Corruption In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

While “The Great Gatsby” explores a number of themes, none is more prevalent than the corruption of the American dream. The Great Gatsby is about the main character, Nick Carraway, who comes to New York in search of the American dream. The American dream is someone starting low on the social or economic level towards prosperity and wealth. By having money, a big house, a car and a happy family symbolizes the American dream. The dream is represented by the ideas of a self-sufficient person, who works hard to achieve a goal to become successful. The American dream not only causes corruption but caused destruction. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author uses geography to show the American Dream. The motif, geography, is used most in the comparison of East Egg and West Egg to show the corruption in the American dream. The novel

While Nick is going from West Egg to East Egg, “the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away for a certain desolate area of land” (23). Traveling from West Egg to East Egg, both Nick and Tom stop at the Valley of Ashes. It is shown to be the indigent section of the city from the railroads to the powdery air. In the Valley of Ashes “the only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of wasteland, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it, and contiguous to absolutely nothing” (24). As nick walked along the road, all he would see a yellow building in sight. This quote also shows that the Valley of Ashes is a dumping ground, filled with poor and dispossessed people, such as the Wilsons. Fitzgerald depicts “The Valley of Ashes” as a place that is plagued with destitution and dilapidation showing the need for business regulation. The use of geography is significant, since it proves a big portion delivering Fitzgerald main