"The Corrupted American Dream"

"The Corrupted American Dream"
     In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the characters to demonstrate the corruption and degradation of the American Dream. He even uses the characters, namely Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, to demonstrate the demise of those who are brave enough to attempt to attain its illusionary goals. There are different types of wealth represented in this novel. The Buchanans are wealthy people. Jay Gatsby is also wealthy but would rather simply be affluent. By placing the characters in compromising situations, Fitzgerald expresses the pain and misery that can result from careless actions and heartless words.

     Throughout the novel, the 1920s are portrayed as a moral wasteland. The lives of the wealthy are a moral wasteland. However, this is not to be confused with the lives of the affluent. The wealthy relentlessly pursue attaining more wealth. The affluent are wealthy but also have more than material wealth. The affluent people understand that there is more to life than attaining more material wealth. However, the wealthy are simply pursuing more material gains. The old money people have never had to work for their wealth, they were born into it. The new people, however, started at the bottom and worked to achieve the financial luxuries that they enjoy. Many of the old money people earned their wealth through the accepted rules and devices of the American dream; whereas some of the new money people have attained their wealth through illegal means that have led to a corruption of the original idealistic American Dream of the past.

     In his novel, Fitzgerald is not criticizing the American Dream but is instead criticizing the corruption of the American Dream. The character of Gatsby centers on his dream of making things just like they were in the past.

Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!” He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. She’ll see.” (Fitzgerald 116)

Gatsby wants to rekindle the love and passion that he and Daisy had experienced a few years before. This is symbolic of the idealism of the American Dream. This symbolism is apparent because Gatsby wants to have everything he desires because he, like so many others, believes that it will make him truly happy. However, Gatsby knows that being Daisy’s companion is what will fulfill all his desires and make him forever happy. If Gatsby does attain his goal of reviving his relationship with Daisy, he will become affluent because he has more wealth than any man who simply possesses material wealth. Gatsby’s ultimate desire is to be affluent through his future relationship with Daisy.

     In contrast to Gatsby, the Buchanan’s symbolize the destruction of the American Dream. Throughout the 1920s there was corruption of values among the wealthy because of their pursuit to attain more at any cost. The wealthy people would stop at nothing to achieve what they wanted. This is a corruption of the American Dream. The American Dream allows for the attainment of wealth through means that are fair and don’t hurt everyone in some way. But the Buchanans have stopped at nothing in their relentless pursuit to achieve more, especially Daisy. Fitzgerald sums up his opinion of the financially superior and the morally inferior by saying

They were careless people…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 after the mess they had made… (Fitzgerald 187-188).

For all intents and purposes it is people like the Buchanan’s who cannot see beyond the material values. Gatsby on the other hand cannot see beyond the dream. He is totally cut off from the rational and practical because of this. Gatsby cannot see past his dream of getting back together with Daisy. And it is because of this inability that he loses his life in the end of the story. Gatsby knows that Daisy is the only one who can make him truly happy. He has given his heart to her. But most of all, Gatsby wants to marry Daisy because he can then truly become old money. Gatsby wants most to be associated with old money people so that he can leave his life of corrupt secret practices. He does not want anyone to find out that he has achieved his wealth by organized crime. If news of this were to leak out, it would spell the demise of his societal status. But if he marries Daisy, he will marry into wealth and no one will ever look past the fact that he is wealthy because he married into it.

     Gatsby believes that he can acquire happiness through wealth and power. The object of Gatsby’s happiness is Daisy and he makes every attempt to try and reawaken the relationship they had in the past.
He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: “I never loved you.” After she had obliterated three years with that sentence they could decide upon more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago. (Fitzgerald 116).
Continuously throughout the novel it is evident that this is Gatsby’s line of thinking. He is unwilling to accept the fact that the past is over and that things will never be same. Perhaps he is even incapable of accepting that fact because he has spent so much time and effort in trying to get back to Daisy that the thought of just giving up seems absolutely insane.

     The American Dream used to entail the notion of self-betterment, wealth, and success through hard work and perseverance. However, in the modern era it changed from this definition to “success” through wealth by any means possible. Gatsby came by his fortune through his dealings in organized crime, which signifies the corruption of the American Dream. Since Gatsby gained his wealth illegally, he didn’t adhere to the original guidelines of the American Dream. Because Gatsby pursued his dream without thinking about honesty or morality, he guaranteed that his dream would never come true. Throughout the entire novel, the recurring implication is that the pursuit of happiness through materialism cannot be successful without any accompanying morality.

     The corruption of the American Dream is embodied mainly in the characters of the Buchanans and Gatsby. The Buchanans represent the materialistic corruption of the American Dream while Gatsby exemplifies the spiritual ideals and purpose in life. Gatsby realizes that the things that will truly make him happy are love and companionship. However, he goes about attaining these goals through means that self-destructive. He will stop at nothing in his own pursuit of happiness. He has set his eyes on one particular goal, that being Daisy Buchanan, and will stop at nothing until he has made her realize that she never really loved Tom. He wants her to admit that she has loved him all along. His dream is ultimately going to destroy him, especially after he discovers that Daisy no longer loves him the way she did a few years before. Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Gatsby are representative of the extremes of the American Dream. Each extreme is equally destructive. The Buchanans’ lifestyle destroys others lives while Gatsby’s Dream is self-destructive.

Tags: English Education