American Dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Essay Example)

The American Dream is often criticized for being hypocritical; readers of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby often come to the conclusion that the capitalist nature of America’s economy is inherently flawed and causes great harm to Americans. Additionally, the critics of the American Dream who read this novel often claim there are undertones of income immobility and inelasticity evident in The Great Gatsby. Moreover, the combination of the novel’s tragic nature as well as its genre, being a social commentary, demonstrates the authorial implication of a social shortcoming; Fitzgerald is trying to bring to attention a social issue. Although The Great Gatsby might intend to argue against the capitalist idea of the American Dream, his characterization, among other literary devices, suggests the complete opposite truth about reality; the corruption and tragedy lies not in the American Dream, but in pursuing a poisoned dream.

First, Fitzgerald writes under the influence of Thorstein Veblen using verisimilitude and in doing so, reveals a self-evident truth about reality in America despite any form of authorial influences. For instance, E. Ray Canterbery claims in “Thorstein Veblen and ‘The Great Gatsby’” that The Great Gatsby implies the existence of a leisure class as defined by Veblenian economic ideas, which, in turn, implies an impossibility of true mobility from a lower class into the higher leisure class (300-301). If the premises are true and the subsequent points logically follow, this demonstrates the erroneousness of the American Dream through Veblenian economics. The very nature of East and West Egg as symbols for the two types of wealth, the aristocrats and the arrivistes, implies a wealth-based separation, so it may seem easy to conclude such a separation is due to a leisure class. Canterbery first displays significant evidence to suggest and strongly claim Fitzgerald’s reliance on Veblen’s ideas, beginning with the claim that The Great Gatsby is “not original,” and, rather, “reflects the influence…[of] Thorstein Veblen” (Canterbery 298). For example, Fitzgerald uses a “high Veblenian style,” and “[his] theme is that the American upper class had no sense of stewardship of society so that corruption…was to be expected” (Canterbery 302). Does The Great Gatsby then claim that Americans are simply corrupted by wealth because they are incapable of handling it? On the contrary, Gatsby is extremely rich, yet he does not drink at his own parties; Gatsby is very rich but he is not a terrible person, and neither is Nick Carraway. In addition, a leisure class implies an extreme waste of a finite resource, which must run out at some point. So, even if Veblen’s level of wealth that constitutes a leisure class was corrupting the wealthy, it does not restrict income mobility; Canterbery’s argument misconstrues lifestyle and wealth. 

So, the actual truth revealed in The Great Gatsby can be uncovered with a more thorough examination of its verisimilitude. For example, Gatsby’s vice is not money, it’s his love for Daisy even though she is undeserving of it; she married Tom Buchannon “without so much as a shiver,” leaving Gatsby for an utterly repulsive cheating man (Fitzgerald 49). In spite of the fact that Daisy knows Tom is cheating on her, she still cannot wrench herself from him; instead, she kills Myrtle with Gatsby’s car and leaves with Tom. Daisy does not try to help Myrtle and she leaves Gatsby to deal with the consequences of her own actions; she too is repulsive. Myrtle married George Wilson because she “thought he was a gentleman,” but it turned out “he wasn't fit to lick [her] shoe” (Fitzgerald 35-36). She cheats with Tom. These characters do not live horrible lifestyles because they are rich. Money might enable them to act differently than the average individual, but it is not the root of their problems. Their vices are what make them human. Poor Americans cheat and commit crimes and can have messed up lives too. George Wilson isn’t the most well-off man, but he seems to be morally better until he locks his wife up, kills Gatsby without any confrontation, and then kills himself. Wealth did not corrupt George Wilson because he simply was not wealthy. Gatsby was merely blinded by his love for Daisy; he was wealthy, but what caused him harm was his inability to relinquish Daisy. Nick concludes that “Gatsby turned out alright at the end” because he was no longer a slave to Daisy (Fitzgerald 7). Nick is by far the most significant character. In “American Dreaming: Really Reading The Great Gatsby”, William E. Cain claims the typical reader “tend[s] to highlight Gatsby and his pursuit of Daisy…[but] Nick is [actually] the most interesting [and important] of the novel’s characters” (457). Furthermore, readers should “devote attention to Nick” who “is a Yale graduate,” ”a veteran of the war,” “not from a very wealthy family, but…not from a poor one, either,” and from an immigrant family (Cain 457). Essentially, Cain claims that Nick is an example of both moderate, sufficient success and good character, which, as a foil to the other immoral characters, demonstrates the incorrect nature of the claim that wealth is poisonous. Nick is able to escape the horrors of the east when he moves back to the midwest because he lacks, to an extent, the flaws the other characters have; he does not latch onto Jordan, he is not belligerent, and he certainly does not stay in New York for the money of the “bond business” even though his “father agreed to finance [him] for a year” (Fitzgerald 8). Nick is the character of the highest moral character. These characters seem real because they have issues, and these issues are the source of conflict.

