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Famously, F. Scott Fitzgerald once told Ernest Hemingway that the “rich are different from the rest of us.” Hemingway replied “yes, they have more money.” That may have been Fitzgerald’s point. One wonders if Fitzgerald may have rejoined Hemingway’s comment with the old adage: money is the root of all evil. Money is certainly at the root of Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” a quintessentially American story. The “rags to riches” story is not uniquely American. “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White, for example, has most of the elements of the “American Dream”: humble beginnings and a rise to money, fame and power through hard work, luck, talent or sheer ingenuity. Arthurian legend, such as “The Once and Future King,” though not American, even includes the inevitable dark side of the American Dream. Not really part of the dream, the “downfall” is always present in the American story. It is almost always associated with a woman and/or excess. This is true of Jay Gatsby and of King Arthur, but it is the American King whose life more closely symbolizes the American Dream—Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley’s life story is the embodiment of the American Dream; his life reached epic and literary proportions and, though he was a real human being, he has transcended that and become mythical and symbolic.
Approximate Word count = 861
Approximate Pages = 3.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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