The Great Gatsby

The American Dream is a very abstract notion with a concrete base comprising of social equality and a longing for something grander. Throughout the centuries, the dream has taken up the interests of many authors and politicians. Essentially, the dream is an ongoing belief that with determination and material success, all is achievable. The Jazz Age was where alcohol was prohibited and material success thrived. Through his novel, 'The Great Gatsby', F. Scott Fitzgerald severely critiques the American Dream by telling us how the dream has corrupted us from the 'innocence' we once had.

In 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the character, Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of the novel, as an example of how the American Dream has corrupted our innocence through our obsession with material success. Jay Gatsby is a perfect example because he fails to realise that he long surpassed the American Dream due to his obsession with materialism and money.

When Gatsby opens his closet to impress Daisy of his wealth and 'took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts...which lost their folds as they fell...' displays the ignorance and hedonism in rich people in particular. Gatsby's shirts is not only a symbol of rich people's ignorance, it also symbolises meaningless materialism. The shirts that lose their folds as they fell are symbols of how worthless they are to Gatsby, who only wants to please Daisy by showing her how wealthy he had become within the time they had not seen each other.

Another important symbol in the novel is the green light where Gatsby had 'stretched out his arms toward...nothing except a single green light...that might have been the end of a dock.' The colour green is the international colour for envy and jealously. It is symbolic to the novel because it shows Gatsby's yearning for Daisy, who owns the dock.

Even though 'The Great Gatsby' severely critiques the dream, the novel represents the ideas of the dream, such as the self-made man. An example of this is when Dan Cody, the man who took in seventeen-year old Gatsby, leaves him considerable amount of money and Gatsby realises then that he 'had filled out to the substantiality of a man.' Gatsby had a dream of being materially successful; unfortunately, it was his dream that led to his downfall. They represent the 'self-made man' and equality. Ultimately, Gatsby's dream of material success was what led to his death.