Consequences Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream
The beauty and desirability of American dream had been attracting people from around the world. The desire to acquire the quick success and to get rich in a short time period strongly influenced the minds of people during the time before the Great Depression period. The American dream embodied the ideals of equal possibilities for everyone independently of the social background and start-up capital. Gatsby, the main character described in the novel “The Great Gatsby” by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, tried to build the life by the canons of the American dream and impersonates its idea. The main idea of the Fitzgerald’s novel was to debunk the myth of the American dream, to show that money spoils even strong characters and the

The novel “The Great Gatsby” reveals the reader the failure of the American dream values and the consequences when living that kind of life. The reader can see that the money and wealth are the synonyms of the happiness in this novel. However, it is a veracious fact that people cannot buy happiness for money. James Gatz, who made himself in pursuit of stability in wealth, is the example of a crash of the American dream canons. Gatsby, this name he took to conquer the world, had “something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life” (Fitzgerald 2). The man who has reached a high socioeconomic status does not get blessed with happiness and peace of heart, but, on the contrary, looses his own face and spiritual world values. Father of deceased Gatsby shows Nick Caraway, the narrator of the story, the list of “improving his mind” practices that indicated the strong features of Gatsby personality. ”It just shows you, don’t it” claims his father, beyond doubt, prejudiced of his sons dignities (Fitzgerald 173). Gatsby is described as a war hero, which also can attest to his high moral

The pure love, which was the main driving force to get rich, makes him to choose between morals and selfishness. Firstly, Gatsby tries to return the love of his life by all means despite the fact that she is married and has a child. The affair with married woman does not make him feel guilty because the pursuit of money made him stale enough not to think about high morals. He tries to impress her with wealth rather than his own personal features (Fitzgerald 92). It characterizes him as a person with illegibility in methods to achieve the goal. However, his dream of happiness in personal life was broken and brought disappointment as Daisy seemed more impressed with his shirts rather than his diligence to reach the success and stand on the same step of the social welfare stairs as she. “It makes me sad because I have never seen such-such beautiful shirts before” Daisy’s words convey the grotesque satirical reality of their first date after five years (Fitzgerald 92). Secondly, the reader can observe his unlawful activity; Gatsby unscrupulous in a ways to get rich; Nick Caraway finds that later when some person calls the Gatsby’s house and mistakenly tells about their fraudulent activities (Fitzgerald 166). The scandalous scene of revelation of the affair between Daisy and Gatsby shows how money spoiled Gatsby; he did not care of his enrichment methods. “You let him go