Explain The Decline Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

Brandon Winter
Mr. Clyne
English 11
17 March 2015
The Great Gatsby and the American Dream
In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald published a book called The Great Gatsby. The period in which the book was published was a very important time in American history. Not only people born in America but also people from around the world had one goal in life at the time and that goal was the American Dream. The early 1900’s was a time where people thought they could achieve anything, at least they thought most things were possible. In F.S. Fitzgerald’s book he doesn’t directly address what an American Dream is but through the use of the characters in his novel, he directly gives the motives and reasons the characters have for achieving their goals. All
This separation is represented by East Egg and West Egg. Each side has its own morals they live by. Characters in the novel travel east and west, looking for their “American Dream”. There is a place though, that lies between West Egg and New York, called “The Valley of Ashes.” It is here that morals no longer exist and only people who strive for the material things in life can live there. Fitzgerald includes this wasteland in his novel to symbolize the decline of the American dream. It showed that people will be so caught up in a dream they have for wealth, money, fame, etc. that they will lose any ideals or morals they have and live in a so called “Valley of
As a child, James grew up with his family in North Dakota. He was not content at all with the farm life so he began moving place to place trying to find a better life for himself. The only times he would shorten the gap between him and wealth was by meeting the wrong types of people, people involved in questionable money making methods, such as Meyer Wolfsheim and Dan Cody. When Gatsby was supposed to inherit Cody’s money, the wife kept it all for herself instead. This event was the turning point for Gatsby’s strive to wealth. Fitzgerald tells his readers later in the story that Jay Gatsby got his money by bootlegging, the illegal sale of alcohol. “I found out what your ‘drug stores’ were.” He turned to us and spoke rapidly. “He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong” (Fitzgerald 106). During the time in Gatsby’s life he had quite a bit of money but still could not manage to win over the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. Because of the poor early life he had and his leave for war, it is for these reasons she could not see herself with him. This was what led Gatsby for his greatest desire of money and wealth so he