants. Yet the predominant definition of the American dream in the 1920s and in The Great Gatsby seems to be the pursuit of materialistic comfort; everyone wants a luxury car, copious amounts of money, a huge mansion and a carefree life (Smiljanić). Gatsby, however, is not an average American. Jay Gatsby's imagination focuses solely on his love, Daisy. He makes all his money to please Daisy, and all his parties are planned in the hope that she will attend. Either way, he tries hard to win her back and he won't succeed. And as luck would have it, Gatsby's American dream turns into a horrible failure. A successful American dream turns out to consist only of achievable dreams and to hope for more is to taunt destiny. Works Cited Berman, Ronald. “The Great Gatsby and the Good American Life.” Jay Gatsby. Ed. HaroldBloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. 125-136. Decker, Jeffrey. “Gatsby's Immaculate Dream: The Diminishing of the Self-Made in the Tribal Twenties.” Literary Criticism of the Twentieth Century 210, (1994): n. page. Internet. April 16, 2014. Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Mangum, Bryant. “The Great Gatsby.” Encyclopedia of the novel. Ed. Paul Schellinger. London and Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, 1998, 514-515. Smiljanić, Siniša. “The American Dream in The Great Gatsby”. Academia.edu (2010/2011)Web. April 16 2014 .