Just Dream It
...this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always great for that” (182). Mr. Gatz believed that his son was a prime example of the American Dream: from rags to riches. Gatsby grew up poor, “his parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people...” (104), but he always desired a better life. In his boyhood, he created a daily agenda that he stored in Hopalong Cassidy which included a list of ways to better himself including, “No wasting time at Shafters, No more smokeing or chewing, Read one improving book or magazine per week, Save $3.00 per week, Be better to parents” (181-2). Jay Gatsby’s younger years were spent trying to become successful through his ambition and hard work with no influence from the materialistic world. His agenda shows that he had very strong morals and was set on living by them. Gatsby’s whole career is made into a metaphor for the entire American experience. Fitzgerald, using Gatsby, showed the purity of the self-fulfilling original American Dream. Jay Gatsby was impressed by the gayety and glamour that surrounded the upper class, but was mislead by the false sense of happiness that wealth provides. Gatsby learns that behind the happiness facade lies a corrupt, empty society of careless people whom he becomes over time. Material wealth provided Gatsby with all the greatest luxuries: an enormous and beautiful house, a grandeur automobile, and the finest apparel, but it was unable to provide him with what he desired most, Daisy. Despite his clear realization of the moral corruption of the wealthy upper class, Fitzgerald had a naive fascination with, and even admiration for, the rich; therefore allowing Gatsby to become as corrupt as the rest of the rich society of the east within the novel. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to show how the original American Dream becomes corrupted over time from materialistic influences. Gatsby’s dream revolved around the winning of Daisy’s heart, where he believed he must acquire enough wealth to be seen as her social and economic equal. For five years, Gatsby focused on gaining wealth to win Daisy. Gatsby sacrifices his original dream to pursue Daisy and in doing so, he sacrificed his morals, and obtained a hollow lifestyle devoid of purpose. Tom Buchanan exposes Gastby’s immoral and criminal ways when he claims, “He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug stores...and sold grain alcohol over the counter...Walter could have you up on the betting laws too...”(141). To obtain the wealth he desired, he partook in illegal activities, thereby sacrificing his original morals just to win Daisy. “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (101). Fitzgerald is showing that Daisy is not really worth all that Gatsby has done just for her. No such goal exists which justifies obtaining money by any means possible, including illegal activities. In his pursuit for Daisy, Gatsby surrounded himself with materialism to be a part of the world that she lived in. The center of his life was wealth and obtaining it for he pursued a woman whose “voice is full of money” (127). Gatsby dedicated the past five years of his life doing everything in his power to get Daisy’s love, and he believed that with sufficient wealth, he enabled himself to recapture and “fix” forever. Gatsby, blinded by love and money, fails to realize that his goal of the pursuit of Daisy is unattainable. Dece...