The work deals with the phenomenon of the American Dream and its historical, cultural and sociological roots in the context of three short stories by the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The first part is divided into four chapters. It contains the historical circumstances of the rise of the American Dream, a brief biography of an American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and his comparison with Theodore Dreiser and Ernest Hemingway, the individual components of the American Dream, and the influence of ambition on the achievement of life goals. The second part deals with an analysis of three short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It examines the way their protagonists use their ambitions in their quest for the American Dream.