Equality, freedom and prosperity! All who live in this great country of ours believe that these components of the American dream are achievable. Throughout its history, America has demonstrated pride in freedoms and economic mobility that is consistent with the American Dream. In today's society this objective, coined by us, continues to live on. Achieving this dream through hard work is the light at the end of the tunnel. Much like the motivation for moving to the West in the 1800s, or the Civil Rights Movement, it takes decades to achieve similar goals. The American Dream has been a recurring theme throughout history and has inspired many literary works: The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is set during the Roaring Twenties; Let America Be America Again, a poem by Langston Hughes, conveys the freedom and equality that every immigrant hoped for but never achieved; and Wall Street, a film about a stockbroker and his journey into the stock market. All of these address the flaws of the American Dream in different time periods. The American Dream lacks physical meaning, understanding, and meaning and is mischaracterized and interpreted. These literary pieces portray the American dream as not only different but also false as it is not available to everyone. The Great Gatsby illustrates this myth in his character development. The American Dream is rooted in our ideology as the national anthem; however, upon closer examination, it begins to show what it really is, just a myth with the premise that anyone can achieve class mobility simply by working hard. But class mobility has changed little since the Gilded Age of more than a hundred years ago. So people don't work that hard? The lack of mobility is expressed in jobs of... half of paper... it is stupid for us to do the same. It's not just the top 1% who agree with Gekko it's those at the bottom with Hughes and those in the middle with Fitzgerald. In Hughes' poem he expresses his dissatisfaction with the failure of the American dream. In The Great Gatsby the idea expressed by Mr. Carraway is to not judge the lower classes. Finally, in the film the Gecko believes that the game is rigged and that most of the 1% don't deserve their wealth. The American Dream lacks physical meaning, understanding, and meaning and is mischaracterized and interpreted. These literary pieces portray the American dream as not only different but false in its entirety. The Great Gatsby illustrates this myth in the characters and how they develop in the story. As the late George Carlin said “It's the American dream because you have to sleep to believe it”