After Nick questioned Gatsby who was driving the car, Gatsby replied that Daisy was in fact driving it “but of course I’ll say I was. ” (p. 11) Gatsby born quite poor without much money, but his ambitions were very strong “He knew he had a big future in front of him. And ever since he made a success he was very generous to me” (p.
172). This was said by his father not really knowing how his son made the money. He was blinded by the ideology behind the American dream, which made him believe his purpose in life is to be rich and win Daisy back.Daisy was more like an icon to Gatsby.
“It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy- it increased her value in his eyes. ” (Chapter 8 (unable to find page number)). This quote demonstrates that he viewed her as icon of wealth, fame, everything a man would want to be associated with. He therefore believes that in order to win her back, he is going to have to be rich like her to be socially equal. What fails in his plan is that the newly rich (inspired by the American dream) and the already established rich elite (the likes of Daisy, Tom, etc.
are two different social classes. Corruption is also portrayed as an aspect of the American dream, which creates irony because the way Gatsby made his money was illegal (corrupted). This portrays to us that the American dream was in fact corrupt. In the 1920’s when the higher social classes were starting to shape up the country, it was difficult for those to be able to experience the American dream, because no matter how hard they worked or the amount of money they had, they would still be considered as a lower social class.
