Monday, February 6, 2017

HongjianLyu(Rick) Part2 American Dream—Unable to reach


American Dream—Unable to reach

The American Dream should have given people equal opportunity to get rich if people work hard, However, both “The Great Gatsby” and “Park Avenue: Money, Power and American Dream” demonstrate that the American Dream is fake. From my perspective, American Dream is totally dishonest and absolutely cannot be achieved. The concept “American Dream” says: “In American, everyone has the right to happiness and if one works hard, they can achieve all their dreams. Actually, not everyone can achieve that because of they are not equal at all. It is a beautiful lie which seemed like an attainable goal.

In “The Great Gatsby”, Gatsby is totally dishonest in the whole book. Gatsby born in a small village and his family was poor. However, he told Daisy that he was from a rich family and his money was inherited from the elder generation. Gatsby considered that when he has a lot of money he can have the same social state as the old money which represents people like Daisy and Tom. Daisy, in Gatsby’s perspective, is his own American Dream, but finally he lost Daisy forever which means his American Dream could not be reached. The reason is that when Daisy realized the truth, she started to hate Gatsby because of different social states. Gatsby lied to everyone in order to earn Daisy back but he failed, and it shows that American Dream is also a huge lie.

In the movie “Park Avenue: Money, Power and American Dream”, also shows the liberty is not even exist in American Dream. The movie says that rich people can affect the government even the law to benefit themselves by providing campaign money to politicians. The example is obvious that the rich people can pay less tax because of the law. This situation makes rich people more and more rich which is unfair to the middle class people and poor people. The liberty part of the American Dream is totally destroyed by this fact. The movie also says that people in the society have different levels of resources which means the opportunity does exist but totally not fair which also shows the American Dream is a lie.  
I commented on Casper's part2.

1 comment:

  1. The author's point is that American dream is definitely dishonest and it is unattainable since the social status is unchangeable. The two supporting reasons are that Gatsby failed to achieve his dream due to his class in society and American dream does not exist any liberty.
    I strongly disagree with the writer's opinion because the main point cannot be proved rationally and supporting reasons are lack of logic.It is claimed by the author that "Actually, not everyone can achieve that because of they are not equal at all." It is undeniable that not everyone can reach the goal but it cannot be simply said they are not equal at all. Social status is not completely fixed at that time so people can still increase their income and wealth to move to upper class by hard working. The point for why the American dream is dishonest is insufficient if the writer merely mentions people are not equal at all.
    There are also some problems with the supporting reasons which requires stronger logic and more proof.Firstly,the truth that is realized by Daisy is not as the writer said"because of different social status". Daisy should have known before Gatsby and her belong to different class, one is new money and the other is old money. The reason for why Daisy is frustrated and afraid is that she get to know that Gatsby hid his past experience and lied to her which seems insincere and hypocritical, rather than they are not the same social class. Secondly, the author states that rich people buy political power which shows the liberty does not exist. There is no tight connection between liberty and the phenomena happened in the film. It reflects there is no equality and fairness in American's society, however, people can still get liberty because their minds are freedom and they can do things they like. There is nothing to do with law signed by the government.
    Commented by: Steven Ge yuchun

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