Gatsby Paper

There comes a time in every person's life when they must decide if living out their dream is worth it. Some may realize their dreams are unrealistic, and they must find something more tangible to accomplish, while some stop at nothing to achieve what they have always dreamed about. When it comes to the American Dream, many people have a similar issue with deciding if it is really worth it in the end. What if all the longing for success and wealth leads to personal destruction? In the case of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, three characters find themselves in a position in which their American Dream has caused them pain, when they could have longed for something more in reach. Throughout the novel, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Myrtle Wilson all strive for personal success, defined by love, happiness, and wealth. However, all three characters choose to go down the road of no return, in which their dreams have ultimately caused them disaster.

Myrtle Wilson's eventually fatal dream is to no longer be the wife of a man who isn't "fit to lick [her] shoe," (page 34). She dreams of escaping her poor, filthy life with George and desires a new one in which Tom is her only lover and financial supporter. Although "neither of them can stand the person they're married to," Tom still has Daisy by his side, which makes Myrtle's dream of a fabulously wealthy life with Tom nothing but an intangible fantasy (page 33). The American Dream is the goal of one day being successful, and in Myrtle's case, financially stable. Myrtle's American Dream is far from reach, and because she decides it is a dream worth following, she eventually gets herself hurt--literally. In an instance in which Myrtle sees Jordan in a car with Tom and believes it is Daisy, her eyes are "wide with jealous terror," (page 125). She wants Tom for herself and feels such envy toward Daisy that it eventually drives her mad, and while in a fight with George, she runs into the road and "her life [is] extinguished" (page 137). Instead of realizing the impossibility of being Tom's one and only girl, Myrtle goes crazy and faces the fatal consequences of her American Dream.

Daisy Buchanan has a similar American Dream to Myrtle's because she, too, longs for wealth. Throughout the novel, Daisy demonstrates shallowness, and, as Gatsby says, "her voice is full of money" (page 120). It seems that her priorities lie where there is the most wealth, which ends up hurting Daisy in the end. In her youth, Daisy was "so engrossed" and in love with Jay Gatsby, but her shallowness led her to forget him and marry "Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstance than Lousville ever knew before" (page 75). In essence, Daisy is a social climber, and her American Dream is to live in wealth and prosperity. She decides to live her dream and marry someone richer than Gatsby,