摘 要

自从1931年美国梦第一次被美国作家詹姆斯·亚当斯在他的作品《美国史诗》中提出以来，美国梦这个强调人人都可以通过自己的努力获得成功的代名词，就深深扎根在了美国人民的内心深处，而且此后美国梦也一度成为美国文学史上一个炙手可热的主题。但美国梦的内涵不是亘古不变的，反而时代不断赋予了其新的特色。本文将对比两个时间跨度内的美国梦---其一是从二十世纪初至三十年代，其二是从二十世纪五十年代到八十年代，二者内涵分别在《了不起的盖茨比》和《阿甘正传》得以呈现。因此，本文将围绕两部作品中主人公生活的时代背景，人生经历以及命运结局等方面进行对比分析，深入发掘两个时代下美国梦内涵的差异，从而让读者对美国梦发展历程有一个更好的了解。

关键词：美国梦；对比分析；《了不起的盖茨比》；《阿甘正传》

Abstract

Since the American Dream made its debuts in American Epic written by James Adams, this term which emphasizes success can be achieved by everyone with his or her own effort, is deeply rooted in American’s mind, and it also runs through the American literature all the time. However, the connotation of American Dream always varies with time. Therefore, it is a familiar but vigorous research target for English majors. This paper compares two kinds of American Dream of two periods in American history---one starts from 1910s to 1930s, the other 1960s to 1990s, which are respectively condensed in the Great Gatsby and Forrest Gump. By discussing some aspects like personal experiences, social backgrounds and destinies of two protagonists, the paper analyses the reasons for the disillusionment of American Dream in Gatsby’s age and the appeal and return of American Dream in Gump’s. In addition, the paper makes a comprehensive inquiry into the distinctive features of each American Dream, social contexts and their influence to American people, thus leads to a better understanding of development of American Dream.

Key Words: American Dream; comparative analysis; the Great Gatsby; Forrest Gump

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 American Dream in the Great Gatsby 2

2.1 Social context 2

2.2 Transition of Gatsby’s Dream 3

2.3 Reasons for the disillusionment 4

3 American Dream in the Forrest Gump 6

3.1 Social context 6

3.2 Transition of Gump's dream 7

3.3Reasons for success of Forrest Gump 9

4 The collapse and return of the American Dream 10

5 conclusions 13

References 14

Acknowledgement 15

The Comparative Analysis of American Dream in The Great Gatsby and Forrest Grump

1 Introduction

When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, his speeches about American Dream had impressed thousands of Americans and also made him the first African-American president of the United States. The success of Barack Obama brings the American Dream back into people’s sight globally. What is American Dream? A certain definition may be hard to be found since this term has always evolved with time.

Hundreds of years ago, when European immigrants set their first step on America and looked for a “pure land” where Puritans could escape from war and religious persecution in Europe, the American Dream had begun to germinate quietly.(Cullen, 2015) When the Puritans settled New England, they saw themselves as part of "a lineage of the faithful," for whom pride was "the enemy of hope." They tried to create a society where status and privilege were not inherited but obtained by efforts.(Andrew,2014) Puritan’s thought is the beginning of the American Dream, while the publishment of the Declaration of Independence laid an ideological foundation for it. However, with the rise of Golden Rush and Westward Movement, the American Dream which originated from Puritan ideals gradually became the utilitarian thought in pursuit of material wealth and individualism.(Fu amp; Xu, 2018)

American Dream constantly proved to be a significant element in American literature. The Great Gatsby written by Fitzgerald, a representative writer of the American Dream, tells about people’s lost and disillusioned life experience of the Jazz Age, and criticizes the current situation of people’s moral vacillation after the First World War.While Forrest Gump by Winston Glum depicts the inspirational story of Forrest Gump, an unfortunate child who was born with defect, but eventually creates miracles in many fields. It has much significance to study American Dream from the two classical works since Gatsby and Gump are actually the epitome of American Dream in their ages and representative of their generation. This paper mainly discusses the difference of this two kinds of dreams through the social context, personal experiences, destinies of the two protagonists, Gatsby and Gump. Through comparative analysis of these aspects, differences and reasons are expected to be found in this paper.

