Corruption of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Roaring Twenties, The Jazz Age; these were just some of the names for the 1920s. However, all those fancy names do not actually describe the essential motivations of the people in the 1920s. In actuality, the 1920s were an age of conformity, false aspirations due to the American dream, and the obsession with social class statuses.

The 1920s were years of economic prosperity and radical change both socially and politically. During the decade, the American Dream was sought-after by numerous people throughout America, which is reflected in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The novel is a highly symbolic meditation of America in the 1920s, focusing particularly on the disintegration of the American Dream in a time of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Jay Gatsby, George and Myrtle Wilson, and Nick Carraway to illustrate that the American Dream is unnatainable, and striving for it only creates an disasterous ending.

Imagine living in a world where dreams that come to mind are highly reachable and come without a struggle, a place where fantasies come into play. Americans far and beyond believe the American Dream is something as simple as owning a home or starting a family, but for Jay Gatsby, that was simply not enough. As a man with implausible dreams, Gatsby thought differently when compared to others. His American Dream was not a job or a home, but rather a married woman who is known as Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby placed the sole focus of his life on Daisy, he became obsessed. Through a passage in The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald employs personification and diction to convey the idea that Gatsby was lost in the unique distortion of his own reality with Daisy.

​Gatsby’s American dream roots upon the fallacious assumption that material possessions are compatible with happiness, youth and beauty. For example, his romantic perspective of life towards Daisy justifies his inability to achieve his dream. Gatsby describes her voice as “full of money –

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby focuses on the corruption of the American dream during the 1920‘s. For the duration of this time period, the American dream was no longer about hard work and reaching a set goal, it had become materialistic and immoral. Many people that had honest and incorruptible dreams, such as Jay Gatsby, used corrupted pathways to realize their fantasy. People’s carelessness was shown through their actions and speech towards others. Fitzgerald uses characterization and symbolism from different characters and items to convey the corruption of the American dream.

Fitzgerald's dominant theme in The Great Gatsby focuses on the corruption of the American Dream. By analyzing high society during the 1920s through the eyes of narrator Nick Carraway, the author reveals that the American Dream has transformed from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power. In support of this message, Fitzgerald highlights the original aspects as well as the new aspects of the American Dream in

In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main theme is most directly related to the American Dream. The American Dream is based on the idea that any person, no matter who they are, can become successful in life by working hard. The Great Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream during the 1920's, an era when the dream had been corrupted by the relentless pursuit of wealth. The pursuit of the American Dream is the ultimate cause of the downfall of the main character, Jay Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby, first published in 1925, echoes its era, and predicts its tragic end. In the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald “revealed the negative side of the period’s gaiety and freedom, portraying wealthy and attractive people leading imperiled lives in gilded surroundings” (Danzer 656).It illustrate “the dying American Dream and the corruption of historical values”(Bewley 23). The wealthy characters in the book are careless, materialistic and empty, showing the corrupt side of the American Dream, but Gatsby is different. In the novel, Nick describes him as having “an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such I have never found in any other person and which is not likely I shall ever find again” (Fitzgerald 2).He kept believing and fighting for his dreams to the very end, even after it became clear that Daisy would not leave Tom to stay with him.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald employs the use of characters, themes, and symbolism to convey the idea of the American Dream and its corruption through the aspects of wealth, family, and status. In regards to wealth and success, Fitzgerald makes clear the growing corruption of the American Dream by using Gatsby himself as a symbol for the corrupted dream throughout the text. In addition, when portraying the family the characters in Great Gatsby are used to expose the corruption growing in the family system present in the novel. Finally, the American longing for status as a citizen is gravely overshot when Gatsby surrounds his life with walls of lies in order to fulfill his desires for an impure dream. F.

'The Great Gatsby is a novel about the corruption of the American Dream.' How far would you agree with this statement?

101). Gatsby is disappointed that the woman he loves is not really who he wants her to be. Gatsby wants a better life and he thinks he can do it if he puts his mind to it, which is also a part of the American Dream. Nonetheless, Gatsby's dream collapses when he fails to win Daisy and is not accepted by the upper class. All his money cannot help him when old man Wilson fires a gun at him. Gatsby sees himself as a failure when Daisy chooses Tom instead of him. The failure of Gatsby's hoped for life relates to the failure of the American Dream. Without his dream Gatsby has nothing, nothing to keep him going, no direction, and no purpose to live.

After World War I ended, America appeared to be a promise land of opportunities for people who are willing to work for it. However, for some, it corrupted them as they set to reach the American dream by acquiring wealth for the only purpose to pursue pleasure. The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald showing that no one is unaffected by the corruption. This novel is seen through the eyes of Nick Carraway, who moves from the mid-west to west-egg to chase his American dream. He observes the people and events around him as he follows the attempts of his neighbor Jay Gatsby, to gain back Daisy Buchanan’s love. Through the novel, characters appear to enjoy the freedom of the 1920s, but it comes to an end as characters are

Nicks first sees Gatsby reaching towards the mysterious green light, which he later realizes is the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He calls himself an Oxford man, and speaks with a visible fake English accent. Gatsby befriends his neighbor Nick with the sole purpose of using him in order to get closer to daisy. With Nick and Jordan’s help, the two are reunited on a rainy afternoon in Nick’s house. Blindly in love, Gatsby acts like a foolish little boy, knocking down Nick’s clock. The long awaited reunion is later moved to Gatsby’s mansion. There he displays his wealth to Daisy. When he exhibits his imported shirts “suddenly with a strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily” (98). Daisy’s tears are not because the shirts were beautiful; her tears signify her obsession for wealth and money, which is all she cares about.

Everyone has an ideal vision of what he or she wants out of life. In a perfect world, everyone would die happy having achieved every goal ever set. A perfect world does not exist. Fitzgerald knows this, and he chronicles the life of Gatsby. Gatsby deeply desires to live out the “American dream.” He wants fame, riches, parties, mansions, but most of all love. Gatsby succeeds in every area except the most important. Gatsby still feels a desire to fulfill his final dream of finding a true love. Not willing to settle for an arbitrary love, Gatsby sets his sights on a young woman named Daisy. The problem is that Gatsby can never have Daisy because she is already in a relationship with another man. Gatsby, still wanting Daisy’s love but

The American dream in The Great Gatsby written by Scott Fitzgerald, About fighting for what we want. American Dream makes us strong and brave to do things we would not do. American dream can be clothes, money, luxury, and love. In the novel the American Dream is what we picture but if we dig deep inside there are crushed dreams and conquered but failed. American dream is not what we all pictured in the Great Gatsby but they make us believe how great is life is. The Great Gatsby is about high class society where does not mean that all American Dreams come true but there are always a bad ending to their American Dreams.