What Is The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream in The Great Gatsby
“But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?”-Alan Moore. This quote relates to the downfall of the American Dream in the novel, The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby, written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, takes place in 1920s America. In the story, a man named Jay Gatsby finds out that the woman he loves, Daisy, had married another man, Tom Buchanan. He then decides to dedicate his life to become wealthy and get her back. Gatsby sees getting Daisy back as part of getting his American Dream and spends his entire life in his pursuit of happiness. He eventually becomes corrupt in his ways to achieve what he sees as the American Dream. This also ties into
the decline of the American Dream during the 1920s with Gatsby’s corruption, the decaying social and moral values of Americans, and Gatsby’s misinterpretation of the American Dream. Growing up, Gatsby believes that he can achieve his dream to become wealthy and later on, win Daisy. The idea of the American Dream is that anything can be achieved through hard work, but Gatsby does not believe in the idea of hard work. Gatsby was born James Gatz to poor farmers in North Dakota. He always thought that he should have been born rich and resents his poverty. Gatsby shows his resentment in the quote, “His imagination had never really accepted them as his parents” (98). He wanted to be rich and famous and someone worthy, and not the poor farm boy that he was. Gatsby felt that he could reinvent himself into the person he thought he should be and renames himself Jay Gatsby and leaves home. After Gatsby leaves home, he does not achieve his dream through hard work, and uses corrupt and dishonest methods. He uses Daisy's cousin, Nick, to help him get Daisy when he asks him to invite Daisy to tea. Gatsby takes advantage of Nick's friendship to get what he wants when he says, “It wouldn't take up much time and you might pick up a nice bit of money” (83). He does not want Nick to realize that he was using him so he offers him a job. Gatsby basically bribes Nick to set him up with a date with Daisy and never really cared about him. Jay Gatsby wanted to live his American Dream so much that he lies and uses people. The treatment of Gatsby’s friends is shown when Tom says that Gatsby uses people, “You let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey” (134). Gatsby will do anything to achieve his American Dream. People either work with him, or are against him. Gatsby only has one thing in his life and that is his dream. He didn’t care who he used and only cared about his happiness. In the end, his dream fails and all he has done has been for nothing. The decline of the American Dream is also portrayed from the decaying social and moral values of Americans during the 1920s from the desire for unlimited wealth and happiness.
After the end of World War I, the rise of the stock market led to an increase in the national wealth and newfound materialism as people consumed more and money was more accessible. The reckless, joyous parties that Gatsby throws resulted in the corruption of the American dream, as the hunger for money and happiness surpassed everything else. The parties that Gatsby held every week in the summer were a symbol of the carelessness of the time. “In his blue garden people came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne” (39). Gatsby would hide in the house while the guests, most of who were not even invited, would party, eat and drink until the early hours of the morning without even meeting the Gatsby or even knowing who he was. People would show up just to be seen or reported in the local newspapers which show their desire for pleasure and disregard for anything else. The decline in the American Dream is also portrayed in the treatment of children. Daisy and Tom's daughter, Pammy, was treated almost like an object to show off rather than a child. The child shows her uneasiness around her parents in the quote, “The child, relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her mother's dress” (117). The child did not know her mother very well and did not want to go
near her. Gatsby expresses his surprise in the quote, “Afterward he kept looking at the child in surprise. I don't think he had ever really believed it its existence before” (117). Gatsby had never really known of the existence of Daisy's child, as Daisy was probably afraid to tell him about her. Daisy’s daughter was hopelessly neglected because of her parents’ desire for wealth and corruption of values. The ideal of the American dream was about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness.
Gatsby was not a man corrupted by the American Dream, but a corrupt man driven to achieve what he saw as the American Dream. From a young age we see that Gatsby corrupts himself because he was unhappy with where he was in life. He wanted to have a better life, but at the same time, he felt that he could not move up in society. When he did corrupt actions later in his life, he tried to justify them by saying that they are for his love of Daisy, which was not true. Gatsby’s corrupt dream was expressed in the quote, “…he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (20). Gatsby dreamed of his dream of a future with Daisy and used his successful life to try to impress her. He does everything to better his social standing. When he changed his name he took the first step towards reinventing himself into who he saw he should be. He was corrupt before he met Daisy, and he became more corrupt to get her back because she was his dream. She was so unobtainable to him that he wanted her more and more while the entire time he was trying to get Daisy to think that he was doing it for love. “…I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light
at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly grasp it”(98). No matter how hard Gatsby tried, even through his corrupt ways, he never got to live his dream of a future with Daisy. The light at Daisy’s dock must have symbolized to Gatsby as an unreachable destiny. The failure of Gatsby’s dream was explained in the quote, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (180). Nick compared the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock to Gatsby’s dream and the American Dream. Gatsby’s dream failed because of corruption from money and pleasure just like the American dream in the 1920s. Like 1920s Americans, Gatsby wanted to recreate his past but ended never achieving his dream. When his dream failed, all that was left for Gatsby to do was die. Overall, the story was about the deterioration of the American Dream during the 1920s America from people’s desire for money and happiness. The people during the time didn’t really care about any values and just allowed their corrupt dream take over them. Their dreams created corruption in many like Gatsby and ultimately destroyed the real purpose of the American Dream. This theme from the novel reflects some parts of our society today in how people’s corrupt mindset and behavior destroy the ethics of our nation.

Works Cited
“The Demise of the 1920s American Dream in The Great Gatsby.”InfoRefuge. InfoRefuge, 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2013. Print.
“The Great Gatsby: Corruption of the American Dream in the 1920’s.”SchoolWorkHelper. SchoolWorkHelper, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.