Examples Of Substance Abuse In The Great Gatsby

When one in-visons the golden and all-powerful idea that is known simply as The American Dream it is only human to immediately think of the “grand” result of achieving the stereotypical dream, portrayed in a vast majority of pieces of media are the struggle and often overlooked deception that gaining and earning this idea of the dream costs. In most cases (and always in the cliché), the end all result of “working one’s entire life to earn the American dream” is seen as an ultimate bliss or euphoria because it means that one is earned the life they now have by putting in blood, sweat, and tears. Those claims quite possibly and a lot of the times accurate but what is almost always ignored is the journey to the dream. This journey is the complete opposite of the dream

Most frequent is a character being involved in an act of violence against another character or even an act of violence against themselves, in this case the act of violence doesn’t actually involve James but instead involves Tom and his mistress; Myrtle. While both drunk Myrtle continues to bring up Tom’s wife Daisy and even eventually ends up just blatantly shouting her name in his face, "Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" shouted Mrs. Wilson. "I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai –– " Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. (125-127). This event in the novel shows the problems with substance abuse and the difficulties with not being able to control oneself under the influence of a given substance. In retrospect the idea of substance abuse and the American dream also directly relate in this event because just like acting out while intoxicated, one will act out without thinking of repercussion while chasing the dream