AMERICA AS A PROMISED LAND: A STUDY OF FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY

Abstract

This study explores how The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald presents, promotes, and critiques the ideals of Americanness and the American Dream. The research particularly examines how the novel reflects themes of American exceptionalism, self-reinvention, material and spiritual development, pursuit of happiness, fair play, and egalitarianism. The study employs a qualitative research methodology and uses textual analysis as the primary research technique to interpret significant passages from the novel. The American Jeremiad serves as the theoretical framework, enabling the study to analyze the tension between America’s founding ideals and its moral decline. The findings reveal that Fitzgerald simultaneously celebrates and criticizes American ideals. On one hand, Gatsby symbolizes hope, ambition, self-made success, and the belief in limitless opportunity, reflecting the myth of America as a promised land. On the other hand, the novel exposes the corruption of these ideals through materialism, class discrimination, moral decay, illusion, and social inequality. The study concludes that Fitzgerald portrays Americanness as both inspiring and contradictory: a vision rooted in dreams of freedom and progress, yet damaged by greed, superficiality, and the loss of spiritual and moral values. Thus, the novel functions as a modern American Jeremiad that mourns the decline of the original American Dream while still preserving faith in its possibility.