"The Great Gatsby"

“The Great Gatsby” takes us through the life of a man, Jay Gatsby, trying to make his life in the upper-class setting. Nick Carraway, the narrator; a younger man from Minnesota, moves to the city, New York City, to learn the trades of the bonds business. Nick moves in to his new house in West Egg district, a wealthy outdated area for the new rich, and moves in next to the mysterious Jay Gatsby. One day Nick meets up with his cousin Daisy who lives in East Egg, a trendy rich area. Daisy is married to Tom who was a classmate of Nick’s back at Yale. Daisy introduces Nick to Jordan Baker, a gorgeous young woman, who Nick falls for. Every other weekend during the summer Gatsby throws extravagant parties that hundreds of people go to. One night Nick receives an invitation from Gatsby’s chauffer to attend one of his many parties, Nick accepts. The party is magnificent and lavish, but Nick notices that not many people know or even seen Gatsby, all he hears are rumors. Then Nick starts talking to a man who claims to recognize him from the U.S. Army’s First Division during the Great War. As their conversation moves on the man tells Nick that he is Gatsby and this is where their friendship begins. Nick invites Daisy over without telling her that Gatsby will be there, this brings back their old love for each other. Daisy later invites Nick and Gatsby over to her mansion and then they depart for a hotel in the city. Tom suggests that Gatsby and he should switch cars. Once at the hotel Tom starts to become suspicious of Daisy’s relationship with Gatsby, even though he is the one who is having an affair with Myrtle (Myrtle is married to George Wilson who owns an auto shop), he confronts Gatsby and says that Gatsby’s fortune comes from bootlegging and other illegal activities. Mad and frustrated by what has just happened Daisy and Gatsby take off in his car. While driving Myrtle gets hit by Gatsby’s car and when George hears about it, he recalls seeing Tom in the car that Myrtle was struck by. George all disgruntled goes to Tom wanting to kill him, but Tom sets him straight and tells him that it was Gatsby’s car that hit Myrtle. So George goes over to Gatsby’s house and finds him floating on a raft in his pool, irrational George shoots and kills Gatsby and then himself.

The American Dream is it corrupt or is it truthful? This statement can go many ways, one person may say that the American Dream is corrupt because it is unrealistic and impossible to attain. While another could say that as long as you try at it you will eventually reach it. In the 1920’s the American Dream played a big role in many people’s lives. At the beginning of the 1920s, the United States was converting from wartime to peacetime economy. After a few years, the country prospered. In this decade, America became the richest nation on Earth and a culture of consumerism was born (Roaring Twenties). Many immigrants were coming over to America to achieve their American Dream of living a better life with equal opportunities. Immigrants to the United States had been much maligned since the New Immigration of the 1890s. Cities had swelled with immigrants from South and Eastern Europe, taking jobs from “natives” Americans and space for further geographic growth (N.K.).

“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men”(Fitzgerald,2). Nick finds that Gatsby’s dream is one that is joist yet ridiculous and is sympathetic and aware at the same time that this dream is unattainable. Nick reflects back on Gatsby’s dream of getting Daisy as one that was corrupted by wealth and deceit. Not being sad that his best friend died, Nick realizes what made Gatsby so “great”, that Gatsby was able to make his dream reality.