The obsession with social hierarchy drives people to be selfish and greedy- never happy with what they have. At the same time, there are many people like Gatsby today who feel they have to cheat their way to the top to be happy, like so many corporate giants who have schemed for years and stole billions of dollars from innocent, but maybe slightly naïve taxpayers. Both kinds of people have lost the sense of the American dream. Originally people just wanted a perfect but humble life: a loving, close-knit family, a steady paying job, and ultimately pure happiness. But once people see that it is possible to have much more than that, they begin to get covetous and only want more.
The color yellow is significant in the book; it symbolizes wealth and illness. Along time ago, Daisy left Gatsby because Gatsby was poor. So Gatsby gained his fortune by “bootlegging” (Fitzgerald 114) or dealings with crime. Accordingly to the “American Dream”, money should be earned through hard work and be a reward for honesty. Gatsby used to be very poor and always wanted to be rich.
It is proven that Gatsby in unable to live life to the fullest due to his non-existent love life with Daisy. The novel suggests that no matter how much wealth the characters hold, it does not compare to the feeling of love. The lying, cheating and scandals in the novel toys with each of the characters emotions to the point of death. Gatsby’s illusion of wealth and fame is shattered because he let’s the love of his life slip right through his fingers which leaves him lying in his own pool of
The American dream is to work hard and achieve your dreams, or to get rich and live comfortably. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby was very poor and wanted to be with Daisy. Daisy and Gatsby were in love but Daisy could not be with him. Gatsby was poor and Daisy was rich and in that time period it was not acceptable to the parents to marry lower than your class. Gatsby worked hard to achieve his dream.
Good VS. Evil “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” A saying many non-wealthy human beings say just to make them feel better about their self-esteem. But it seems odd that in this book “The Great Gatsby” money evolves around love. The two main characters Gatsby and Tom, theyre love Daisy is only interested in them because of theyre wealth. So this quote has no meaning because money did buy them happiness or at least for Tom it did.
Even though Daisy is in love with Gatsby she marries Tom “because [Gatsby] was poor and [Daisy] was tired of waiting for [Gatsby] (137).” This shows that for Gatsby to accomplish his dream and be happy, he has to have money. Because of Daisy’s status she cannot or will not marry a person of a lower status, of which Gatsby had been until he made all of his new money. In conclusion, Gatsby’s dream and the American dream share some aspects, but they are not the same thing. The American dream is entirely focused on earning money and status to progress and change what one was in the past. Gatsby on the other hand is living in the past and cannot be happy with moving forward.
Daisy, on East Egg does not desire money and has social standing. Gatsby only desires money in order to win Daisy but lacks social standing. While he lives on West Egg, he does so only in order to view his dream, Daisy, on East Egg. In fact, Gatsby’s father tells Nick that “Jimmy always liked it better down East” (9:176). Daisy, while she may love Gatsby, loves social standing more and so she remains on East Egg in a loveless relationship.
This is also why he is unable to realize the business he does is corrupt and evil." He is live not for himself, but for his dream, for his vision of the good life inspired by the beauty of a lovely rich girl."(71). In the past, Daisy's parents deemed Gatsby unsuitable for Daisy because he lacked a background of status and wealth. Because of this, Gatsby was determined to make himself wealthy and achieve status all to chase down a relationship from long ago that is now very unrealistic. Gatsby sees Daisy is the perfect woman and is very stubborn in that he is unable to realize that she lacks compassion and love.
Finally it led to his own death because he wanted to pick up where he left off in the past which wasn’t going to happen because things had changed and times were different. The Great Gatsby as he came to be known, was just a young boy who wanted love more than anything else in life. His pursuit of happiness and desire to achieve his dream took him to his grave. The American dream was corrupted in this book because they all wanted what other people had. They all wanted to be wealthy and to live the life of the rich and famous.
He symbolizes greed because in the beginning of the book, play, and movie, all he cares about is money. We find out later that he was not always obsessed with being wealthy. We also find out that his fiancée left him because he loved money more than her. Everything he does is with the intentions to make money. He would give up all the people he loved for money.