How Does The Great Gatsby Fulfill The American Dream

In F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, the narrator, Nick Carraway navigates the social drama of New York for one summer. Nick reconnects with his cousin Daisy Buchanan, her husband Tom Buchanan, their friend, Jordan, and his next door neighbor, Jay Gatsby. The romantic lifes of all these characters grow complicated through adultery, summer love, and old lovers returning from war. Romances ignite in the summer heat, yet by the end of the summer, all the characters are left no better off, if not worse than in the beginning. These relationships are symbolic of the American Dream that all the characters strive for. He defines this American Dream as the ownership of property, including, houses, cars, and women. Fitzgerald argues that the American …show more content…
At the end of the book, Tom and Daisy are still together, but they have not established any lasting connections to anyone in New York or any of their many friends. Nick observes how “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made… (179). When Tom and Daisy leave, they take only their money with them, because they have nothing else. Their “vast carelessness” results from them having fulfilled the American Dream. They are so successful that they can do whatever they want, and yet in the end that is all they have. They have no home, no friends, nothing at all tangible aside from their money. Tom and Daisy leave New York the same way the left Chicago in the beginning of the book. They moved abruptly and completely, leaving nothing behind. They leave a few people who will briefly wonder about them and tell Nick to say hello, but no one to really care enough to keep in touch. Fitzgerald portrays this as a lonely and destructive cycle, since neither money nor carelessness can bring them any happiness unless they do something with it. Gatsby experiences the same shortcomings of the American Dream. When he is shot and killed in his pool, only Nick and his father show up to his funeral. Nick reaches out to all of Gatsby’s friends, including his business acquaintance, Meyer Wolfsheim, and Daisy. Nick “was sure there’d be a wire from Daisy before noon-but neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfsheim arrived” (165). Daisy shows once and for all, that she never truly loved Gatsby, and that she has no qualms over leaving him behind. Once Gatsby is gone, it becomes clear that his American Dream, his life’s work, was entirely abstract, and he ends up leaving no lasting