The Great Gatsby Deterioration Of The American Dream

Many people dream to have enough money to support a family, have a house, a car, and true friends that will bring you eternal happiness. Tom and Daisy are two characters in The Great Gatsby that represent the deterioration of the American Dream. Rather than being devoted to a healthy lifestyle, Daisy and Tom sought out to become rich beyond their wildest dreams with a social status fit to suit their standards. To them, the main goal in life is to reach the absolute top of the social pyramid, slowly destroying anyone and everyone who has fallen into their trap. Tom bullies people into respecting him, as Daisy lives in her own world living without consequence to her action, expecting people to clean up her mess. Tom and Daisy live a trouble free
She is irresponsible when dealing with other people, emotions, and her actions are nothing but an afterthought. Gatsby sweeps Daisy off her feet with a surprise afternoon tea in Nick’s house that Gatsby ordered to be decorated extravagantly for her. Daisy hopelessly falls for his affection even though she has a husband and daughter to think about. Rather than saving Jay from a catastrophe of an affair, she effortlessly pulls him into her hazardous arms and throws him into a situation that is bound to explode in both of their faces. Reuniting after five years made Gatsby blind to what Daisy is capable of and Nick describes the day as, “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams- not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way.” (95-96). Daisy sees what Gatsby has done to impress and satisfy her need for money, and the amount of dedication and passion he had to create a reputation for himself that would suit her desires. Instead of feeding into the illusion that Gatsby was dreaming of, Daisy should have ended it with a short get together at tea, not with a tour of Jay’s achievements dedicated to her as he showed her his mansion. She knew what she was getting herself into by accepting the feelings that Gatsby was holding onto for years, but she was responsible for pushing him into reality, not dragging him deeper into a dream that she knew could never happen. Little did Daisy care as she jumped right into the situation thinking that no consequence would come of it, and even if something did go wrong, she would not be the one having to clean up the mess. As their tragic love drags on, Daisy is naive and Tom