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How Is The American Dream Corrupt In The Great Gatsby

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Recommended: The great gatsby on the wealth

Holle Dietzman
Ms.Maggert
Honours English III
April 6, 2017 [01 month 2016]
Corruption of the American Dream
For hundreds of years all kinds of people have been coming to America for one thing: the American Dream, and it is no different today. Rising from nothing in order to become something and have everything is the very essence of the American Dream. Throughout the years though, this dream has been corrupted by the carnal needs and pursuit of wealth taking over every waking moment, becoming obsessed with the idea of money. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby the main character Jay Gatsby is the purest form of this dream. He came from nothing and rose to everything in a course of a few short years, and if only for a summer he received …show more content…

In The Great Gatsby there are two kinds of wealth, old money and new money. Those with new money often times “earned it” illegally by bootlegging alcohol to towns and cities throughout the United States. The wealthy with old money inherited it from past generations of oil salesmen, factory owners, or inventors. Whether they inherited the money or got hold of it illegally they 're all the same. They waste it and then they want more, the rich can never be satisfied. “Why they came East I don 't know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together” (Fitzgerald 17). Gatsby, no matter how noble his intentions are is guilty of wasting money on huge lavish parties in hopes of Daisy walking in one night. The rich continuously spend and spend their money without any thought as to where it 's going or how much they 're wasting. The wealthy are unaffected by the decisions they …show more content…

The Buchanans, Jordan, Gatsby, Wolfsheim are all seen as successful but are they really? No one knows the real them, what 's really under all the wealth and allusions of their facade. This shows that any success they achieve is really worthless because it doesn 't help anyone and is really just for show. Although for Gatsby Nick took his time to get to know him and he discovered that all of Gatsby’s success was for one purpose only: Daisy. Gatsby used the American dream to build his wealth to get Daisy. In the book he is the only one who uses the American dream for a a for a noble cause. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made”(Fitzgerald 136-145). They are careless and showy and this is the only thing they have to show for their success. The rich are only seen a successful because of the money that people think they have. What they don 't see it out and see that kind of success truly is, they don 't really have anyone To share it with all they do is spend it so people know that Rich a truly empty form

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