How The Great Gatsby Changed The American Dream

How money changed The American Dream
The government voted in the 18th amendment creating Prohibition making alcohol illegal, but not completely eliminating it. Prohibition caused wealth and corruption, this being depicted in the Story "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jay Gatsby Turns to a life of selling illegal Booze in order to reach a higher social status.
The main character of the story is Jay Gatsby. He comes from a poor family and is a big dreamer, he is also a risk taker, "He keeps his past shrouded in a web of lies and half-truths as he sets out to remake himself into a person of wealth and prominence"(Thorton). This life style gives him the perfect personality to be a bootlegger. His smooth talking and sly smile gives him

the ability to seem like a man who makes his money legally, seeming like the perfect example of someone trying to live the american dream.
The mysterious Jay Gatsby does become very rich by selling illegal booze. During Prohibition doctors could prescribe, ““medicinal liquor” for their patients for literally dozens of ailments, including alcoholism.”(Thorton). Gatsby sees this opportunity and established a chain of drugstores backed by corrupt politicians and organized crime he developed into a very popular bootlegger. This included relationships with The Commissioner of Police that sent him a “Christmas card” every year and a senator that owed him a favor. This showed that his business was booming and that he was a very popular person in the “Black Market”.
Him becoming so popular shows how a drive for money can make someone corrupt "the resultant corruption of the American Dream as the unquenched desire for money and pleasure superseded the more noble societal values of equality and liberty."(Payne). His want to be socially accepted made him blind to the fact that he was breaking the very laws he fought to uphold.
Wealth and a higher social status created almost a dream land world that separated the Upper class from the lower class, “'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously.

'Why, of course you can!”(Fitzgerald 111). This shows that he has been completely disconnected from reality and lives in a mindset separate from his common peers. His thought of completely making everything like is was in the past shows the he doesn't recognize the past 5 years of memories as something that cannot be forgotten.
Some people may think that money doesn't corrupt people and that corruption is something that can be controlled by human choice, but money affected the social acceptance of people, it corrupted the thought process of the upper percentage of people, the wealthy people that don't accept the less wealthy because of a social barrier they feel can't be passed, the younger brother that gets rich and feels like his whole family is trying to take his money, the greed that comes along with wealth causes corruption.
Corruption and greed are often factors of wealth, social acceptance and I general feeling of being on a higher more important level than people also come with being wealthy, you are able to separate yourself from the middle class citizens and often create a barrier that can't be broken without having

money.