本文是以英语语言文学毕业论文《《了不起的盖茨比》中的美国梦新解》为例，以下是论文提纲。

　　Chapter 1 Gatsby's American Dream and Its Distortion
　　    1.1 What is the American Dream
　　    1.2 Gatsby's American Dream in Different Phases
　　Chapter 2 Disillusionment of Gatsby's Distorted Dream
　　    2.1 Gatsby's Efforts in Achieving His American Dream
　　    2.2 Gatsby's Disillusionment
　　Chapter 3 New Interpretation of Gatsby's American Dream
　　    3.1 The External Factors of the Disillusionment
　　        3.1.1 The Hierarchy System
　　        3.1.2 The Jazz Age
　　    3.2 The Internal Factors of the Disillusionment
　　    3.3 The Essential Factor of the Disillusionment
　　    3.4 Some Hypotheses
　　    3.5 The American Dream in the Present Age
　　Conclusion

　　This conclusion　　

    F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a novel that deals with American dreamto a great extent. In a relatively short novel of nine chapters, Fitzgerald tells the tragicstory of Jay Gatsby's quest for the rich and shallow Daisy. Through the first-personnarrator, Nick Carraway, the emptiness of the materialistic American dream isrevealed and the novel ultimately manifests the failure of this American dream.
　　The American dream concerns politics as in “The Declaration of Independence”,military affairs as in the participation of America in the World War Ⅰ， economy asabout the matter of material success, moral conventions as about spiritual goodnessand religious freedom, literature as reflected in novels, sports as in the principle“competing fairly, openly and aboveboard”, aesthetics as in the appreciation of thebeauty of happiness, and many other fields. It comes from the old colonist's time,through the Westward Expansion, the Independence War, the Civil War, two worldwars, to the present highly developed society and goes on for ever. It is a method ofcommunication in the way that success is used to show off and that the invisibleuntouchable inner virtues and abilities are to be proved to the society in the form ofvisible success. It is a history of struggle in the sense that people take efforts to makewhat is said and what is done meet. It is the emotional and psychological growth ofindividuals as well as material and spiritual growth of the nation.
　　The Great Gatsby not only expresses the theme of the disillusioned materialisticAmerican dream, it also constantly urged the society to seek a new cultural insightoutlet---the spiritual American dream, which undoubtedly provides a patch to mendthe already distorted and imperfect American dream culture. So the point is to find abalance between the spiritual and the material. We have experienced and willexperience a lot of adventures or frustrations in our life, we constantly face differenttemptations and moral shortcuts, sometimes we may even vacillate, but what makesus persist and keep striving is the right values and solid faiths, thus bringing usspiritual liberation and inner freedom to live a happy life. That is the power of dream.
　　The roaring twenties of the United States is the ideal setting for Gatsby's story,but it is only the setting. The story itself is as great as ever. To some degree, theAmerican dream in this story is sublimed to a universal sense which breaks thelimitation of time and space. So any research on the novel and its profound meaningof the American dream will never be outdated.