F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Jay Gatsby: Pure Corruption Embodied

The story The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, takes place in the 1920's. It is the story of a man named Jay Gatsby who is on what he sees as a quest to recapture his former love Daisy Fay. Gatsby is a poor man who feels that he can win her back, if he acquires enough material wealth. He sees getting Daisy back as part of finally getting his American Dream. His whole life he has been chasing his American Dream of being happy. He was a corrupt man who saw only corrupt means to make his dream come true. Gatsby is not tricked by anyone into becoming corrupt, on the contrary, he willfully lets himself become corrupt all to achieve what he sees as the American Dream and finally become happy.

Gatsby, as a young man, believes that he can make his dreams come true and become great. The average American believes that you can achieve anything through hard work, Gatsby believes that he does not need to work hard, but only use people. Gatsby is born James Gatz to poor parents. He always thinks that he should have been born rich and 'his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents'; (104). He wants to be rich or famous; he wants to be a somebody, and not the poor farm boy that he merle is. He feels that he can reinvent himself into the person he thought he should be. He renames himself Jay Gatsby and leaves home. He feels that if other people think that he is the person he wants to be, then he will really become that person. He lies about where he comes from to anyone that may ask. He knows from a young age how to deceive people and he does not think twice of it. After young Gatsby leaves home, he does not work like a man driven to achieve greatness, he works ', half fierce, half lazy'; (104). He was better at using young woman rather than manual labor. 'Since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others'; (104). From a young age Gatsby is already corrupt, but only on a small scale. He has no real driving force to motivate him, he is happy with just taking advantage of young women. It will take his obsession of getting back his lost love Daisy to take his corruptness into a whole new arena.