The Destruction of the American Dream in Fitzgeralds The...

In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main theme is most directly related to the American Dream. The American Dream is based on the idea that any person, no matter who they are, can become successful in life by working hard. The Great Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream during the 1920s, an era when the dream had been corrupted by the relentless pursuit of wealth. The pursuit of the American Dream is the ultimate cause of the downfall of the main character, Jay Gatsby. Throughout the story, Jay Gatsby avoids telling the truth of his hard, ordinary childhood. He does this to keep his image and to save himself from the embarrassment of being in a state of poverty during his youth. His parents were†¦show more content†¦Their month of love was physically ended when Gatsby had to go to war, but their emotional love never ended. Daisy couldn?t understand why Gatsby couldn?t home. She wanted her love to be with her, she needed some assurance that s he was doing the right thing. It didn?t take long for Daisy to get over Jay because in the Spring of 1918 she fell in love with a rich, former All-American college football player named Tom Buchanon. This broke Jay Gatsby?s heart. His love for Daisy was a strong one and he was determined to get her back. This first love with Dausy had a great impact on his idea of one of the aspects of achieving the American Dream. Gatsby claims on several different occasions that he inherited his parents? immense fortune. This is a story that Gatsby made up in order to keep his self-image up by not letting people know about his childhood. The truth is that Gatsby got rich by illegal bootlegging. He was friends with the illegal Meyer Wolfsheim, who was supposedly the racketeer that fixed the World Series of 1919. He was Gatsby?s connection to organized crime, in which Gatsby became rich. Gatsby?s true sources to richness were selling bootleg liquor in his chain of drugstores and creating a giant business to get rid of and sell stolen Liberty bonds (Mizner 188). Gatsby?s method of gaining wealth corrupt the morality of the American Dream although they help him to achieve it. Jay Gatsby had this romantic view of Daisy and himselfShow MoreRelatedDestruction of Dreams, Failure of Dreamers in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby1489 Words   |  6 Pages Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is used to contrast a real American dreamer against what had become of American society during the 1920s.   By magnifying the tragic fate of dreamers, conveying that twenties America lacked the substance to fulfill dreams and exposing the shallowness of Jazz-Age Americans, Fitzgerald foreshadows the destruction of his own generation. 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