Corruption Of The American Dream in The Great Gatsby Essay

Everyone has their own understanding of the American Dream, the dream of materialistic success, but in the end, the American Dream is only defined as the desire to start and thrive in a completely new life, usually by moving west. Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby represents the implications of this on the people and the decay of it through Gatsby, George and Nick.

What Gatsby claims as his own history is much far from the reality in his younger days. Born from poor farmers, he could only dream of becoming rich, and thus his American Dream is a pure desire for success, as shown through his Book of Resolves. He attends college but is not able to fund for it and leaves for the army. This is how he meets Daisy, a figure that symbolises all he had dreamed of, money. Her voice was full of money suggests that even though he himself thought he had loved Daisy, it was only money that he loved in reality. As he separates from Daisy, he meets Dan Cody, who had achieved Gatsbys American Dream. After meeting Cody, Gatsby struggles for his American Dream and achieves wealth even though he had used immoral methods. Fitzgerald portrays him to have achieved the American Dream of wealth, but as he meets Daisy, the extra dream of love, that is only a false dream affects him, and only fooling himself, Gatsby ruins both his American Dream and his own life.

George Wilson represents the American Dream in a poorer lower class society. He dreams of leaving for the west and settling in a completely new lifestyle with Myrtle. However, his only key to attain this is Toms car, which Tom is only faking to sell to meet Myrtle. George, unlike the upper class as represented by Tom and Gatsby, is more innocent, pure and George is too nave to know he is being fooled. This, as George is much more moral than to use illegal methods, he relies on the upper class. However the immoral upper class only plays with, then destroys, the innocent American Dream of the lower class.

Nicks American Dream is to move to New York, start in the bond business and attain wealth. Although from the upper class, Nick reflects the morally rich, ideal representative of the American Dream. However, Nick is shown to not achieve anything; he is only being pushed around by the other characters as their foil. The subject of himself attempting to gain wealth becomes so irrelevant that Nick himself stops writing about it, and thus, the ideal figure of the American Dream moral and not too rich nor not too poor, would not even be seen as the American Dream as America during the 1920s loses focus on morality and focuses on wealth and attempts are eventually ignored.

Fitzgerald illustrates the corrupt American Dream during the 1920s through Gatsby, George and Nick. The easily avoided faults in the American Dreams of people in this age have prevented their ultimate potential of happiness.