The American Dream, emphasizing that everyone can achieve success through his or her own effort, is a kind of belief universally rooted in most American people’s mind. Also, as an external theme in American literature, the American Dream runs through American literature all the time. However, in different periods, within different classes and ethnic groups, this term mirrors different images of American literary protagonists. Some are pioneers while others are depicted as nonstarters. The Great Gatsby and Forrest Gump are good exemplifications, which are quintessential and classic.

The Great Gatsby is a romantic story about the emotional entanglement between Gatsby and Daisy, but in essence, the deeper meaning explained in the book is inseparable from American society in the 1920s. Many scenes, plots, objects, colors and characters have their own unique meanings, which indicates that Gatsby’s American Dream will eventually be shattered. The Great Gatsby shows the transformation of the American Dream in the 1920s. People succumbed to the accumulation of material wealth and believed that happiness and satisfaction could only be achieved through money. The United States of the America in the 1920s was an era of conflicting cultural and social activities. Some negative trend of thought could not be ignored. The social view of materialism and money supremacy would eventually destroy all people’s beautiful dream. Forest Gump has been a hot point since its release in 1994, and represents the trend of American mainstream culture, representing frankness, enthusiasm, sincerity and upward. By comparing Gump with people he met in his life, the film tells us that everyone will realize his or her dream and become what he or she wants to be as long as they keep working hard. This is actually the American Dream reflected in Forrest Gump.

The United States has been around for more than two hundred years since its birth, and it has produced a large number of works, which have had a profound impact on world art. Among these works, the American Dream is the focus of social science research nowadays. The term "American Dream" was first found in American Epic written by American writer James Traslau Adams in 1931, in which he wrote "American is a vision of a country where everyone can live better, richer and fuller lives, and where everyone has the opportunity to achieve their goals in accordance with their abilities." Most of these works remain in the study of American social life and social problems. Nobody can study the American Dream comprehensively from beginning to present. Through the analysis of the background of the two novels and the characteristics of the main characters, this paper reveals the American Dream of different times reflected in the two novels.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

My research include four parts: the first part is a brief introduction to the authors and novels as well as their creation background. The second part is an introduction to the American Dream, including the origin of Gatsby's and Gump's dream and their ways to realize them. The third part is about the reasons for the disillusionment of Gatsby's dream and realization of Gump's dream. Through the study of the class differences in Jazz society, the ignorance in Gatsby’s personality, Forrest Gump’s personal spiritual quality and major historical events, it elaborates the reasons for their different destiny. The last part is the conclusion. In this paper, arguments are proved through the detail description of the characters and environment. It also draws lessons from other works and famous scholar’s comments on the novel to further enrich its arguments. The aim of this paper is to dig out the mainstream values of American society and American dream embodied in the two works through careful study, and then compare the similarities and differences, so that people can have a deeper understanding of the seemingly abstract and vague concept of the American Dream.

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4. He Wen-bin. Disillusion of American Dream——Analysis of Symbolic Meanings of Colors in The Great Gatsby [J] Overseas English,2017(7):172 -175.

5. Hume, Kmathrym. American Dream, American Nightmare: Fiction since 1960. Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2010.

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