The Fall Of Two Dreams (The Great

Gatsby) Essay, Research Paper

In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many themes

are enclosed; the most salient of these themes is related

to the American Dream. The American Dream is based on the

idea that any person, no matter what they are, can become

successful in life by his or her hard work. The dream also

embodies the idea of a self-sufficient person, an

entrepreneur making it successful for themselves. The Great

Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream during

the 1920s, an era when the dream had been corrupted by the

relentless pursuit of wealth. In this novel, the pursuit of

the American Dream and the pursuit of a romantic dream are

the ultimate causes of the downfall of the book.s title

character, Jay Gatsby.

Throughout the story, Jay Gatsby avoids telling the

truth of his hard, unglamorous childhood. He does this to

keep his superficial image of himself and to save himself

from the embarrassment of being in a state of poverty during

his youth. His parents were lazy and unsuccessful people

who worked on the farm, and because of this Gatsby never

really accepted them as his parents. Jay Gatsby.s real name

is James Gatz and he is from the very unexciting North

Dakota. He changed his name to Jay Gatsby when he was

seventeen years old, which was the beginning of his version

of the American Dream. In all realities Gatsby arose from

his Platonic view of himself, the idealistic self-view that

a seventeen year old boy has of himself (Fitzgerald 104).

Though concealed for most of the story, Gatsby.s

embarrassing childhood is a major source of determination in

his attempt to achieve the American Dream.

During Gatsby.s early adulthood, he joined the army. He

first met Daisy when he was at Camp Taylor and he and some

other officers stopped by her house. He initially loved

Daisy because of her extraordinary house and because many

other men had been with her already. One evening in

October, during 1917, Gatsby fell in love with Daisy Fay,

and in turn she fell in love with Gatsby. .Daisy was the

first .nice. girl that he had ever known. (Fitzgerald 155).

Their love was an uneasy one at first for Gatsby to

comprehend because he wasn.t rich by any standards and he

felt that he wasn.t worthy of Daisy.s affection, but his

uneasiness was uplifted when he and Daisy fell in love and

when he found out that Daisy knew a lot because he knew a

variety of things that she didn.t. Their month of love was

physically ended when Gatsby had to go to war, but their

emotional love never ended. As Gatsby performed brilliantly

throughout the war, they wrote each other frequently. Daisy

couldn.t understand why Gatsby couldn.t come home. She

wanted her love to be their with her, she needed some

assurance that she was doing the right thing. It didn.t

take long for Daisy to get over Jay because in the Spring of

1918 she fell in love with a rich, former All-American

college football player named Tom Buchanon. This broke Jay

Gatsby.s heart. His love for Daisy was a strong one and he

was determined to get her back. This first love with Daisy

had a great impact on his idea of one of the aspects of

achieving the American Dream.

Throughout the novel, the reader is mislead about how

Gatsby became wealthy. Gatsby claims on several different

occasions that he inherited his parents. immense fortune.

This is a story that Gatsby made up in order to keep his

self-image up by not letting people know about his

childhood. The truth is that Gatsby got rich by illegal

measures. He was friends with the notorious Meyer

Wolfsheim. Meyer Wolfsheim was the racketeer who supposedly

fixed the World Series of 1919. He was Gatsby.s connection

to organized crime, in which Gatsby became rich. Gatsby.s

true sources to richness were selling bootleg liquor in his

chain of drug stores and creating a giant business to get

rid of and sell stolen Liberty bonds (Mizener 188).

Gatsby.s methods of gaining wealth corrupt the morality of

the American Dream although they help him to achieve it.

It did not take long for Gatsby to attempt to win Daisy

back after he returned from the army. Jay Gatsby had this

romantic view of Daisy and himself together and happy

forever. He felt the best way to achieve this idea would be

for him to become at least as rich as Daisy.s husband Tom

Buchanon. He knows that the best ways for him to pry

Daisy.s affection away from Tom are gaining wealth and

gaining material possessions. Daisy is a shallow woman who

is easily overwhelmed by material items. Gatsby.s main way

to show off his wealth and material possessions were to

throw lavish parties. His parties featured the finest

drinks and live jazz bands. The parties were so huge that

Nick Carraway, Gatsby.s best friend and the na

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