Great Gatsby-Failure Of The American Dream

Failure of the American Dream The setting is in Long Island, New York on the parts of East Egg and West Egg. West Egg is home of the "new"� rich people and East Egg is home to the distinguished rich families. Nick Carraway has just moved into his new shack right next to the huge elegant mansion of Jay Gatsby in West Egg. In East Egg lives Nick's cousin Daisy with her husband Tom Buchanan. These two places are separated by a large mass of water, but are connected by land on the side. Midway between New York City and West Egg lays a dump known as the valley of ashes. This valley is the home of George and Myrtle Wilson. All of the main characters pass through this ash dump at one point or another during the novel. All of the main characters are chasing the American Dream. They might not be doing it in completely legal ways, but they were all after the same thing. They did not think before they acted and ended up worse off than they were originally. Almost all people chase after the American Dream, but it can ultimately be catastrophic.

Nick had participated in World War I and after returning home found himself restless in the Mid-West and decided to move to New York to get into the bond business. He was egger to start his new job and had a positive outlook on the world. Nick then meets his new and mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby and everything slowly begins to unfold about his past and wealth. By the end of the book Nick has lost his friend and is so disgusted with the moral less values of the East that he decides to return back to the Mid-West, "After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. "¦ I decided to come back home"� (185). He went for his dream and at the end it is easy for the readers to come the conclusion that Nick will always have a bad impression of the East considering the events he has seen and the corrupt people he has interacted with.

Tom Buchanan was a big and strong manly man. He acts on