Evolving Annotated Bibliography for Final Research Project Proposal: Dissatisfaction and the addiction to the American Dream in high class societies

Citation: Doyno, Victor A. “PATTERNS IN ‘THE GREAT GATSBY.’” Modern Fiction Studies 12, no. 4 (1966): 415–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26278479.

Annotation: This source talks about despite the wealth Gatsby owns he is still a lonely soul and is unhappy in life. He says “

The next title, “Loneliness,”calls to mind Nick’s first sight ofGatsby, when “he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone.”Several references to Gatsby’s loneliness follow: he is”standing alone on the marble steps”(p. 60, 50) during his party, and Nick mentions the “complete isolation” of the host” Was Gatsby content in being alone or was he just unable to make friends and be social due to his dissatisfaction in life?

Citation: Callahan, John F. “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Evolving American Dream: The ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ in Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and The Last Tycoon.” Twentieth-Century Literature 42, no. 3 (1996): 374–95. https://doi.org/10.2307/441769.

Annotation:

This source talks about the pursuit of happiness that characters like Gatsby are on. The author says ” What if we were to read Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and The Last Tycoon projections of that sometimes struggle, sometime alliance between property and the pursuit of happiness? Human impulses, property, and the pursuit of happiness are sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary metaphors for the experience. Let property stand for the compulsion to divide the world and contain experience within fixed, arbitrary boundaries. And let the”pursuit of happiness” become imagination’s embrace of the complexity, fluidity, and possibility open to human personality.” This allows me to argue that Gatsby has a version of his American dream that he associates with happiness and is almost addicted to it in a way where he is never satisfied. These arbitrary boundaries are the apparent high-class society that Gatsby wants to be part of.

The author also says “Gatsby knew he was in Daisy”‘s house by a colossal accident. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. Meanwhile, “he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe he was a person from much the same stratum as herself.” JayGatsby pursues Daisy knowing that her sense of happiness and the good life depends on money and property” this shows us that all his satisfaction comes down to how much money he has to be able to stand next to Daisy class-wise. As a man coming back from war you would think he would be happy that he was alive and satisfied with the life he returned to and should have tried to fight for someone who would have accepted him for his class and status, one where he didn’t have to suffer as he did when he was young. But clearly, he is still fighting for money and class and all along is not satisfied till he gets to where he wants to be. It can all be tied down to the fact that high-class societies keep unrealistic expectations and you wanted to be included you end up in the rabbit hole Gatsby did where he was in an endless chase for money which at the end of the day lead him nowhere.

Citation: SAUNDERS, JUDITH P. “The Great Gatsby: An Unusual Case of Mate Poaching.” In American Classics: Evolutionary Perspectives, 138–74. Academic Studies Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv4v3226.13.

Annotation: I wanted to talk about how in high-class societies dissatisfaction is more likely to happen due to multiple factors one of which is marrying only within their class and status. Looking past that and into one’s personality is unusual in such societies.

The author of this source says “The shared interests of this couple appear to revolve around spending and displaying their great wealth: horses and stables, manorial estates, expensive automobiles, European journeys.” this suggests that there is no real emotional connection between the two.

He also says “Nick observes that the Buchanans “spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there, unrestful” (9). Terms like drift and unrestful indicate that their existence is neither purposeful nor contented. During the Chicago period, according to Jordan Baker, they put in time partying with “hard-drinking people,” “a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild” (61). The Buchanans congregate with idle people like themselves who “played polo and were rich together” (9)Being rich is, in effect, their vocation. Nick’s final pronouncement on Tom and daisy is that they are “careless people” whose wealth has allowed them to cultivate a profound obliviousness to interests other than their own.”

This supports my previous argument of how superficial the high-class societies can be resulting in an unsatisfied lifestyle that is surrounded by wealth and lifestyle and not by relationships and meaningful connections.

Citation: Bechtel, Dianne E. “Jay Gatsby, Failed Intellectual: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Trope for Social Stratification.” The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review 15, no. 1 (2017): 117–29. https://doi.org/10.5325/fscotfitzrevi.15.1.0117.

Annotation:

The author says “In part, Bourdieu credits the education system for instilling both intellectually and aesthetically high cultural capital and status, which he calls the cultivated disposition (Distinction 23). As a proletarian or working-class man, Gatsby’s tragic flaw is rooted in cultural incompetence. No matter how much status or notoriety he acquires, he cannot rise intellectually or aesthetically above his disposition and its ultimate annihilation. Thus, Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus with its economy of cultural goods is deeply written into the discourse of Jay Gatsby’s central conflict.”

We know Gatsby is eventually after a high-class lifestyle but why is he still miserable after attaining all the wealth that he did? The author of this source talks about the cultural incompetence that’s the reason for his downfall.

“Bourdieu asserts that individuals and their unconsciously inculcated dispositions represent ideologically based discourses in the form of cultural goods, or rather in their proximity to and use of luxury goods (Distinction 226), whether those goods be physical bodies or mansions. ” This can be directly related to Gatsby as he cant escape his true standing even with all this money.

” In his essay on material possessions in The Great Gatsby, Scott Donaldson asserts, “the Buchanans’ magical home contravenes the law of gravity…. Against such violations of natural law, Gatsby can hardly compete. His gigantic house remains sadly earthbound throughout” (206). In every description of his habitat, Gatsby either fulfills or cannot escape the bounds of his true social standing.” Chasing the high-class status leads Gatsby to a carnival mansion that is nothing like the Buchanan mansion, full of air and color and fresh grass everywhere. The difference in social standing can clearly be seen between the Gatsby mansion and the Buchanan mansion. Despite his social capital, good looks, and money Gatsby.