MWolfe+Reflection+1+The+American+Dream

Maggie Wolfe Reflection 1 The American Dream The American dream isn't something that can ever truly be achieved, because part of the American dream is striving towards the goal of attaining it. Because of that, the journey is just as important – or even more important – than the destination or the dream which we will probably never totally achieve. Not achieving the American Dream doesn’t mean we aren’t successful. Success is relative and each little step towards completely the American dream counts as something so each little step is a bit of success. In the finals words of //The Great Gatsby//, Nick is brought back to the significance of the past to the dreams of the future, which is represented by the green light at the end of the pier across the lake. Gatsby was unable to move on from the past and tried to recreate the past and what he had had with Daisy. He wanted her to be his as she had once been in the past when she loved him and not her husband. When he is told that he can’t repeat the past, he says, "Can't repeat the past?...Why of course you can!" (Ch. 6). He continued to chase after his dream but ended up expending his energy pursuing a dream that continued to move further away. This characterizes both Gatsby's dream and the American Dream itself. Americans live under the impression that as long as we work hard and try our best we will eventually reach our dream. To some extent this is true because we’re fulfilling part of our dream just by striving for it. We never, however, actually do reach our dream, so it cannot be completely true. Underneath all the labels of the “American Dream” we ourselves define what this dream really means to us. That makes every American Dream individual and personal, but each dream, as well, will never truly be reached as the American Dream. Instead it is reached as the journey we take to get to it. We fulfill our dream by striving towards it. Just as Gatsby reached out towards his green light, we too reach out towards our green light, towards our dream. Daisy at one point comments on how she always watches out for the longest day of the year but always ends up missing it. (The quote of this can be found on my wall about the American Dream.) While working to fulfill the dream, a person passes along a pathway of life much in the same way that days continually pass by. When a person is finally able to reach the dream that person may not realize that is the dream, much the same way Daisy forgets when she has reached the longest day of the year. She is so preoccupied with daily life that so she literally overlooks what she anticipateswhen it occurs. If she recognizes it then she has nothing to look forward to. She extends the anticipation out to the next longest day in the next year. In pursuing the American Dream, we may miss the dream completely when we reach it because, not only are we caught up in the journey, but we must extend the dream out so we can continue the journey. Without the journey, without the hope, life would be unbearable.