Settlement in North America has been filled with arrogance and a certain self-satisfaction since it's beginning. Religious dissenters, original colonist, believed they were creating a 'new Jerusalem' in the woods. The United States Constitution claims to be based on 'self evident' truths. Americans believed that it was their 'Manifest Destiny' to take up the entire continent. American's religious fervor matched with its greediness to expand explains American arrogance and worship of material wealth.
             The 'American Dream' is nothing more than the claim that any individual can become fabulously wealthy and that fabulous wealth, in turn, produces great happiness. Immorality is embedded is these assumptions. How a person accumulates the frills of the 'American Dream' seems to be less important than that person has. The restless pursuit of wealth and the popularity of the 'American Dream' are key themes in American literature. They are present in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
             In the case of Death of a Salesman the preeminence of the American Dream is immediately stated in the title. The tragic hero, who is Wille Loman, in Death of a Salesman, watches his life collapse around him. His past, present and family all fall apart as he is driven to suicide. However, the play is not about the death of a father or a husband it is the Death of a Salesman. Willie Loman is a salesman, essentially it is profession and his possessions that define him not his humanity. Situations like this are seen as the darks side of the 'American Dream'.
             The 'American Dream' is also a dominant theme in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald presents his perspective more complicated than does Miller. Ultimately, The Great Gatsby is about illusion and reality. Sometimes the reader gets mul...