Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby illustrates the lifeless, bleak, and unequal, tale of the American dream. The American dream is that every citizen in the United States can be equally prosperous by working hard and being innovative. The Great Gatsby follows the story of Nick Carroway, the narrator and a World War 1 veteran, and his exploits across New York in the Summer of 1922. It also follows one of Nick's neighbors named James Gatsby who is known around New York for throwing large eccentric parties and having amassed a large amount of wealth. For much of the story Gatsby has a mythical aura surrounding his name, a likeness as if he is called a murderer and the son of Kaiser Wilhelm Early, among other things. Across from Gatsby there is another …show more content…
Throughout the story we also see Gatsby looking at a green light on the other side of the bay many times and seem to be entranced by it at times. Although he seems to be reaching out to this green light, he is never able to grab it no matter how hard he tries. These quotes both depict how lifeless and unachievable the American dream is, as portrayed through The Great Gatsby. One quote that helps show how lifeless and empty the American dream is, as portrayed through The Great Gatsby, is the quote about a billboard for an eye doctor that looms above the Valley of Ashes. "But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleberg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleberg are blue and gigantic — their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved