Corruption of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby

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Recommended: The great gatsby f scott fitzgerald modernism

Taj Dimbo
Mrs.Lepre
American Literature P.1
12/15/2015
Corruption of the American Dream
In The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald the American dream becomes corrupted by the pursuit of money. The American Dream is basically a dream to accomplish your goals but too much money and power can corrupt this dream. Gatsby was motivated to acquire his dream. “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way… and distinguished nothing except a single green light”(20). This quote shows how Gatsby was striving for his goal and trying to accomplish it no matter what the obstacles were. Other characters that had to deal with their dream being corrupted were Myrtle and Daisy. Myrtle’s dream was to live a rich and famous life while Daisy’s dream …show more content…

Daisy’s dream was to live a very happy, loving life. All she ever hoped for was happiness. When she realized she married the wrong man it changed who she was as a person and when you can’t be who you really are, there is no way of being happy. Daisy found out about a secret Tom was hiding and that is when she really realized this was a wrong marriage and there was zero way of her finding happiness. Jordan states, “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”(20) Jordan prompted that Tom is sleeping with somebody else. Tom hits her and he doesn’t even care about her well being. Daisy thought she had everything until she understood she really has nothing and her life was corrupted trying to live the American dream. Daisy thought she would have love when she married Tom but she didn’t. That love was corrupted by money and power. She never ended up happy, she only ended up with money and that didn’t make her happy. Daisy also realized that she could’ve also married Gatsby for money and she would’ve also gotten the love and happiness she dreamed of from him. Daisy’s goal of living the American Dream and happiness was destroyed and so was her happiness.
The American Dream in The Great Gatsby was a very powerful dream that many of the characters in the story dreamed to live. When this dream was corrupted it caused nothing but destruction and unhappiness within the characters. Many of the characters dreamed of having wealth and wanted to do anything they could to acquire that money. The corruption of the American Dream really shows that money cannot buy you happiness and the characters in this story could not process that idea through their

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