The Great Gatsby American Dream

“The American Dream” is an idea that fills the minds of individuals seeking the “orgastic future”- a struggle to transform dreams into reality (www.americansc.org.uk). As the American Dream becomes tangible, the aspirations and taste for possible wealth in a new world begins to corrupt minds; people have fallen into a fantasy, confusing idealism with realism. This “Pursuit of Happiness”, once a solid symbol of equality, freedom and possibilities, has mutated into a materialistic monster of distrust, avarice and empty pleasure – it has evolved into The Pursuit of Power. Most evidently shown in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest American masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, epitomizes the theme of the decaying American Dream, and its components, wealth, dream and time, by the protagonist, Jay Gatsby.

Gatsby’s dream, the longing for the love of the beautiful and rich Daisy Buchanan, pollutes his moral judgment creating an ethical smog, disabling him to determine right from wrong. He resorts to “bootleg[ging]” (Fitzgerald 49), a life of crime, in order to equalize himself with the uncontrolled materialisms that consume her lifestyle. With the thought of money as ultimate power, Gatsby believes he can “buy” Daisy’s love, a misguided assumption twisted from people’s ideas during the Roaring Twenties, “a boisterous era of prosperity, fast cars, jazz, speakeasies, and wild youth” (http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/ ). Also, Nick compares the “green breast of the new world” (180) to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. The green light symbolizes Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future, which never become reality, while the “green breast of the world” is a representation of the dreams of the immigrants that came to the new world seeking opportunity. Therefore, by comparing the “green breast of the world” to the light at the end of Daisy’s dock, Fitzgerald further instills the idea that the American Dream is never completely fulfilled. Contributing to Gatsby’s