What was once for Thomas Jefferson - a belief in self-reliance and hard work has become what Nick Carraway calls "...the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty." ... The characters might be divided into three groups: Nick, the observer and commentator, who sees what has gone wrong Gatsby, who lives the dream purely Tom, Daisy, and Jordan, the "foul dust" who are the prime examples of the corruption of the dream. ...

• Word Count: 798
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway quotes, "Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." ... "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams---not through her own fault ...

• Word Count: 1397
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate