How Does Fitzgerald Create Corruption In The Great Gatsby

Symbols of Corruption

It is the dream of most Americans to grow up to be better than their parents, live a life of luxury from humble beginnings, but life in 1920 was a very different than today’s America and for most fortune came from illegal means. A lot of the government was controlled by mob bosses with connections all over big cities. Prohibition was active and bootlegging was everywhere. WHile this time period saw economic success it also saw the death of people from the middle class rising up to the top and did nothing to fix social problems such as racism. F. Scott Fitzgerald in his book The Great Gatsby uses symbolism to express his opinion that immorality was ruining America in the 1920s. As symbols many of his characters die and

many of his characters which represent evil survive betraying his opinion that America is slowly dying. This is the reason that Gatsby dies and the reason that Gatsby never achieves his dream.
Throughout the book, F. Scott Fitzgerald builds the various characters in The Great Gatsby as symbols corresponding to 1920’s America. His first major symbolic character is of course Jay Gatsby himself. Gatsby represents America as a whole and living out the American dream. This is evident when Fitzgerald writes “...a ribbon, fell into my palm “That’s the one from Montenegro””(Fitzgerald 66), and “Here’s another thing I always carry. A souvenir of Oxford days.”(Fitzgerald 67). These short passages show that Gatsby was a war hero recognized by an award as well as an alumnus from one of the most famous colleges ever. The similarities between Gatsby and America don’t end there either, if you look at his past he was known as James Gatz until he left his parents and moved away for a better life. This is exactly what the early Americans did with england to pursue manifest destiny or in Gatsby’s case Daisy. This of course means that Daisy represents Gatsby. Another important symbolic character is actually George Wilson. He represents an innocent and honest American worker trying to make a decent living. This is shown by his reaction to Myrtle’s affair as said by Fitzgerald “He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick.”(Fitzgerald 124). Wilson’s reaction shows that he never even dreamed of crimes such as adultery being committed right under his nose. Finally, most of the remaining characters represent crime and carelessness. Tom, Myrtle, and Daisy, to an extent, represent adultery while Meyer Wolfsheim and Gatsby’s job represent the government corruption present during the roaring twenties. These symbolic characters add a new layer of meaning to the events in the story.
The plot events in The Great Gatsby are also thick with symbolism, benefitting from the ever present symbolism of the characters. The first important symbolic plot event is Gatsby losing daisy back to Tom, the book states “ I found out what your ‘drug-stores’ were...sold grain alcohol over the counter...I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him”(Fitzgerald 133). Gatsby’s loss of Daisy symbolizes America's loss of the American dream. Gatsby will spend the rest of the book trying once again to win Daisy’s love but this time it simply won’t happen. They symbolism thickens when looking at the reason Daisy left Gatsby. She left due to a crime that Gatsby had supposedly committed which represents the death of the American dream through bootlegging and other political crimes. This leads to the climactic event where the book reads “It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete”(Fitzgerald 162). This scene shows Wilson who as previously mentioned was an honest American killing Gatsby who represented America and the American dream. This means that in the conclusion of the story, through crime and lies the most innocent character in the book ends up killing the title character. This is not an accident on Fitzgerald’s part and symbolizes that America was slowly becoming inhabitable for honest working men and that the American dream was dead to them. All of these plot events show a very deep level of symbolism in the Great Gatsby so what does this say about the author?
Tying all the symbolism together, F.

Scott Fitzgerald sees America on a dark path filled with corruption. Fitzgerald conveys that corruption is going to cause future problems in America when he writes “Dear Mr.Carraway. This has been one of the most terrible shocks of my life...I am tied up in some very important business and cannot get mixed up in this thing right now….Yours truly Meyer Wolfsheim”(Fitzgerald 166). This letter from Wolfsheim shows him abandoning Gatsby after his death via letter instead of taking the time to go in person. Wolfsheim in the novel represents criminal business in America and was indirectly the reason for Gatsby’s death. What this means is that Fitzgerald believes that corruption if left unchecked will destroy America as we know it and then continue to be present in whatever society is left. Later in the story Fitzgerald writes “I see it is a night scene by El Greco….”(Fitzgerald 176). This allusion to El Greco helps Fitzgerald convey the profound connection between all aspects of society and the American people. El Greco is a spanish artist famous for his mannerist style. Mannerism is an art style in which a normal scene is distorted to contain asymmetric or unnatural elements. This art style is used to convey a situational tension or instability. Fitzgerald believes that this political instability is present in America due to Myriad factors such as careless or organized crimes,and government corruption. This is symbolized by his characters adultery and illegal businesses. Fitzgerald then uses the climactic moment of the story to really cement his point. Gatsby’s illegal actions caused daisy to leave him and in her rage she killed Myrtle which lead to Gatsby and Wilson’s deaths. In simple terms, Fitzgerald hope for The Great Gatsby was to reveal to the public that America was in a precarious position due this rampant corruption and that one day the dam would break. In hindsight he was absolutely correct as the Great Depression

happened shortly after the book was published.
In summation, F. Scott Fitzgerald in his novel The Great Gatsby used heavy symbolism to convey his opinion of America through his character and their actions. Most characters in the book represent some aspects of America with the main ones being Gatsby representing the american dream and all of the characters committing crimes representing American corruption. Through these symbols F. Scott Fitzgerald expresses his view of 1920’s America as perfect society built on a house of cards that could come crashing down at any moment.