The main theme in both stories The Great Gatsby and A Continuing Journey is the decay of the American Dream. Both authors Archibald MacLeish and F. Scott Fitzgerald show in their stories that the modern society is taking over and replacing the American Dream with corruption and bare materialism. MacLeish believes that a genuine American person is "a restless man, a great builder and maker and shaper, a man delighting in size and height and dimensions – the world's tallest, the town's biggest." He believed that a true American is "a man naturally hopeful; a believing man, believing that things progress, that things get forwarder. ... confidence that the future was the thing they'd make it." Just like MacLeish, Fitzgerald shows in his book the American Dream and it's decay. He shows it through a character named Jay Gatsby. The character Jay Gatsby serves as a eulogy, in the book The Great Gatsby, for the idea of the American Dream itself. These authors both show how the American Dream is decaying because of the modern society. They show that the American modern society's obsession with money, power, and privilege is the chief cause for the decay of people's dreaming, hoping, and believing in progress, and future.
             According to both authors, Archibald MacLeish and F. Scott Fitzgerald, a spirit of tenacity and hope characterizes the authentic American Dream; with these characteristics, a person can succeed in almost everything. In the book The Great Gatsby, Gatsby represents the American Dream. Gatsby in the beginning is shown as a person who has the tendency to reach more and more. Gatsby in the beginning of the book had a lot of spirit and hope, he believed that Daisy loves him and will be someday reunited with him. Gatsby believed that he can go back in time and re-live his past, which never actually happens. Both authors show that there will always be those that are guided by an ...