Examples Of Illusion In The Great Gatsby

“The Illusion of the American Dream”

The American Dream is the ideal in which that through hard work one can achieve great success, it is why most immigrants come to the country so that they can change their lives for the better and pave the way for their families. To some, the idea of the American Dream does exist but for some, it was nothing but an illusion. The decline of the American Dream showed this. It showed that the American Dream was nothing but a nightmare and that dissatisfaction, corruption, greed, and moral imperfection were some of the causes that lead to the decline of the American
People, immigrants, come from different places hoping to find a better life and seek freedom here in the United States, however, as the phrase implies,
it is only a dream. Just as we see in Source 3, the painting — titled “Immigrants Arriving at Ellis Island”— display passengers (immigrants) above a ship whose destination is Ellis Island, the home of The Statue of Liberty. To America, the Statue of Liberty represents freedom or “path of liberty”. To most of those immigrants, it meant more than that; it meant opportunity, happiness and of course, the American Dream. Many of the people on the ship were dissatisfied; they weren't happy with what they had that they had to search it somewhere else in order to achieve great wealth. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the theme of dissatisfaction. Throughout the story, we see Daisy and Tom Buchanan, a wealthy couple in the story that had acquired the American Dream already (a stable job, wealth, and success) but they still remained empty; unhappy with each other, dissatisfied. That represented the American Dream; that even if many had everything they’ve wanted, they would never be satisfied; they would want more.
Next, the decline of the American Dream was also contributed to the corruption and greediness of others, The Great Gatsby by F.
Scott Fitzgerald, is another great example of this. The characters that Fitzgerald were created to show how corrupted the American Dream was. Many of the characters, such as Jay Gatsby, who corrupted his way to the top by selling alcohol during times when it was illegal to do so, represented this corruptness. He committed all these crimes just to become wealthy and gain the attention of Daisy, the actual American Dream. The American Dream was meant, as mentioned above, was about working hard that through hard work and determination one can achieve great success with an equal opportunity. Many Americans did not do that, many achieved their wealth through other methods, maybe by lying or cheating their way to it. Greed comes hand in hand with corruption as the two represented many Americans at that time. The Great Gatsby can also be used to represent this. Daisy Buchanan was enamored with the idea of wealth that she didn’t think about her happiness. She knew she wasn’t happy with Tom but she stayed with him because of the wealth he had. The reason why Daisy persuaded the idea of having an affair with Jay Gatsby was not because of “love” it was because he had things to offer to her (more
money).
Lastly, moral imperfection comes into play in the discussion of the decline of the American Dream. As people can tell, moral perfection is impossible, it may be possible to an extent but it never lasts. In source two, “Moral Perfection” by Benjamin Franklin states that there are thirteen virtues, in which none of the Great Gatsby's characters have. They weren't morally perfect. Nick Caraway, the narrator of the book knew of the affair between Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby and was the one who got them together. Jay Gatsby wasn't any close to it either, choosing to commit illegal acts just to achieve wealth. Tom committed adultery as did Myrtle. George Wilson killed Jay Gatsby. All these characters among most of the other characters in this book weren’t perfect and not good whatsoever. People did horrible things in other to achieve their American Dream, and no one had an equal opportunity to achieve wealth, changing the way people saw the Dream.
To summarize this, the American Dream had it's potential to continue, unfortunately, the idea has been degraded and it just now viewed as a negatively. Dissatisfaction, corruption, greediness and moral imperfection were some of the main causes of the decline of such powerful ideal. The idea of having an equal opportunity at having wealth and success paved by hard work and determination is now nothing but a laughing joke since it isn't true to some anymore. In the roaring twenties, it still existed but was beginning to be tainted by so much corruption. The American Dream for some will just be a dream. A dream full of false promises and worthless effort that would get no one nowhere. A dream that many individuals had but had to be broken down and put down by society. If such idea did exist, the country could have had a better way of living, a way where a person wouldn’t be separated by class or oppressed by it. It just remains a question now, what is the real meaning of the American Dream?