The Great Gatsby Moral Analysis

In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby he clearly intended for Gatsby’s dream of getting daisy back in his life to the American Dream for wealth and youth. Gatsby genuinely believes that if a person makes enough money and accumulates a great enough fortune, he can have anything he desire’s. He believes his wealth can erase the last five years of his and Daisy’s lives and reunite them at the point at which he left her to go off to the war. In a similar fashion, all Americans have tendency to believe that if they have enough wealth, they can manipulate time, staying perpetually young, and buy their happiness through materialistic spending. Throughout the novel, there are many parties, a hallmark of the rich. But each festivity ends in waste

Whether it be cheating in a poker game or on your wife/ husband there will always be a consequence. It seems that if you want to be rich you must do something illegal or against the moral law of any sensible human being, because that’s the only way that they tell you about, that’s the only way Gatsby thought about to become rich. Donaldson writes in “Possessions in The Great Gatsby,” “…he [Fitzgerald] was persuaded that capitalism was a corrupt and dying economic system.” (Donaldson, 3) Fitzgerald felt that capitalism and its offshoots— the excessive homes, cars, etcetera were the demise of the American Dream. The novel shows the possibilities that wealth can create and the irresponsibility that can ultimately ruin it. Additionally, the 1920s was a decade where a lot of cultural and social change was occurring—for example, the automobile and the Prohibition movement. The negative effects of these changes in culture also played a role in The Great Gatsby being less than a positive commentary on the state of the American

All those material possessions were bought to win Daisy, which Gatsby mistakenly felt would ultimately lead him to happiness and the fulfillment of his American Dream. In the end, Gatsby’s life and the culture surrounding it serves as a cautionary tale about those seeking happiness within the narrow confines of the 1920s American