The Great Gatsby Essay

Evaluate The Great Gatsby as a criticism of the corruption of the American Dream.

The Great Gatsby. Just the name of this novel has a ring to it, a hint that it is about someone, or something with a good amount of power and importance. Anybody who has the title “the great” preceding their name must be something of great importance, right? At the beginning of this novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby is presented as a mystery man, living none other than what can be specified as the American Dream. He is wealthy, mysterious, handsome, and throws the most prestigious parties in New York on a regular basis. Everybody knows his name, he is the subject of the gossip of young giggling girls who attend his parties but have never actually met him in person. People come from all over the world to experience the festivities that take place at his house. Not only is he well known, he is the perfect gentleman, the type of man who would have a brand new dress personally delivered to a girl after her own dress had gotten torn at one of his get togethers. But one of the lessons that is taught to us in this book by the objective and observant narrator, Nick Carraway is that living this great fantasy is not everything that it seems. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the characters in his classic novel The Great Gatsby to portray that maybe living the American dream is more corrupt than it appears, and is not as wonderful as it seems.
In the beginning of this book, Gatsby has it all. He is charming and wins over pretty much every person he comes in contact with, has what seems like an endless supply of money and an endless supply of time. He has what everyone wants. But as the book continues your view on the fabulous dream life that Gatsby is living starts to change. As the book progresses, the character of Gatsby begins to unravel. It turns out that his entire past is a lie, and that he didn’t in fact finish his education at Oxford, or inherit his money in any respectable way at all. You find out that Gatsby is living the dream based on his mere desire to live the dream, a goal which he set for himself because he was too ashamed of his own boring average life. Thru ought this novel, Fitzgerald demonstrates the idea of perfection, and breaks it down to show that really, there is no such thing. Even “the great” Jay Gatsby, who has the life that everybody in New York wishes that they had, is merely a man using money that he had just recently earned in order to impress a woman, not to mention one who is already married.
This book is also filled with a web of lies and secrets. Gatsby wants to keep his reputation solid, and in order to do that he lies about his past, and makes it sound as though he went through a solid education at one of the most well known and well respected colleges, and worked his way to the top, when really he was a coward and dropped out of Oxford so that he could find a way to make his money faster. This inspires the reader to think that maybe there is no way to really achieve perfection, because the people who seem to have it all always have a background motive or a dishonest past to show that what they’re living is not perfection at all.
Gatsby is not the only character in this book who shows the corruption and downside of living the “good life”. One of the central characters of the book is Daisy Buchanan, a beautiful wealthy young woman married to Tom Buchanan, “one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven”(Fitzgerald, p.22), who came from an incredibly wealthy family and reached the climax of his life at age 21, but still has a big head from the power of his college achievements. On the surface, it appears that Tom and Daisy had it all. They spent a year in France on a whim and “drifted here and there unrestfully whenever people played polo and were rich together” (Fitzgerald, p.23). But despite the happy appearance on the surface, there was nothing happy about this relationship. Tom had a mistress who he would meet with when no one of importance to him was around. Daisy was well aware of this, although she never mentioned it. This was partly because of the deep love she had for Gatsby, which she hid along with her true feelings. By any observer’s speculation, Tom and Daisy were living the American dream, something that everybody wants. But when the truth beneath the surface is revealed, I can’t think of many people who would want to live that way.
At the end of this novel, after all of the mysteries are cleared and the deceiving facades have fallen away, Nick makes an observation about the people who live this fancy and corrupt life. “There 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.”(Fitzgerald, p.153). This is one of my favorite lines in the book, it really shows the notion of imperfection that comes with trying to be perfect. Fitzgerald did an excellent job of using the different characters in his book to portray this concept that the “American dream” doesn’t really exist, at least not without a price.

MSB Current Events

1.) http://www.great-lakes.net/teach/pollution/water/water3.html
This is a new website designed to teach people about the severity of the pollution that is currently found in our water. This is a very similar approach to my own in the sense that I want to educate the unknowing public about the dangers of our polluted water and the effects that it can have on them.

2.)http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/State_making_a_splash_at_Riverpalooza.html
Riverpalooza is an effort made to get the community involved in cleaning the local bodies of water. This is a good example of something that should be found in more areas.

3.) http://www.surfridersd.org/hotyb.php
I thought Emilie's "hold on to your butt" article was very interesting, because it is something that the public can so easily control but has turned into the most littered item in the world.

4.) http://www.sandiego.gov/thinkblue/pdf/0609bactiresp.pdf
This is an informational document showing the discovery of the hazardous storm drain draining waste directly into the water at pb point. This is very useful for me, because my subject revolves around the quality of the water in this area.

5.)http://environment.about.com/od/waterpollution/a/canadasewage.htm
This article sends a very powerful message about the affects that our pollution can have on us, it tells about the discovery that Canada flushes 200 billion liters of raw sewage directly into natural waterways every year.

Blog #21 The Great Gatsby

It is true that both Gatsby and Nick are somewhat detatched from their surroundings. The two are similar in many ways, although they do have their differences. Nick seems to be merely an observer, he takes into consideration his surroundings and almost floats along in the crowd, absorbing what he sees but never really becoming too involved. Gatsby also seems to be detatched from the crowd, but he seems to be working more from the inside. He is more mysterious and involved in things that we do not yet know about. Both characters seem to differentiate from the crowd, but Nick is merely observing and Gatsby seems to always be involved in something deeper that is not noticed at the surface.

Professional Example

1. I think the most successful element of this work sample is how effective it is at getting the message accross in such a simple way. They illustrate a principle that is well known to many people, especially teens, without actually stating it but instead by showing it in a way that is very clear to its intended audience.


2. The message of this commercial is to be above the influence of drugs, because the purpose of the commercial is made very clear at the end.


3. The intended audience for this commercial is teenagers who are struggling through high school and fitting in and knowing how to stand up to their friends even when there are negative influences and temptations.


4. The music that is played in the background along with the astonishing amount of people who are changing this one boy who does not have the power to stop them all comes together to create a very powerful message.


5. The creator of this video used time lapse in order to make the video effective, which is a very good technique to use when trying to get a point accross. This enabled them to make the video more powerful by showing the boy getting changed by many different people in a very short amount of time.


6. This commercial is one that I watched over a year ago, but was one of the first things that came to my mind when I was trying to find a powerful video. It sends a clear and simple message that is extremely important to our society through a very short video, but gets the point accross very well.