What is the American Dream? According to the Webster's New World Dictionary a dream is "a fancy of the conscious mind" (Webster 228). The most common connotation of the phrase "the American Dream" is the owning of wealth and power. It is the fancy of every American to gain the status of having wealth and power, yet in many cases one falls in their attempt at reaching this honor. When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, the era of the "roaring 20's" was taking place in which Fitzgerald felt there was a decay of moral values that had taken place. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates the downfall of those who sought after the American Dream. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a chronicle of the failure of the American Dream.
The rise and fall of Jay Gatsby parallels the rise and fall of the American Dream. The rise of Jay Gatsby, born James Gatz, is shown through his past when he was a personal assistant for a yacht owner named Dan Cody whom introduced young James to power and wealth and his inheritance as the reason for his current success. However, there is speculation on how he gains the money he has now for example it is thought that he has turned to selling drugs. Gatsby is "a bootlegger who lives in a fantasy world" .
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(Auchincloss 83). It would seem Gatsby had reached the American Dream with little (if any) effort. However, Gatsby does not have what he truly desired. He had "no friends, only hangers-on, no intellectual .
interests, no real concern for people" (Auchincloss 84). His tragic fault is that he was very "vapid, vain, heartless, self-absorbed superficial, selfish, and gutless" (Auchincloss 84). It would seem that Gatsby lives in a world where nobody understands him. Due to these faults and his obsession with Daisy, Gatsby begins his downfall as if he were a plane whose engines suddenly ceased to function. The whole time, Gatsby's dream was to not only have power and wealth but to also have Daisy.