Baxter Mays Ms. Maggert English Honors III March 24, 2016 [01 month 2016] Great Gatsby “American Dream” In Fitzgerald's novel Great Gatsby [book titles always get italicized, not underlined or quote marks] the main character Jay Gatsby is living a life full of money and deceit. In the 20’s money is flowing and spirits are high as people live it up in order to “forget” about the war. For Gatsby, money is his way back into a life of love and happiness with his past admirer Daisy. With tThis in mind Daisy and Gatsby have an affair behind the back of her husband Tom’s back and Gatsby is set on proving to Tom that Daisy loves him. Gatsby has corrupted the American Dream by believing it can be achieved with wealth and glamour, by illegally earning …show more content…
Throughout the book he gets phone calls from whom his butler just states the city they come from, leaving us to infer they are to discuss his bootlegging ordeals. Fitzgerald sees Gatsby as cheating his way into a life of riches by making a crime of his job and using his money to become hierarchy to the law. In the book Fitzgerald discusses how Gatsby’s boss Wolfsheim abuses his power by saying “The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World's Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people – with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.” He is saying that Wolfsheim gets caught, but uses his money to come off squeaky clean without any penalties. This can also be seen later in the book when Gatsby gets pulled over and flashes the officer a white card and he is on his way again. Fitzgerald portrays how he earns his money a reason that the American Dream cannot exist for so many other people by making it seem as though it must be achieved by sneaking around the system to achieve your happiness through materialistic values such as