Rags, riches and everything in between. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ to highlight the true corruption of 1920s American societies. Where the development of ‘The American Dream’ is a vivid influence on everyone’s hopes, fantasies and actions. The idealistic expectation of by working hard enough and good honest work, you will reap the rewards of living a life of luxury. Clear contrasts featuring those working, those cheating their way to the top and those born into it are all caught up in the lie that is fixated in the minds of those occupying East Egg, West Egg and The Valley of Ashes. Fitzgerald uses the technique of setting to emphasise the true corruption of the ‘American Dream’.

The sprawling manicured lawns, sculptured estates that sparkle overtops of the many household staff. Providing sanctuary for the idealistic families of East Egg. Living the lifestyle of what others labour their lives over just to possibly achieve a portion of their daily agenda. These impeccable funds have been gently handed down to them through the generations of sophistication before them. “Across the bay the White palaces of fashionable East egg glittered”. They are the embodiments of what living the ‘American Dream’ is like. Living lives like this you would think that they have some care about their reputations, and outsiders opinions of them. Yet their horrid actions that they perform get simply pushed aside or worse, innocent others get their blame and beating. All this happens while they hide behind their money and personas. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” This shows how truly vile their perceptions that others are below them, whilst creating a storm of chaos attacking those below them. As they remain to look pious in their enormous estates across the bay. Their ‘pristine’ minds don’t think twice over the horrifying actions that they just caused, leading chaos and trauma as the remains.

The American dream idea is that anyone of any social status can achieve great wealth, happiness and success, by indulging in honest work. F. Scott Fitzgerald shows us that this is distorted as we learn more about the personas who occupy West Egg. The community that lives on the properties have apparently achieved the so-called ‘American Dream’. They hold the ranking of ‘new money’ as they earned their now lifestyles and it did not get inherited or passed down from previous generations. “spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy” meaning that they are new to the upper class. They are more flamboyant with their money feeling the need to show it off as they weren’t able to earlier on in their lives, this is one of the reasons why East Egg inhabitants disapprove of the rowdy lifestyle that happens across the water. Even though they did earn their money it doesn’t mean that they achieved this fairly. The reader later learns that many West Egg folk earn their many doing illegal deals such as bootlegging. It is an easy and quick way to rise to the top of living the American dream. “I lived at West Egg, the – well, the least fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.” One of the main characters Nick describes how the place he lives is less tasteful than their neighbour East Egg and has a ‘sinister contrast’ meaning that the people living alongside him are corrupt compared to across the bay who themselves were born into the lifestyle. The inhabitants of West Egg appear to have achieved the ‘American Dream’ but this is actually fake just like their personas, they try to fit in with the upper class, but it is known that they just used corrupt, dodgy deals to rise to the top.

The reader begins to understand how dangerous the expectation to achieve the American dream actually is. It is a lie to those in poverty and are struggling. Fitzgerald highlights how it is a vicious cycle and those born into poverty cannot actually leave it, by doing honest work of course. The upper classes don’t seem to care what effect they have on those living in the Valley of Ashes. They end up slaving away all day trying is have the expenses that could buy a moment of the upper classes lifestyle as the ashes and dirt gather around them, what the lie doesn’t tell them is that they never will. “This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” Even though the people who live there are by far the poorest in the novel, they do work the hardest out of all the characters. Yet they reap none of the rewards still having to live in that ‘fantastic farm’. The characters that are featured in the novel are extremely important because they show and emphasise how truly corrupt the American dream is and how the careless and disturbed the wealthy are. Both of them end up dead from the actions inflicted by the upper class, showing us how they truly unable are to leave this poverty cycle while being beaten down by the rich.

The reader learns that the fantasy of the “American Dream” is fake and corrupt. Yet haunting those labouring, present to those fraudulent and shield those at the top already. Poorest or once were eventually end up traumatised by the prosperous. F. Scott Fitzgerald exposes the threat this expectation has on society, as it leads the blind to believe that the “dream” will bring fulfilment. Yet those of all social classes end up not feeling complete, yearning for more.