American Dreaming 1920's

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The Great Gatsby, whch was written by F Scott Fitzgerald, is one of the great american novels that describe the american dream. 

Fitzgerald, haing wrote this in the 20's themselves serves as a unique way to look into the thoughts of those living in that decade.

        Although the decade is characterized by extreme materialism and wealth which should mean the american dream was easier to achieve then ever, these are the very things that corrupted it. Easy money came at a heavy moral cost with many people turning to bootlegging and organized crime to make their money. 

     However, wealth is only one part of the american dream. Hard work also plays a major role, but in Gatsby's world it was not an option. Even though his intentions were pure (to obtain the girl of his dreams) In order for him to make the money needed to impress Daisy and to obtain the lifestyle which was needed to be  woe her, Gatsby had to abandon his moral integrity.  Just as Americans have made America a symbol of happiness and freedom making t an almost perfect place with endless oportunity, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.While the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s however, easy money and relaxed social values had corrupted this dream.