Corruption Of Dreams In The Great Gatsby Essay

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In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes of the corruption and loss of dreams in American Society. The novel revolves around the central characters, Gatsby and Daisy. Each of whom are in some aspect corrupted or experience the corruption of their dreams as they prolong their lives in the Roaring Twenties. Jay Gatsby is what society considers a “West Egger”, meaning that he comes from new money. Gatsby has a constant internal struggle involving his past. He has a corrupted fixation with his past involving a young, well-to-do Daisy who resides in the East Egg. At the time, despite being in love, Gatsby was too poor a man to wed Daisy. Time passes and while Daisy has moved on with her life, Gatsby remains living in the past. Throughout …show more content…
It was as if Gatsby was not so great anymore. His dream was shattered, like a rug pulled out from under him and a vase full of flowers that shattered like thin glass. It was as if Daisy had withered away, like a true flower always must. Like the transient flower, Daisy 's love for Gatsby withers and dies. Like the ephemeral flower, Daisy 's love for Gatsby soon withers and dies. Nick, the narrator, even looks back attempting to envision what it was like for Gatsby, to have lost one’s dream, and even worse, to have what’s beyond the facade revealed. Daisy, the prime of his dream, is gone. Nick imagines what it’s like to have everything you worked to achieve to crumble before one’s eyes. Gatsby worked his whole life to achieve his “American Dream”. To become a wealthy man, worthy of Daisy, his one and only love, and now that she has made her choice of Tom over Gatsby, the last piece of his dream is gone. He lost his entire world- demarcated by a façade of money, lust and extravagance. His dream shattered in front of him, moment by moment, rippling out of existence. Gatsby’s dream was gone, only to be replaced by the harsh cruelty of reality. Gatsby “found what a grotesque thing a rose is”. There was no longer a façade, everything began to …show more content…
The beauty of its petals will each eventually wither away, the façade shall drop and the true nature of a departed flower is seen. With time the façade eventually decays away, and all that was once hidden amongst beauty is revealed. Even a rose, a symbol of lust and love, decays, and its true self concealed by beauty and appeal is finally expressed. Every flower is a delicate façade of beauty, hiding all its ugliness like a fog. Daisy, a flower by name, delicate by nature, held a façade that withered away by time. She was the essence of Gatsby’s dream. She was the reason behind his determination for wealth. Yet despite his efforts, he was left in the water, all alone, a floating death. His dream wavered on the water, rippling in his final death bed. Until the very last moment, Gatsby had believed in his dream that Daisy would choose him one day, that it wasn’t all fruitless effort. Yet she never would have chosen him. She may have loved Gatsby, but when it came down to choosing she couldn’t leave the realm of her upper social hierarchy to be with someone below, even if he was just as rich. No matter how wealthy Gatsby might become, he would never belong to the Buchanans ' upper social class because he was not born into it. He would always be an outsider looking in. No matter how much money he acquired or how he used it, he would never be in the same upper class as the

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