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Jack Zhang

Mrs. Neubauer

English 4

1 March 2018

The American Dream in ​The Great Gatsby

The American Dream is the ideal society in which each person’s opportunity to

pursue their own idea of happiness is protected. In the novel ​The Great Gatsby ​by Fitzgerald,

the dream mostly stands for the corruption and obsession with wealth. Fitzgerald uses Myrtle,

Daisy, and Gatsby as symbols to efficiently highlight the theme of the American Dream.

Myrtle is the first character who happens to be corrupted by the dream. Myrtle has

always wanted to live a wealthy and famous life, and believes that marrying wealth is

essential to happiness. The longing for happiness is what tempts Myrtle into cheating on

George, and having an affair with Tom. However, the desire damages her marriage with

George, and leads to the loss of her true happiness and even death afterwards. Myrtle was

crazy about George for a while, but once she married George Wilson, she regrets it right

away. Myrtle says, “The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made

a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in, and never told me about it,

and the man came after it one say when he was out” (Fitzgerald, 35). It is clear to see how

materialistic Myrtle is, and that she is so pissed that George couldn’t even afford his own suit

for marriage. How could Myrtle be happy if her husband is that poor? Nonetheless, as for

Tom, everything becomes different. Myrtle considers Tom as the ideal person who can

achieve her dream, and that Tom is rich enough to allow her to do anything she wants. She

tries to become a member of the upper class, though she never is one of them. Being with
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Tom finally destroys Myrtle, Daisy hits Myrtle with her car and causes Myrtle’s death. This

shows that blindly chasing the American Dream could destroy someone’s life.

The next person, Daisy, is in a much more complicated relationship than Myrtle.

Daisy is in relationship with Gatsby and Tom at the same time, but even at the end, she does

not know who she truly loves, or more precisely, what she truly loves. Daisy’s relationship

with Tom is not an ideal, happy one. Tom seems to be rude to her, does not care much about

her, and even has an affair with Myrtle. It is said that Daisy knows Tom is meeting another

woman all the time, then why does she not say a word to Tom about this? Probably because

Daisy does not love Tom enough to care about their marriage. Daisy and Tom have a child,

but the baby does not seem important to Daisy at all, and we never see the baby in the novel.

It is fair to say that Daisy does not love Tom as a person, but rather loves Tom’s wealth. As

for Gatsby, he loves Daisy so much that he could give up everything for her. It seems that

Daisy also loves Gatsby deeply, but it becomes clear when she is finally reunited with Gatsby

after five years. After Gatsby shows Daisy his collection of shirts, Daisy cries, “They’re such

beautiful shirts, it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before”

(Fitzgerald, 92). When Daisy bows her head and sobs into the shirts, she is displaying her

interest in materialism. She cries not because of the reuniting with Gatsby, but because she

realizes she has married the wrong person, and feels that Gatsby could give her more

happiness than Tom could. At this time we know that Daisy does marry for money but not for

love. She thought that she has all she had wanted for but realizes that she has nothing at the

end. The pursuit of the dream and the relationship destroys Daisy’s happiness.

Along with Myrtle and Daisy, Gatsby is also a victim of the corrupted American

Dream. Gatsby has dreamed of being with Daisy his whole life and tries to repeat the past

with her. Daisy is the American Dream to him. He is the tragedy of the novel, because the
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dream he has been chasing for years does not exist at all. While Gatsby is fighting in the war,

Daisy gets married to Tom, which stuns Gatsby when he comes back. He sees wealth as the

only solution to achieve his dream, so he tries many ways to earn money, but pursues money

through some organized crimes. As Gatsby gets really wealthy, he finally gets to reunite with

Daisy after five years. However, Nick says “After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy

he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed

it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of

intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an over-wound clock” (Fitzgerald,

86). When Gatsby finally gets what he has been working towards for years, there comes the

letdown. This shows the point where expectation exceeds what reality could offer, having

something in hand is not quite as good as you thought it would be. Gatsby is blinded by the

American Dream, and eventually results in death by this. He does not end up getting what he

wants because the dream takes over who he truly was.

The three symbols Myrtle, Daisy, and Gatsby all enrich the complex theme of the

American Dream. Firstly, Myrtle gets blinded chasing the American Dream, and she sees

wealth as everything, which results in her death and the loss of her true happiness. Besides,

Daisy becomes more materialistic while pursuing her falsely defined American Dream,

finally gains nothing but loses her happiness. Lastly, Gatsby pathetically chases his

never-existed American Dream his whole life, which changes himself and eventually causes

his death. These three symbols well depict the theme of the American Dream, and to some

extents, make ​The Great Gatsby ​outstanding.

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Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. ​The Great Gatsby. ​Scribner, 2004.