How does Fitzgerald portray the corruption of the American Dream in the ‘Great Gatsby?’

In Fitzgerald’s ‘Great Gatsby’ he has portrayed how the original American Dream created by the Dutch sailors clashes inevitably with the idea of materialism and greed to fuel the our desires in life, destroying our dreams along the process. The original American Dream is that if you work hard, you could succeed in life. However, our wants are the things that blind us to what is more important throughout our lives. The author has based his novels on parties; in every chapter, there is a party, using parties. Fitzgerald introduces many characters in the novel, and further shows their character to the reader. Moreover, it depicts what kind of attitudes in the 1920’s caused the corruption of the American Dream.

Fitzgerald depicted how new technology and material goods can change the way we think, and how we treat others. In the 1920’s, one of the most evident factors of the decline of the American Dream is due to materialism. Fitzgerald conveys that this was the time where the original ideas of the American Dream; hope, and discovering was being substitute into a materialistic version. Nevertheless, if you “seen everything, and done everything,” the author suggests materialism can blur the way we think and live our daily life. Fitzgerald presents a major flaw that is seen in all ‘old money;’ viewing people as objects. The ‘old money’ are people who had their wealth for generations and has the higher status than the ‘new money,’ who are people that recently earned their fortune. As the readers analysis the pages of the ‘Great Gatsby’ we find out that Tom processes this flaw. This is evident when “Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand,” when she kept on repeating “Daisy, Daisy, Daisy.” Today, in the society we live in we would receive a harsh punishment if we intentionally broke someone’s nose or even hit them, however Tom didn’t. Not only, does this display how we became more civilised than in the past, it also gives the perception that Tom views Myrtle as a toy. He hits it if it malfunctions or doesn’t do what he says. In addition, Nick conveys Jordan’s disregard of other people’s feelings. She supports Daisy having an affair because “Daisy ought to have something in her life.” The noun “something” constructs the idea that Jordan sees Gatsby as an object, not someone. Moreover, Fitzgerald states that the ‘new money’ wasn’t better either. He portrays that Gatsby’s party guests who went to his party were not actually his friends; the readers discover that they used him for his lavish wealth. Gatsby has viewed as “Mr Nobody form Nowhere.” People were mesmerized into materials that they forgot what are more important, humans. The author creates the concept that the love of materials can also make us blind to moral behaviour. Fitzgerald clearly represents that one of the reasons of the corruption of the American Dream was by materialism.

Furthermore, Fitzgerald reveals the atmosphere of Easy money and relaxed social value so therefore, we can conclude that this was another factor of the corruption of the American Dream. Due to this, many people took part in distributing illegal alcohol, known as Bootlegging. We can deduce the fact that Gatsby was a Bootlegger because of the many hints that the author gives us. Fitzgerald symbolizes his house as “a huge incoherent of a failure,” this

symbolizes the measure of failure of democratic ideals, and the adjective “incoherent” explains how Gatsby’s greatness blinds the flaws in him. Additionally, the author utilizes Meyer and Gatsby to symbolize the rise of crime to further reinforces this idea. The reader sees this by Nick telling us that “He’s a gambler” and Wolfshiem “fixed the World Series.” The fuelling of the American Dream with unworthy desires of money, and pleasure is the concept that Fitzgerald used to create a bigger idea that we, humans can be blinded by wealth like love. Cleverly, he has described Daisy’s voice being “full of money.” This metaphor symbolizes the temptation of money and how money can make us do anything. By this, Fitzgerald expresses that money is like a drug, we will do anything to get as much as we want of it.

Having come out of the 1st world war, many people descided to try and forget about the war, and wanted to experience things that were valued immoral in the past, this made up the attitude of the ‘Roaring Twenties.’ Fitzgerald has used Gatsby to depict the idea that pleasure corrupting the American Dream. Gatsby has only one dream, and is the reason on why he is living. Nevertheless, his greatness and hope is contradicted by pursuing a “yet unspecified goal.” Gatsby’s life centres around pleasure, due to the connotations of “orgastic.” Fitzgerald crafts the idea of that pleasure is an enemy to the American Dream; it has the power of making the dream a failure. Development is made as the final line of the book states “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Fitzgerald has used “boats” to symbolize us, therefore, he is trying to convey how pleasure and nostalgia is pushing us back in to the past, while we try to move on, but the people who believes in “repeating the past” is doomed to fail. The message that Fitzgerald is trying to transmit to the readers is that it is how you work towards your dream that determines your success/failure, if you have the thought of moving on away from the past and your wants, your likely to succeed, this is something we must descide ourselves. Fitzgerald’s lovely writing explains how our desires of pleasure and wants can immensely influence our very own American Dream.