No matter what your status or where you come from, if you work hard enough you shall become rich and live a happy life…The American Dream. A sort of illusion many Americans believed and attempted to achieve. In this novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald identifies this false dream and reveals its corrupt and unrealistic idea of life. Through the settings such as East Egg, West Egg and the valley of ashes he exposes the truth to how realistically unattainable this ‘dream’ is. Fitzgerald harshly exposes these facts that heavily impacted many Americans in the 1920s.
East Egg is portrayed as the more fashionable bay of the two that is filled with people that own what we like to call ‘old money’. Tom and Daisy are a perfect example of how a false dream appears in East Egg. East Egg…where all the upper-class and rich people live. The bay is full of millionaires that have inherited this money through generations of family. They did achieve the final result of the American Dream because it’s obvious they are rich and living a happy life just like the Dream states. Yet these people have not laid one finger into the life of a working man which makes this a representation of the false achievement of the American Dream. These riches are inherited meaning there is was no intention on working for it. “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water.” This quote states that this side of the bay is seen as a fake scene of what the city people believed achieving the dream would look like. Their lives were set and their homes were built many years ago so that one day they would be born into this fortune without the need to act for it, so the novel states “…drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run.” This again reinforces its old look because if vines have made its way up the sides of these buildings, they had to have been standing for many years. These fraudulent actions show no input to the apparent ‘successful’ concept of the American Dream.
Gatsby and many others made a living illegally in West Egg. Even though these people have millions like people in East Egg they are still looked down upon due to their ‘crazy’ actions and new money. They were not born into fortune like the East Eggers meaning this money was made through businesses like bootlegging. Compared to East Eggers these people did work, and probably very hard to get where they are now. Unfortunately, the Dream does not state anything about making millions underhandedly. This shows a representation of achieving the American Dream corruptly. “I lived at West Egg, the – well, Least fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.” This quote explains that though these two bays are the same Wets Egg carries this sort of sinister edge due to the fact that they made their money immorally. The dishonourable actions that took place to get where they are shows no support towards the steps of achieving the American dream. This, as I said before, shows how misleading the idea really is.
The American Dream has especially aimed their delusional ideas at people like George Wilson and Myrtle. These two are only some of the many people that are stuck in the valley of ashes. These grounds are known as the dumping grounds of the rich where hard-working men and woman stay living unsuccessfully forever. Just like George many of these people put a lot of belief into the American dream because all they’ve ever wished for was to achieve the end result which was to live in bliss and be seriously rich. Obviously this dream was never reached because they were stuck in what’s called the poverty cycle proving that they seriously could never attain the American dream no matter how hard they work. “The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of garage must be blind, and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead, when the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. This quote explains to us that in the valley of ashes, just like this description says, most houses are very underworked and cheap. Dust grew like the ash around it. They never had the money to create a comfortable home yet the dream states that if they work they shall reach that. Nick says “He was a blonde, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome, when he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.” This reveals to the audience that even though they will never be able to escape their poor lives, out of all the characters they still carry the most hope. This gives us a very clear representation of how the American Dream fails those who it was created to inspire hope for.
Fitzgerlad wisely used the setting to expose how false the American Dream really thought out to be. East Egg shows how false the dream is by highlighting that if you’re born into fortune there is really no work needing to be done, West Egg develops how corrupt it is because these people succeded in making money illegally. And lastly showing how the people living in the valley of ashes work hard yet they never leave the cycle of the poor even though the richer still seem to get richer. This overall idea fitgerald communicates was probably quite devastating to most Americans because many truly beloved they could reach it.
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