Examples Of Dishonest In The Great Gatsby

A Dream, Dishonest
"Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement". This statement, said by James Truslow Adams in 1931, is what is known as the American Dream today. This idea was especially true for those in the 1920s, the time period in which The Great Gatsby takes place. The main character, Jay Gatsby is a prime example of this, as he spends most of the novel working to achieve his American Dream of getting the girl he loves. In this novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the past events in Gatsby’s life shape him into an entirely different person than he once was, and also these events affect the relationships he has with others in his life, especially his loved ones; this

When Nick is invited to one of Gatsby’s parties, he enters and “made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazement” (Fitzgerald 42). The parties are representative of Gatsby’s persona; he pretends to be loud, flashy, and charismatic just like his parties are. However, by not showing up at them, Gatsby is both keeping up this flashy image and shielding himself from any interaction with someone, for fear that the interaction might reveal more of his true personality to people. Furthermore, if he did show them who he truly was, he would risk losing everything he had been working towards, which is Daisy. When he does eventually get together with Daisy, he shuts down his parties, the idealistic version of himself he has created. Gatsby then tries to be with her as himself, which later leads to his own death. If he had never shown Daisy his true self or tried to be with her openly and honestly like he did, he never would have lost her. This shows how quickly the American Dream can fail when it is in reality instead of under lies and falsehoods. Gatsby keeps everyone he knows at a distance, which alienates his relationships and prevents everyone from getting close to him. It works for a time, but when his American Dream is achieved Gatsby should not have let go of that strategy, because once he did he lost the one person that was his whole life, his whole goal, his whole