The Great Gatsby East Egg's Downfall

“The God of this world is riches, pleasure and pride” (Martin Luther). Not many aspects of life are held more valuable to humans than being rich and famous. This inspires many people to dream of being at the top of the social classes, however fruitless that dream may be. The ignoble society, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, tries to become the rich, but with the established social structure are not able to advance to the wealthy. The East Egg’s fatal flaw, the futile American dream because of the deeply entrenched social classes, causes the tragic downfall of the rich and the meager, revealing how not everything is obtainable. This leads the proletariat to not achieve wealth and fame. As much as the lower class wants to advance the social classes of the 20’s are immutable leading anyone who wants to advance to fail. The rich want to have everything and anything, “‘I want to see you,’ said Tom intently. ‘Get on the next train’” (Fitzgerald 29). Tom wants to have another person for the fun of it so he just takes one from her husband. At first Myrtle is happy with this because she thinks she will become rich and get whatever she wants. However, the social classes of the 20’s don’t allow …show more content…
Gatsby dreams of being rich and having Daisy, “To the young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, the yacht represented all the beauty and glamor in the world,” (107) but Tom’s grasping for his own dream stops Gatsby. Tom wants to keep Daisy because he is accustomed to have whatever he likes and Daisy is unable to go from old money to new oney. As Gatsby is unable to go from new money to old money there is a divide between the two that is unbridgeable. Tom then decides to have Gatsby killed which is the final falling of Gatsby (Tom also leads to the direct death of George). As much as Gatsby tried he is unable to achieve his cosmically ironic