Scott Fitzgerald, the man known as Jay Gatsby is seen to some as a "great" man. Ironically, this "great" man is all a lie; he built all of his wealth from the underground business and is a lonely person who chases after a person that he was never destined to be with.
Gatsby, he is a man of so much wealth and status but he carry's one flaw, dishonesty. His whole life is a lie; everything he owns is bought with money he made illegally. Every week there is a party held at Gatsby's mansion and but everyone who does come does not know about Gatsby's roots and rumors began to spread about his past that he was a killer, a spy and a bootlegger (Fitzgerald, 44). The one truth about Gatsby is that he is a bootlegger. He is a bootlegger, and Tom had the right first impression. "I found out what your 'drug-stores' were." He turned to us and spoke rapidly. "He and this Wolfsheim brought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong", his wealth is just made up of this illegal sale of alcohol (Fitzgerald 133). During the 1920's the prohibition was in place which banned all the retail sales and production of alcohol but it was given to those who had a prescription. Gatsby uses this to his advantage and sells the alcohol to everyone and makes a lot of money from it which helps build his wealth. Not only was his wealth a lie but so was his true identity. James Gatz is his name legally but it is the life that Jay wanted to leave behind. "His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people- his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all", this is where the journey to change his life occurs. He changes his name to Jay Gatsby and moves to the East where he wants to live the grand life with a large bank account, big house and everything he ever dreamed of.