Second, The Great Gatsby demonstrates not an oppressive system in which the poor are condemned to remain poor, but a system in which income mobility is possible and the American Dream is alive. Income must be, to some extent, inelastic, and especially not completely fluid, so it is easy to understand how minor barriers might be misconstrued as major barriers. That being said, the four authors of “What Underlies the Great Gatsby Curve? Psychological Micro-Foundations of the ‘Vicious Circle’ of Poverty” write that “the U.S. seems to [relatively] have the highest level of income inequality and the lowest level of intergenerational mobility” (Sakamoto et al. 197). Furthermore, they link “intergenerational immobility” of the “bottom quintile,” or, the lower class, to poverty itself through multiple citations, logically implying a feedback loop exists and causes the lower class to remain impoverished (Sakamoto 198). This feedback loop is the “vicious cycle” (Sakamoto 196). For example, several studies find that childhood poverty increases stress and susceptibility to stress further on in the future, which in turn increases the chance of poverty later in life. Similarly, this loop can occur with self-esteem and can lead to feelings of “hopelessness” and “learned helplessness” (Sakamoto 203-204). In short, Sakamoto finds that poverty has “reduced psychological resources to be upwardly mobile” (Sakamoto 206). However, they clarify that the Great Gatsby Curve is not completely represented by “cross-national differentials in poverty,” and that the “vicious cycle” does not imply a “majority of children born into poverty will necessarily become poor as adults” (Sakamoto 196-197). This means poverty does clearly result in more difficulty in upward mobility, but by no means does it prevent any specific individual from succeeding in achieving the American Dream. Many immigrant families with literally nothing have achieved success in America, men in debt have achieved success in America, and successful men have fallen into bankruptcy in America. The Carraways are an example of a successful family. Nick’s grandfather’s brother immigrated in 1851, likely from Scotland because they are descendants of the “Dukes of Buccleuch” of Scotland and because the Irish Potato Famine was spreading to Scotland and causing a great emigration to the United States (Fitzgerald 8). This is significant because it strongly implies Nick’s ancestor came to America with nothing but was still able to “[start] the wholesale hardware business that [his] father [still ran]” (Fitzgerald 8). Nick’s ancestors, as characterized by Fitzgerald, lived out the American Dream. Gatsby, too, is an arriviste, along with everybody in West Egg. The argument that Fitzgerald claims there is a lack of income immobility is false; the argument that Fitzgerald claims there is a lack of class mobility among the rich may be true. The symbolism of East and West Egg, however, is not economic, but social, and as a result, is completely natural and exists in culture today. For instance, those who are familially rich, such as the descendants of Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller are significantly different from the arriviste of today. This difference is purely due to what the public can determine purely from what they know; an entrepreneur might nowadays be considered a morally better person than an aristocrat because they worked for their money. In short, The Great Gatsby shows that income mobility in the United States is alive.

In conclusion, characterization, verisimilitude, and other literary devices suggest the American Dream does not cause tragedy, pursuing a poisoned dream does. The American Dream is not perfect, but it provides a framework with which both the deserving are successful and the successful can give aid to those in need. The American Dream is sanguine; it is fulfilling, and it represents the land of the free.