The Great Gatsby: A Story of the Corrupted American Dream Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, better known as F. Scott Fitzgerald, was a famous member of what is known as the “Lost Generation”, a group of literary figures who left America due to discontent with the country in the early 1900s. Fitzgerald was born in 1896 and frequently moved around the country over the course of his life, working many different jobs but never becoming successful or wealthy. In his late teens, he joined the United States Army and fell in love with a girl at the camp where he was stationed, but she refused to marry him due to his economic instability. He later married her after the war and became a writer, although that incident changed his views on American society. As a heavy alcoholic who was constantly in debt, Fitzgerald moved to …show more content…
In 1926, he wrote The Great Gatsby, a novel which criticized American culture and the concept of the American Dream. In 1940, F. Scott Fitzgerald died with little writing success, however, his literature became popularized after his death (Brucolli 2). As a member of the “Lost Generation”, Fitzgerald did not believe in the common American belief that “...every man, whatever his origins, may pursue and attain his chosen goals, whether they be political, monetary, or social” (Pearson 1). He felt that average Americans were disillusioned and misled in their constant strive for wealth and materialism. F. Scott Fitzgerald accurately shows the problems with the concept of the American Dream through the characters and plot of his novel The Great Gatsby, separating the realistic opportunity from the theoretical during the 1920s, and he