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The Reality Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

Decent Essays

The pursuit of any success in life is an arduous journey, one that can only be accomplished by the few dedicated individuals willing to push their ambition and capabilities as far as possible. The challenge is even more difficult because the amount of people trying to achieve the same goal when only a select few can. Corruption and deceit are inevitable in a dream driven by money. The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a classic twentieth-century story that examines and analyzes the vision of the American dream. The Great Gatsby presents several of its characters as having this illusion of living the “American dream”, contrary to what they believe their behaviors and decisions they make only leave them with a false perception of this lifestyle. The novel shows the tide turning east, as hordes flock to New York City seeking stock market fortunes. It portrays this shift as a symbol of the American Dream's corruption. It is no longer a vision of building a life; it is just about getting rich. The story is able to illustrate the corruption money leads to by placing materialistic values in the lives of American’s in the pursuit or the ‘American Dream’.
Gatsby symbolizes both the corrupted Dream and the original uncorrupted Dream. He sees wealth as the solution to his problems, pursues money via shady schemes, and reinvents himself so much that he becomes hollow, disconnected from his past. Yet Gatsby's corrupt dream of wealth is motivated by an incorruptible love

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