Un-Achievability Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald expresses the un-achievability of the American Dream through the shifts in class and vast characterization of Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald portrays the diminishing effects of the American dream which is achieving the love of Daisy in the eyes of Gatsby. Each character in this novel has an American dream and while some characters somewhat reach it, other such as Gatsby end having their dreams touch their fingertips only for it to slip away. Jay Gatsby, a self-made man, who had been pawning over Daisy for the past five years, had continuously “stretched out his arms towards the dark water… [reaching for] a single green light, minute and far away” ( Fitzgerald 20-21). The green light is the representation of Daisy Buchanan, also known as Daisy Fay, who lives across from Gatsby’s house and is the love of Gatsby’s past life.
The sole purpose of Gatsby’s residency in the extravagant mansion is to impress Daisy and show her that he has changed and increased his status from when she left him as a poor soldier going into the war. Once Daisy acknowledges Gatsby’s existence, he shows Daisy all the lavish, materialistic items that she missed out on by marrying Tom. Inside Gatsby’s inhabited house “he took out pile[s] of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk… [as] Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily” (Fitzgerald 93). When Daisy sees the materialistic wealth that Gatsby now posses she is overcome by the feeling and desire for her materialistic American