The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald - 1707 Words

In the United States, the pursuit of wealth through hard work is the main principle and guideline of life. Labeled as the American Dream, Americans are pressed to work hard and honest under the idea that they will have an equal opportunity to obtain riches and glory. But is the pursuit of wealth really as pure and honest as it may seem? Holding this same idea and question, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, a young man by the name of Nick Carraway begins his pursuit towards the American Dream. The novel begins with Nick arriving at his new yet shabby home in Long Island, where he is surrounded by the mansions of millionaires. As Nick settles into his new home, he begins to spend time with the wealthy residents, both new and†¦show more content†¦This idea, presented by the recurring events and acts of cheating and dishonesty by the main characters of the story, serves as a theme of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby, cheating serves as a motif of the novel, which can be drawn from the constant events and tales of cheating which occur throughout the story. The motif of cheating serves to add the idea that purity of the people in pursuit of the American dream may be tainted with corruption. The cheating motif inlaid in the novel reveals the shallow and the dark side of the lives of the wealthy class. The constant corruption, in its many different forms and individual events, shown in The Great Gatsby by the people pursuing the American Dream show the corruption and utter hollowness of the American Dream. The motif reveals that the American Dream is a dark goal which involves cheating and betrayal. Every major character in the story presents different individual events of corruption in their pursuits. Each separate event ties back to the idea that the American dream’s goals are overwhelmed by the human greed and ability to cut each other s throat in order to move up in cl ass. The cheating motif, which reveals the darkness hidden in the American Dream, presses the idea that the American Dream is not an honest pursuit due to the corruption in which is displayed in the people which pursue it. Tom Buchanan