Corruption of Dreams and Self-destruction in 'The Great Gatsby'

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the main themes of the book and subject that is discussed immensely are dreams. From reading the novel we learn about the corruption of dreams and the effect it has. We learn about the corruption in the novel through the dreams of luxury, happiness and love.

We learn the corruption of dreams through the aspect of luxury from the character Myrtle since the dream for a luxurious life is what lures Myrtle into having an affair with Tom. Myrtle has the hope and desire for a perfect, wealthy and famous type life as a result, Myrtle sleeps with Tom to inch her way to an upper class status since people who are in upperclass are the ones that have money, fancy cars, and nice, big houses. Myrtle isn’t one of those people, but desires to be one of them. This later on causes destruction, and destroys Myrtle. This shows how the dream for a luxurious life only caused destruction in this novel and destroyed someone life.

The corruption for the dream of happiness is shown through Daisy by her thinking she has everything such as wealth and love which results in happiness to her. She discovers that she has nothing and that she has been corrupted by this specific dream. Daisy thought she had love when she married Tom, but in the end, only had money. When Daisy reunites with Gatsby, who she has not seen in about five years Daisy breaks down and starts to cry. “They’re such beautiful shirts, it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before.” (Fitzgerald, 89) At this time Daisy realizes that she did marry for money and not for love and figures out that she could have married for money with Gatsby but would have had love too. The pursuit for her dream and the perfect man to be with destroyed Daisy’s happiness.

Gatsby love for Daisy has taken over his whole life and has thrown Gatsby over the edge which ultimately corrupts his dream. While Gatsby was away in the war, Daisy met Tom and married him. Daisy had always been wealthy and Gatsby thought that in order to get Daisy back, he needs to have money so that he would be able to give Daisy anything she wanted and more. “We both looked down at the grass – there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected he meant my grass.” (Fitzgerald, 80) This shows how Gatsby wants everything to look fine and presentable for when he meets up with Daisy for the first time in five years. Gatsby becomes corrupted because his main goal is to have Daisy. He needs to have an enormous mansion so he could feel confident enough to try and get Daisy. Gatsby was blinded by his dream and as a result of this, cause destruction of himself.

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the main themes of the book and subject that is discussed immensely in the book are dreams. From reading the novel we learn about the corruption of dreams and the effect it has. We learn about the corruption of dreams through Myrtle’s dream of luxury, Daisy’s dream of happiness and Gatsby's dream of love. Each of the effects of the corruption of dreams were all resulted in total self destruction.

Works Cited:

1. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. 'The Great Gatsby.' Scribner, 1925.