The American Nightmare Essay

A Corrupted Society In the 1920s, the American territory is transformed by a new dream that touches its population. The American Dream, which is in brief to achieve a perfect life and having everything you want, causes in part decadence, excess, and disillusionment. Being wealthy is certainly one of the main accomplishments that characterized the American society. Through his characters, the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals the consequences of this dream on the population. The immorality of the characters of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan is due to the corrupted values popularized by the American Dream.

Dysfunctional relationships, according to Fitzgerald's way of writing, are based on infidelity, carelessness, and loveless couples. Materialism, on the other hand, situates wealth as advancement, and money, besides from becoming a shelter from the realities of life, acquires more importance than people. Classism, in the meanwhile, refers to racism, discrimination and snobbery, in the case of The Great Gatsby, present in West Egg. In his influential book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald recognizes and describes many of the less alluring characteristics of the 1920's and the pursuit of the American Dream including dysfunctional relationships, materialism and classism. F.Scott Fitzgerald describes and recognizes the pursuit of the American Dream present in the 1920's including dysfunctional relationships.

Myrtle's attempt to break into the group to which the Buchanans belong is doomed to fail. She enters into an affair with Tom, and takes on all the negative qualities of his social group; she not only becomes corrupt and immoral, but she scorns people from her own class. "I thought he knew something about breeding but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe" (Fitzgerald 39). The adulterous behaviour of Myrtle and Tom,... ... middle of paper ... ...he American Dream of success and money is nothing more than a morally corrupt fantasy. Works Cited Fahey, William A. F. Scott Fitzgerald and The American Dream.

Digging deeper, however, it is clear that the novel is more than just a love affair between Gatsby and Daisy; rather it is an accurate reflection of the 1920s. The Great Gatsby depicts the corruption and human depravity of the times to illustrate how the American Dream is marked by greed and lack of moral values. Primarily, F. Scott Fitzgerald condemns the lack of morality during the 1920s in The Great Gatsby. His portrayal of the 1920s describes a time when society was very materialistic and was obsessed with money. People would do absolutely anything, no matter how unethical, to attain the American Dream; but what they did not realize was that money cannot buy happiness.

Anothe... ... middle of paper ... ... the ending of the realistic American dream through hard work and honest values, and the decline and corruption due to society's obsession with material wealth and power. From the beginning to end of the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explored the idea of corruption of the American dream and society during the 1920s (roaring 20s) at a time of great prosperity and hope in American. Jay Gatsby who Nick once described as “being better than all of them put together’ originally from the Midwest where traditional values were upheld, had became corrupted with his first contact with wealth and power which was daisy Buchanan. Wealth has a corrupting power that can corrupt even a character with the best intentions. To this day American society still struggles with corruption of morals as money has became a major factor in how one is judged and how much power they hold in society .

Fitzgerald proved them wrong. " One of the novel's dominant themes involves the decay of traditional American values in a suddenly prosperous society" (Howes). In fact, most of the characters in the novel were major factors to the fall of the American Dream. He exposes the greedy, conceited, and low people who live in it. Gatsby's goal was to achieve the American Dream but unfortunately for him he was surround by all these factors to tarnished his chances of ever reaching it.

Success and fortune have been a downfall in the search for the American Dream. It has corrupted society’s ethics in all, family values and morals, and psychological well-being. In part to the fact that “The American Dream” and the way Americans wish to live can be unreachable by the average person. Society once was based on truth, passion, and liberty for all but now is a mere illusion, focusing on money, power and how to reach it; portraying materialism and wealth as the “American Dream” and self-actualization, as portrayed by Miller in Death of a Salesman. The American Dream came to mean fame and fortune, instead of a promise that shaped a nation.

After all, this is America, the land of opportunity, the place where dreams are born and bred. However, America is not what it once was fifty years ago. In today's society, the American dream is hindered by issues involving gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and weak economic mobility. The influence of money has broadened among our society creating an elite group of winners, and leaving the rest as losers. Our government has been intoxicated under the influences of those holding a paper with a handful of zeros scrawled on it.... ... middle of paper ... ...s the Other, as a class of lazy bums, as a hindrance to our country.

American loans were costly for America and it took them time and favors from other countries to get them back on track. Inequality and unequal income and wealth was a big benefactor as well because the rich became richer and the workers lives didn’t change and the big businesses carried on speculating on the exchange with all their money eventually to the destruction of the once so lavish life of America.

The first character who represents the shallowness of the wealthy is Myrtle Wilson, even though she is not wealthy at all. She seeks to escape her own class and stoops to the low point of betraying her trusting husband who loves her more than anything. Her attempt to break into the higher class that Tom belongs to is doomed to fail. Even though she does take on Tom's way of living during their affair, she only becomes more vulgar and corrupt like the rich. She scorns people from her own class and loses all sense of morality.