Gatsby essay on the america dream

The Great Gatsby is a symbolic book that depicts the destruction of the American dream. It shows how the American dream is destroyed by our loss of traditional values through materialism and cynicism. Tom, and people alike him lead to our loss of sight of traditional values because he does what ever he wants, sleeping with whatever women he wants regardless of the fact that he has a wife. This is also shown through the depiction of East and West egg. East egg is fancy, populated by the sophisticated and materialistic rich, while West egg is less materialistic and more innocent. We can also see this through colors. In East egg, everything is white, which portrays the upper class. The destruction of the American dream is also evident in Gatsby's and Nick's first meeting. Gatsby is looking across the ocean to the East egg, with a green light beside him. Green portrays a false hope and dream, even though Gatsby has immense hope. Blue shows hope and both Gatsby and Myrtle have hope. But in the end both die, which shows how this American dream, this hope has died. And this blue hope was broken by the upper class. Daisy, the dull one, who is upper class kills Myrtle on accident, put is shows how the upper class has taken away this hope. And finally yellow, which portrays money. Anything that has value is portrayed in yellow, and money drives this false and corrupt hope that it only evident throughout the upper class and people who have money. Throughout the entire book, we see evidence that this great American dream, and this hope, is destroyed by the upper classes liking for materialism and the overall cynicism.