Examples Of Dilemmas In The Great Gatsby

The Dilemmas of the American Dream
White picket fences, large glamorous parties, and a perfect family; these are all ideals that people think the idealistic American Dream looks like, but it is not true. The Great Gatsby, by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, shows how one's desire can lead to one's greatest downfall: the desire for wealth. The point of view through a Marxist lens explains how social status does not change from birth to adulthood. If we read this novel looking through that lens, will it still be true? The unrealistic achievement of the American Dream is shown by how money doesn't buy happiness. The desire for wealth and a high social status spirals into each character’s downfall. It starts with Daisy wanting to marry a man with money,

Numerous years prior to marrying Tom Buchanan, she fell in love with a man named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby loves her and she loves him, but they can’t be together since Gatsby is poor. The desire to marry rich causes Daisy to shape one of the biggest mistakes in her life, which is to not marry Gatsby. This crushes Gatsby, so he constructs his life-long mission to climb the ladder of success, become rich, and convince Daisy to come back to him. “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before.” (110) Gatsby thinks that he can change the past. He is hung-up on Daisy after only being with her for one month. Gatsby was successful by becoming rich through his drug stores in Chicago. He then buys a mansion across the bay from Daisy and throws a multitude of

In The Great Gatsby, both Gatsby and Myrtle try to do so. Myrtle uses Tom to climb the social ladder. Then all comes crashing down one night when Gatsby and Daisy tell Tom that she is not and was never in love with him, and that she loves Gatsby instead. Prior to this event, Tom borrows Gatsby’s car and drives to go visit Myrtle. Myrtle observes him in this car and assumes it belongs to Tom. Later, Daisy and Gatsby leave after coming clean to Tom and they drive off in Gatsby’s car, about to pass where Myrtle lives. Myrtle is currently in a fight with her husband because he finds out about the cheating. She views what she thinks is Tom’s car coming to save her, but it is not him. She runs out into the street, “Her life (is) violently extinguished,”(137) She is killed instantly. Tom and her husband are crushed. Nick later finds Gatsby, knowing that he has something to do with this accident. “Of course I’ll say I was (driving)”(142) Gatsby admits that Daisy was the one drunkenly driving the car, but Gatsby covers for her and lies that he was driving and hit Myrtle. A few days later, Myrtle’s husband is told by Tom that Gatsby was the one that killed his wife. He grows angrier and angrier, until eventually he finds Gatsby at his home. “The chauffeur… heard the shots.”(161) Myrtle’s husband has shot Gatsby in the back, then proceeds to shoot himself in the mouth to be put out of his