The Great Gatsby:

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
Debasement of the
American Dream
Kate Brideau
Ms. Alchorn
English 111
January 17, 2010

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On the surface, The Great Gatsby by F.
Scott Fitzgerald is a story of a man’s
pursuit for his dream woman. However,
the main theme of the novel is much less
romantic. The Great Gatsby is in essence
a social commentary on the Roaring
Twenties, better known as the period
where the American Dream became a
reality full of promise and prosperity. In
this novel, Fitzgerald explores the
whirlwind pace of this era through class
conflict, cultural rifts between East and
West and how significant wealth was
when it came to fulfilling the American
Dream.
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 In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
portrays the post-World War I American
Dream as corrupted. Instead of making it
stand for independence and the ability to
make something out of hard work and the
aftermaths of war, the American Dream is
rather portrayed as materialism at best
with underlying tones of selfish pursuit for
pleasure. Fitzgerald also indicates that
hard work and merit are not enough for
when it comes to characters such as
Gatsby, no amount of effort or money can
change where he came from thus once
again illustrating the superiority
associated to people with old money.
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 The American Dream in The Great
Gatsby is represented mostly through
social class. The rich, the poor and
everyone present in the book are
identified by how much money they
have. Fitzgerald sculpts characters with
unimaginable amounts of money such
as the Bunchanans, characters of
upper-middle-class origins such as Nick,
woking-class characters such as Wilson
and wealthy characters that are still look
down upon by those with old money
such as Gatsby, all in the goal of
focusing on a developing New York City
and its suburbs, where all of the
classes are pitted very closely
together.
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 It is important to note that Fitzgerald clearly
establishes that wealth can be distinguished
from class. While it is possibly to achieve great
wealth without acceptance within the elite class,
poverty restricts decision and action in The Great
Gatsby. The novels two main locations, West Egg
and East Egg, are not only distinguished by
class, but also by wealth. East Egg represents
“old money” whereas West Egg represents new
money. However, characters who live in East Egg,
notably the Bunchanans, consistently look down
on characters that live in West Egg, while
outsiders such as the Wilsons yearn to “go
West” but are unable to due to a lack of money,
therefore contrasting different idealisms behind
the definition of wealth and the American
Dream.

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