Corruption In The Great Gatsby

The twenties were the first decade to come along where people needed to remain on guard against superficial impressions. Majority of defining clichés distract from the underlying complexity of this period and only represent the experiences and lives of a select few. During the 1920s, the wounds of WWI were confronted by the pursuit of the American dream, a mirage of money and false happiness that often resulted in disillusionment. F. Scott Fitzgerald and other writers of the lost generation suggested that people of the 1920s were alienated by their own materialism. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald communicates the corruption that the American dream can lead to through the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby and those who surrounded him. Jay Gatsby’s constant push and pull between illusion and self-delusion assists in exposing the contradictions made in

Possessing not only imaginative dreams, but also idealistic illusions result in his unfortunate downfall. Nearly a minute does not pass where Gatsby is not obsessing about what could have been had things gone in his favor five years before the novel takes place. Hooked on the idea of a life with Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby furthers his own current state of emptiness and despair because he fails to live in the present by dwelling in the past. The main achievement of The Great Gatsby is that it shows its reader a state of mind. It’s a state of spiritual hunger, restlessness, anticipation, and curiosity. As the narrator eloquently puts it, he was “within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled” (Fitzgerald 35). Nick Carraway recognized that he had mixed feelings about the city and perhaps the new lifestyle he was living. On one hand, he was enjoying the sublime nature of how he was living, and on the other hand, he had reservations and concerns around some of