Corruption In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream is what we all aspire to achieve. The idea of starting off with nothing and to become something has caused millions of people from all corners of the world to immigrate to this country for over 300 years. However, what exactly is the American Dream? F Scott Fitzgerald answers this question within his novel The Great Gatsby. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald analyses the high class of the 1920s and reveals that the American Dream has been distorted from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power. Fitzgerald incorporates the aspects of both the Òold dreamÓ & the Ònew dreamÓ in his tragic story to depicts how the inflexible dream has been corrupted and lost forever.

The Valley Of Ashes is the poor working class part of the story where industrial workers work and are surrounded by smoke and ash covering their clothes. In contrast to New York The Valley Of Ashes is a dump where poor people live in New York you're surrounded by tall buildings and cars and business men in suits. "This is the valley of ashes-- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the form of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air."(Fitzgerald 23). This quote shows perfectly how the valley was nothing compared to New York City.

The organization of the poem is interesting. Each line is either an incomplete sentence or it finishes a sentence. The stanzas are each about three or four lines long which contain some arduous words. An example is the word “weir”. Lowell writes, “...the sea lapped/ the raw little match-stick/ mazes of a weir” (ll. 9-11). After research on it, the word means, a fence or enclosure set in a waterway for taking fish (Merriam Webster). This word is important to know because of the imagery it represents. The raw little match-sticks mean that it’s burnt out and so is their love for eachother. The weir is where the rock would be next to. They’d see the fish being trapped. This shows how the speaker the was fish. They were emotionally trapped in the town and the relationship.

As the phenomenal politician Bernie Sanders once said, “For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.” In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by Scott Fitzgerald, the “American Dream” plays a crucial role in the plot. Gatsby devotes his life to accomplish his American Dream which consists of wealth and Daisy’s love. But is the American Dream actually what it seems to be? Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald utilizes the symbolic value of the Valley of Ashes, East Egg, and the significance of the color yellow to constantly establish that opulence and the American Dream is deceiving as it leads to moral and societal corruption.

As a society, America has created certain ideas and stereotypes of each class including the citizens within them. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses around the superficial communities of West and East Egg, and their misconceptions of one another. The citizens of East Egg, such as Daisy and Tom Buchanan, frown upon the up-and-coming men of West Egg. This includes Gatsby, who dreams of the riches they take for granted. Gatsby, who obtains his money through dishonest means appears villainous, unsuccessfully attempting to join the wealthy and elite society of East egg. However, there may be more to Gatsby's story. As Nick, the narrator, says he is “worth the whole damn bunch put together”(154). Through his descriptions and comparison of Tom’s house and Gatsby’s house, Fitzgerald reveals the true nature of the two men. While Gatsby appears to be morally corrupt, in the end he actually has pure intentions, instead it is Tom who emits negativity and is ungrateful for his life.

New York City, overwhelmed with success, money and image in the 1920s was drowning in corruption. F Scott Fitzgerald composed a riveting novel, The Great Gatsby, which follows the journey of several characters dealing with love, greed, confusion and lust during the 1920s. Fitzgerald illustrates the corruption of the American dream by allowing us to follow the downfall of Jay Gatsby, revealing the reality of the American dream.

The author uses the Valley of Ashes, a small town between the West Egg and New York City, to symbolize the moral and social decay that stems from the desire to become wealthy. The Valley of Ashes, "a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air symbolizes a morally stripped place where materialistic and false people can live in harmony. The unfortunate events that occur in the Valley of Ashes, including Gatsby's death, the affair between Tom and Myrtle and Myrtle's accidental death, represent the severe consequences stemming from the failed attempts at achieving the American Dream. As the characters travel through the Valley of Ashes to reach elsewhere, they are forced to belittle themselves to a lower social status, as seen when Tom engages in an affair with Myrtle, a poor-stricken woman, who solely provides another form of comfort. Serving as a symbol of social and moral destruction, the Valley of Ashes also symbolizes the condition in which the poorer American society lived during the 1920s. The description of the Valley of Ashes used through color symbolism, creates a melancholy atmosphere which allows the reader to connect the importance of the "desolate strip of land" to the negative personality changes, reflective of the 1920s, within the characters.

The American dream can mean many different things and can be interpreted in different ways. To some people, the American dream is the belief that if a person works hard enough, he or she can be successful in America no matter what race, gender, or nationality. In the 1920’s, the concept of the American dream was very much the same, that an individual can achieve success in life regardless of family history or social status if he or she works hard enough. By having money, a car, a big house, expensive clothes, and a loving family symbolizes the American dream. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the 1920’s is a time period in which the American dream becomes corrupt and dangerous. For Jay Gatsby, a main character in the novel, his American dream is about gaining wealth and material possessions in order to find happiness. Through his decision to symbolize wealth, superficiality, irresponsibility, and foreshadowing, Fitzgerald conveys the the theme that the American dream is a perfect concept and is something that can never be accomplished, but can always be reached for.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is about a writer named Nick Carraway. He leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922 . Nick chases his American Dream and ends up living next door to a mysterious, party-loving millionaire, Jay Gatsby, who is  across the water from his cousin, Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals that the upper class society is corrupt from money. This is best proven through Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom.

The theme and social issue that relates to Crow Lake is the isolation, which the characters face after the death of their parents, especially Kate. The painful experience shaped Kate to whom she is today. She was injured by the loss of her parents, which made her introvert and she never conveyed her feelings to anyone, as she had no one to talk to. The brothers were always busy fighting or either having a lot of stress on their minds, which gave no time for Kate to express herself. They live in such a small town where not many places are located nearby and for Kate to easily go somewhere to play. The town they lived in, itself was so isolated. Kate expresses her childhood to Daniel as, “ It wasn’t miserable. Lonely, but not miserable.”

The Great Gatsby is a story about how corruption causes absence of true love, and how the desire for true love can cause disastrous consequences. Jay Gatsby had a number of downfalls and he is a great example of the desire for true love. Gatsby’s downfalls were his dreams and aspirations about Daisy, social class and how others viewed him.

To begin with, the setting of the novel creates a collision between the small town in Ohio and the central theme. Thus, the environment of the book plays an important role in revealing the element of water in the novel as it placing it in the center of the narrators lives as a daily reminder of salvation, that they have

In this novella the author makes irony between the setting and events happening the novella. In the beginning, Steinbeck describes the area as “… willows so fresh and green with every spring…” (1), which bring a peaceful feeling to readers. He also mentions “… a path beaten hard by boys coming…” (1-2). Which portrays that the area is enjoyed by multiple people.

Some various symbols in the passage that are used to support the theme is the following: Greed, Text to Self, Civil action. The way that these conflict the theme is by greed giving the villagers the “action” to not care about another family to win. Also, text to self because Tesse is always believing if it doesn’t go her way then “it’s not fair.” (which in the story is why she gets hit in the head with a stone) Next, civil action is hugely displayed by the villagers just believing that their families deserve the money and no one else. So the reason these following 3 elements are important is to show you that a village can get turned upside down in a flash. Next the characterization of the villagers are important because their action is towards

Since the boy is the narrator, the inclusion of these symbolic images in the description of the setting shows that the boy is sensitive to the lack of spiritual beauty in his surroundings. Outside the main setting are images symbolic of those who don’t belong to the Church. The boy and his companions go there at times, behind their houses, along the "dark muddy lanes," to where the "rough tribes" (the infidel) dwell. Here odors arise from "the ash pits"--those images symbolic to James Joyce of the moral decay of his nation.