Examples Of Corruption In The Great Gatsby

Why The American Dream is Corrupt
The American Dream is a frequent theme in most of American literature. In his novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald creates characters who are trying to achieve their American Dream and will do whatever it takes to reach it. With their dedication to achieve their American Dream, Fitzgerald’s characters will perform illegal action and in turn will morally corrupt them. While The American Dream has been portrayed positively by other authors, Fitzgerald emphasizes that it can drive people to illegal activities and morally corrupt them. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, The characters, especially Gatsby, are examples of corruption at the time and they were influenced by his idea of the corrupted American Dream.
In order

Nick Carraway moved to the East in hopes of achieving his dream of becoming successful and along the way he does his best to make everyone around him happy. He vows to not judge people and can be seen as a genuine person :"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. (pg 1 Fitzgerald)" The reality, however, is that he is one of the most corrupted people in the novel. His immorality comes from his dream of making his and other people’s lives better. He knows everyone’s secret and even though he favors Gatsby more than anyone else in the novel, he still does his absolute best to make people like Tom happy. His careless dream has eventually led to him witnessing the death of Gatsby and eventually giving up on his dream altogether and moves back West. Someone else with no moral values is Myrtle Wilson. She is morally corrupt because of how she treats her marriage with her husband, George. She has a materialistic way of thinking about life. Her dream is to be surrounded by whatever she wants but George, because he is poor, cannot provide that type of luxury. So she follows her corrupted dream and starts by cheating on her own husband with someone way wealthier, Tom. Along the way she even comes across as snobby and disrespectful : "I told that boy about the ice." Myrtle

The American Dream’s influence is most notably seen throughout the novel with Gatsby. Gatsby’s American Dream is to be with Daisy for the rest of his life. However, Gatsby wasn’t capable of achieving that dream because Daisy and himself were different when it came to wealth (Gatsby being poor at the time and Daisy being old money). So he quickly fell into the path of The American Dream which drove him corrupt. He lost his identity, he lost his relationships, he lost his dream of being with Daisy, and he even lost his own life because of it. The Great Gatsby is arguably considered the greatest piece of American literature because of its portrayal of the American way of life in the 1920s, however its greatest strength is its interpretation of the corrupted idea that is The American