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Great Gatsby

The book, The Great Gatsby, has been criticized many times regarding different matters, among them, the American dream. The Great Gatsby takes place during the jazz age, where the belief of everyone achieving the American dream was prominent. Seekers of the “American dream” believed that hard work and their own abilities would pave the way for them to achieve their goals such as being rich or famous, thus making them happy. Marius Bewley says, “It can be shown that The Great Gatsby offers some of the severest and closest criticism of the American dream that our literature affords.” While the book fails to convey the true American dream throughout the story, it is able to show the reader how flawed and corrupt the American dream really was through the use of, characters in the book, the symbolism of the valley of ashes, and the setting of the west egg and the east egg.
The characters that show up throughout the book do not really convey the true American dream correctly. Jay, Daisy, and Jordan are examples of characters that did not really play by the rules but achieved some of their goals. Jay Gatsby, formerly James Gatz, came from a very poor family and fell in love with Daisy. Gatz was stationed in the same town which daisy lived but soon had to be relocated, before doing so, he told Daisy to wait for his return. Instead of waiting, she married another man and left Gatsby behind because of the difference between their social statuses. After losing the love of his life, Gatsby decided that he needed to become rich in order to win Daisy back. In order to become rich, Gatsby turned to illegal business in order to achieve his ends. Even after becoming rich, Daisy did not want to be with Gatsby. His story is a great example of how the “American dream” is flawed. Even after years of hard work, Gatsby is still unhappy on the inside because Daisy is still missing in his life. Daisy Buchanan is another example of a character that did not follow the American dream...