In the 21^st century, American Dream triggers American people’s new thinking: what kind of dream do we expect after the realization of the material side of American Dream? What principles should our dream contain? After all, with the rising of living standard level, wealth and status are no longer come first nowadays. What people aspire for most is spiritual wealth, and only spiritual life can have infinite space for development. This paper may give us some enlightenment more or less.

2 American Dream in the Great Gatsby

2.1 Social context

After the end of the First World War and before the Great Depression, the United States got a golden age for its development. With the great progress made in economy, society, and culture, it undoubtedly became the richest country in the world. However, the unprecedented economic growth made a great impact on the traditional American way of life, that is the conventional Puritan morality had been abandoned and replaced by the hedonism. When this age is referred by people, they often call it the “Roaring Twenties”（Li, 2015）Fitzgerald, the representative writer of the “Beat Generation” once called “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.”(Fitzgerald, 2007:12)

On the one hand, as the country made a fortune in the war, the living standard of Americans was getting increasingly higher as well as the demands of consumption. New York, rising up to the commercial and cultural center, was a symbol of this trend. Wall Street, a global emerging financial center of that time, motivated tens of thousands of speculators to throw money in the stock market which was regarded as the birthplace of the dream to become rich overnight. The dazzling rising of the post-war stock market caused the sudden and sustained growth of national wealth, which led to utilitarian values.(Fitzgerald, 2004) Nick, the narrator of the novel, was tired of the mediocre life in the west. So he moved to New York and decided to study bond business. “Everyone I know is in the bond business.”(Fitzgerald, 2007) Young Gatsby has a great economic strength. His residence is “a big villa with a rent of 12000 to 15000 dollars per quarter. By any standard, it is giant---a replica of a city hall in Normandy, with a cluster of new towers sparsely covered with ivy, a marble swimming pool, and more than 40 acres of lawn and garden.”(Fitzgerald, 2007) On the other hand, the polarization between the rich and the poor in American society continues to intensify. American society, especially the class of bourgeoisie, had indeed accumulated tremendous wealth. Rich people led an extravagant life while the poor struggled in despair and hunger. Consequently, this social situation had resulted in many distorted values and outlooks on life, and the decline of social ideology and morality. “Fitzgerald described the United States in 1920s as a complete degeneration of social and moral values, manifested in extreme cynicism, greed and blind pursuit for pleasure.”（Li, 2015）

2.2 Transition of Gatsby’s Dream

Although Gatsby was born in poverty, he had the ambition of becoming a member of the rich class. He was hard-working and self-disciplined. In the final part of the novel, readers know more about him from childhood experience told by his father. Since he was a young boy, Gatsby’s dream began to germinate. His self-improvement could be seen from the daily schedule written on the last flyleaf. From it, his resolution and determination were fully displayed.

It is obvious that Gatsby regards Franklin as a role model.(Li amp; Ma, 2015) Benjamin Franklin was also born in the bottom of the class, but he achieved many great success in many fields through his own efforts. Gatsby was encouraged by the legend of Franklin, and he believed that one day he could become the second Franklin(Yao, 2002) However, it is very hard to for him who came from the lower class to realize his dream only through his own efforts in the society he lived at that time.

When he was seventeen years old, he left home and met Dan Cody, which was a turning point of his life. It was that man who made Gatsby money-worshiped. After traveling through Europe and leading a extravagant life like upper class, Cody made him know that money meant everything in the world. And since then, he started to make money by all means. Finally, he accumulated great wealth by smuggling wine in drug store. In this way, Gatsby’s original and pure American dream had changed.

However, Daisy’s appearing made Gatsby’s dream change again. Wealth was no longer his pursuit. Daisy was his power to move forward.(Li amp; Ma, 2015) At that time, he was totally enchanted by everything about this beautiful woman and romantically transfigures her into a something in his imagination: “ He knew that when he kissed this girl and forever web his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. At his lip touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was completed.”(Fitzgerald, 2007) Since Gatsby met with Daisy, his life lost the direction of moving forward and he was addicted to the illusory and fragile imagination of love. The dream of Gatsby was corrupted.